Eternal Chernomyrdin

Viktor Chernomyrdin, Albert Gore, and Michel Camdessus in Washington - also quite normal, considering that the Russian Premier has had to communicate with them, including private meetings and hunting trips, for so many years. Why not use Mr. Chernomyrdin's good image in getting further US loans? Russian TV news anchors explain that former US presidents carry out important tasks entrusted them by their successors.

However, many tend to overlook the big difference between the status of a former US President and Russian Premier. Jimmy Carter is now into being a peace-keeper and go-between, not because the State Department is no longer trusted or lacks staff experts. The Russian government turned to Mr. Chernomyrdin precisely because it had transpired that he was the only one unable to hold qualified and effective talks with the IMF and that the whole affair could well end in the total financial fiasco of the Russian Cabinet, then under Primakov, and that of the Russian state; that the Russian Premier's visit to the United States, during which the destiny of the loan is to be decided, looks very unprepared. Turning to Chernomyrdin is proof of what could be easily guessed at the time Primakov formed his Cabinet: the Cabinet's utter lack of professionalism and the prevalence of has-beens... Against the backdrop of all efforts to contrary, the historic Chernomyrdin emerged as a figure more modern than current top-level bureaucrats (expect anyone to say that Jimmy Carter cuts a more modern figure than Bill Clinton?).

In the meantime Chernomyrdin was more cautious than Primakov while in office. When made Premier he did not visit Camdessus. Instead, he sent Gaidar and Chubais, and invited him to go hunting only after the Cabinet's image had taken shape, whatever it was. Primakov offered Western financiers Masliukov of the State Planning Committee, so he can be now kept hidden somewhere abroad like a skeleton in the closet whenever an IMF mission visits Moscow. Indeed, it would have been better had he himself gone.