A memory I have is of how when Boris Yeltsin visited Washington for the first time in the late 1980s, he was shunned by the first Bush administration because the "go to" man was still Mikhail Gorbachev. As I recall, administration sources defended the decision by observing that Yeltsin was drunk most of the time, which was surely true. However, not too long afterwards, he was elected to the Congress of People's Deputies as a delegate from Moscow; in May, 1990, he was elected chairman of the Presidium of the Russian Supreme Soviet; and in June, 1991, he was elected president.

The moral of that tale was that the White House, in wanting to avoid undermining Gorbachev, lost a useful opportunity to show him that he was not indispensable, and a chance to get to know Yeltsin better while he was on the rise. President Bush should remind Putin that the Russian president is not indispensable, and that the U.S. will readily circumvent officialdom to deal directly with Russian society. Wasn't that the whole point in getting rid of communism?

Kasparov may not soon be elected Russian president and Bush should be careful Putin doesn't turn the tables of Russian nationalist sentiment against him. He can cut the apple in two by sending someone unofficially to the Alternate Russia gathering, but someone close whose denunciation by the Russians would be difficult. Why not the First Lady, Laura Bush? The Russians appreciate hardball politics, even if don't like it, and probably won't overreact.