Clinton Meets Yeltsin, Urges Russia Aid : Politics: The presumptive Democratic nominee lauds visiting chief of state and ‘spirit of real democracy.’

Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton placed a key foreign policy file into his presidential campaign portfolio Thursday, conducting a “very lively and energetic discussion” with Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin and urging financial aid for Yeltsin’s struggling nation.

After emerging from a rushed audience with the visiting chief of state, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee called on congressional leaders to pass a stymied $24-billion aid package for the countries that emerged from the dismantled Soviet Union.

“We should join ranks across party lines to pass” the aid bill, Clinton told reporters after spending 30 minutes with Yeltsin at Blair House, the official U.S. guest home across from the White House. “I think this man represents a fundamental departure from anything we have ever seen in Russia--a spirit of real democracy, real change, a real grass-roots commitment to market economics.”

Yeltsin, employing a Russian-language translator, returned the compliment, saying of Clinton: “I know he is a fighter against bureaucracy, and this is a real problem for us too.”

Clinton said he told the Russian leader that his decision to deactivate nuclear weapons trained on this nation reflected “an incredible effort here to reach out to the United States” and “was embraced at some risk to him and his country.”

Clinton also said he would not link passage of the aid package to resolving the fate of missing American prisoners of war.

Yeltsin this week disclosed the possibility that some American servicemen from the Vietnam War and other conflicts may still be alive in former Soviet lands.

“He mentioned it in good faith,” Clinton said. “He’s gone above and beyond what anybody could have expected in the arms-control agreement, and we have no reason to believe that he would now slow-walk across this that he himself has initiated.”

Although Clinton and his staffers discounted the political advantage of the meeting with Yeltsin, it clearly provided him with an opportunity to link himself to global affairs and show that he is unwilling to cede that issue to President Bush, whose experience on the international scene is considered his greatest asset.

Clinton expressed doubt that there is “much of a foreign-policy vote” anyway, and said strength overseas began with strength on the domestic front.

“I don’t think you can easily divide foreign from domestic policy,” he said. “When you’re weak at home, it weakens you abroad.”

Clinton, who requested the meeting, passed up a night’s sleep to grab a red-eye flight from Las Vegas to Washington so that a spot could be made for him during Yeltsin’s tightly packed tour of the United States. The meeting ran 10 minutes longer than planned, causing Yeltsin to be late for a session at the White House, where the Bushes were kept waiting on the front steps.

“It was a very lively and energetic discussion,” Clinton said. He added that he told Yeltsin that his speech to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday was “magnificent.”

Clinton said he and Yeltsin had much in common.

“He had an interesting childhood, a pretty tough childhood, and his political obituary has been written several times. Same things happened to me,” Clinton said. “So I admire him. He’s a guy who doesn’t quit.”

Clinton also said his current preoccupation--the presidential campaign--never came up during their talk.

“There was no discussion of American domestic politics in any way,” he said.

Smiling, he said that was another reason he “felt good” about the meeting with Yeltsin.