FROM EVIL EMPIRE TO STRATEGIC ALLY

摘要

When Condoleezza Rice was a staffer on the National Security Council in 1989, she once had to physically block upstart Russian politician Boris N. Yeltsin from barging into President George H.W. Bush's office. At the time, the Bush team was putting all its support behind Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev as the Evil Empire was unraveling. And Yeltsin, in the White House pushing his own reform agenda to Bush aides, made the unpardonable gaffe of trying to crash the Oval Office without an appoint-ment. These days, as National Security Adviser, Rice would gladly give Yeltsin's hand-picked successor, Vladimir V. Putin, unfettered access to the current President Bush.