Yeltsin snubs Nixon after he visits opposition

RICHARD NIXON, architect of superpower detente two decades ago, has triggered a fit of ballistic anger in the Kremlin by trying to bridge a deeper, more volatile gulf between Russia's feuding political camps.

Mr Nixon had expected to meet President Boris Yeltsin but was yesterday struck from the appointment book in retaliation for meetings with the Russian leader's foes, including one fresh from jail. 'I will not meet him. And the government will not meet him,' said Mr Yeltsin after laying a wreath in honour of Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space. 'Let them know that Russia is a great country and you just cannot play about with her like that.'

Mr Yeltsin voiced anger that Mr Nixon - 81, doddery but respected for his long ties with both Moscow and Peking - had met the Communist Party chief, Gennady Zyuganov, and had tea with the former vice-president Alexander Rutskoi. The reformist leader Yegor Gaidar suggested he might also stand Mr Nixon up.

Mr Nixon, who says he cleared his private trip with Bill Clinton, also intended to see Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the ultra-nationalist leader shunned by the West, embraced by only Serbia.

The rebuff from Mr Yeltsin came only a day after Mr Nixon declared Russia a healthy democracy because leaders no longer minded if visitors met critics: 'The fact that they did not resist is a positive indication.' This, he said, showed 'the strength of the current democratic government of Russia'.

But Mr Yeltsin did mind. The Itar-Tass news agency said he withdrew the bodyguards and the car the government had put at Mr Nixon's disposal. - the same way he punished Mikhail Gorbachev two years ago. 'Nixon met Rutskoi and Zyuganov here while the most interesting thing is that he was coming here to meet me,' Mr Yeltsin said, adding that President Clinton had phoned to distance himself from Mr Nixon. 'Bill Clinton's position is to my liking in this case.'

Mr Clinton said Mr Yeltsin's refusal to meet Mr Nixon was 'not the end of the world', but added he wished Mr Yeltsin would reconsider 'because I think they would enjoy talking to one another'.

The suspicion lingers that Mr Nixon was sent to open contacts with the Russian opposition, no longer easily ignored, especially as Mr Yeltsin's own health, physical and political, seems clouded.

A recent chill caused by the Aldrich Ames spy scandal and other quarrels also reminded Washington that Mr Yeltsin is not the docile friend they imagined.

Mr Nixon also made a 'private' trip to Peking after the Tiananmen Square massacre to help George Bush rebuild bridges with the Chinese leadership.

The Kremlin seems particularly angry about an item on Russian television showing Mr Nixon meeting Mr Rutskoi at home with his family and pets. It suggested a happy family man, far from the half-crazed adventurer seen on television last October, when from the balcony of the Russian White House Mr Rutskoi called for rebellion and contributed to the violence in which more than 140 people died.

Mr Rutskoi's meeting with Mr Nixon was his first encounter with a prominent Western figure since he left prison at the end of February under a parliamentary amnesty.

The Clinton administration has previously backed Mr Yeltsin to the hilt. When Mr Clinton visited Moscow in January, he invited Mr Zyuganov and other opposition figures to a reception at the Ambassador's residence, Spaso House, but snubbed Mr Zhirinovsky. Mr Rutskoi was still in prison.

(Photograph omitted)