Primakov Is Noted for His Determination

Yevgeny M. Primakov, nominated Thursday to be Russia’s next prime minister, is a veteran Soviet-era politician who since the fall of communism has headed the foreign intelligence service and, most recently, served as a hawkish foreign minister hostile to the West’s plans for NATO expansion.

But whether Brezhnev-style eyebrows and decades of experience as an apparatchik and spymaster qualify him for the job he now faces--ending the economic and political meltdown of newly capitalist Russia--is unclear.

He wins high marks among some observers, however, for his sheer determination.

“Primakov is liked by Yeltsin, but also by the Communists and nationalists because of his ministry’s willingness to cross the West,” the Moscow Times newspaper commented after liberal economist Grigory A. Yavlinsky of the Yabloko bloc recently suggested Primakov for the job.

“That same assertiveness and vision is exactly what Russia needs at the helm now. Primakov is a former KGB spy chief--but for that matter, George Bush once ran the CIA. Primakov is not an economist, but that also might be a plus--particularly if he were to bring Yabloko economists into his government,” the paper said.

The 68-year-old Primakov is primarily a Middle East specialist, but his degrees include a 1969 doctorate in economics from Moscow State University. This led to a slew of academic positions related to economics under Soviet communism. But none of those qualifications inspired particular confidence in some analysts assessing his eligibility for rescuing a stricken market economy.

“He knows nothing about the economy,” said Sergei Parkhomenko, editor of the respected newsmagazine Itogi. “Throughout his long career, the post where he was best was as head of the secret services, because he is a man with a taste for secrecy.”

On Tuesday, Primakov had strenuously denied any interest in the premiership. Diplomats said this was more than mere posturing and quoted Foreign Ministry staff as suggesting that he had been looking forward to a quiet future of retirement and memoir-writing and only reluctantly accepted Thursday’s nomination.

The sphinx-like Primakov entered post-Soviet politics in 1996, replacing pro-Western Andrei V. Kozyrev as foreign minister. Although he is a poor public speaker and prefers to keep out of the limelight, he brought to the ministry a more assertive agenda that promoted Russia as a great power.

He is known not only for his opposition to expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization into Central and Eastern Europe but also for his defense of a possible union between Russia and the hard-line former Soviet republic of Belarus--a stance Russian liberals find offensive--and for diplomatic successes bolstering Russia’s relations with China and Japan.

He also has won the West’s grudging respect for using his knowledge of the Middle East to mediate between Iraq and the United Nations. Fluent in Arabic and English, he is not viewed as an ardent foe of the West.

He has established a friendly relationship with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright; in July, the pair entertained a diplomatic meeting in Manila with a duet parodying the star-crossed lovers of the musical “West Side Story.”

“The fact that he once sang a duet with Madeleine Albright while at the same time being a close personal friend of [Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein shows that he is a good diplomat,” said Leonid A. Radzikhovsky, commentator at the Moscow daily newspaper Sevodnya.

Primakov is usually viewed as reserved, cautious and pragmatic. “My impression has been that he’s a very careful, rational thinker who tries to balance his opinions,” commented foreign policy analyst Andrei V. Kortunov of the Russian Science Foundation.

Radzikhovsky gave an intriguing personal insight into the character of the foreign minister, suggesting that--in his private life, at least--Primakov is something of a party animal.

“The only thing he is very good at is partying. He is a very sociable, happy-go-lucky sort of fellow. He is very good at proposing toasts. He is amicable and hospitable--all due to his upbringing in Georgia,” Radzikhovsky said in a telephone interview. The people of Georgia, the former Soviet republic where the ethnic Russian Primakov spent his childhood, are famed for their expansive hospitality.

“Although he is not known in the Russian regions, he is a regular at most parties for the top diplomatic elite, he has made friends with many [intelligence service] top brass and with the intelligentsia,” Radzikhovsky added. “He loves life and enjoys it. He rarely refuses a drink, is fond of singing and can whistle very well.”

Born in Kiev, Ukraine, in 1929, Primakov graduated from the elite Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies at the age of 24. After graduate studies and work as a journalist, he put his first foot on the apparatchik’s career ladder in 1956 by becoming deputy head of the State Committee for Radio and Television, a prestigious propaganda department.

For most of the 1960s, he worked as Middle East correspondent for Pravda, the newspaper that served as the official mouthpiece of the Communist Party.

From 1970 to 1977, he was deputy director of the Soviet Academy of Sciences’ Institute of World Economy and International Relations. He was then director of the Institute of Oriental Studies from 1977 to 1985, and since 1979 also was a scholar with the Academy of Sciences’ Economics Department. From 1985 to 1989, he was director of the academy’s Institute of World Economy and International Relations and served as academic secretary of the same department in 1988-89.

In the late 1980s, he chaired the upper chamber of the Supreme Soviet, the Soviet-era parliament. A protege of former Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, Primakov was appointed to a presidential advisory body in 1990. In late 1991, Gorbachev appointed Primakov deputy head of the KGB’s first directorate, responsible for foreign intelligence. He then became head of Russia’s foreign intelligence service.

A member of the Soviet Communist Party for more than 30 years, Primakov was on its Central Committee and, in 1989-90, was an alternate member of the ruling Politburo. He is married for the second time, to Dr. Irina Primakova, and has one daughter and two granddaughters.

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Profile: Yevgeny M. Primakov

* Born: Oct. 29, 1929

* Birthplace: Kiev, Ukraine

* Education: Doctorate in economics, Moscow State University, 1969.

* Politics: Member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1959-91; member of party’s Central Committee, 1989-91; candidate-member of party’s Politburo, 1989-90.

* Career highlights: Columnist and deputy editor, Pravda, 1962-70; deputy director, Soviet Academy of Sciences’ Institute of World Economy and International Relations, 1970-77; director, Institute of Oriental Studies, 1977-85; director, Institute of World Economy and International Relations, 1985-89; chief of Soviet foreign intelligence, 1991; chief of Russian foreign intelligence, 1991-96; foreign minister, 1996 to present.

* Family: Married for the second time, to Dr. Irina Primakova; one daughter and two granddaughters.