a few high-ranking officers of the military and KGB attempted to seize power and restore the old dictatorship. The coup attempt collapsed, but Gorbachev's leadership had been fatally injured. Strauss presented his credentials to Gorbachev only hours after Gorbachev resigned his post as Chairman of the Communist Party. While Strauss served in Moscow, the first elected President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, emerged as the most powerful figure in the fragile union. With the agreement of the elected presidents of the other constituent republics, the Soviet Union was officially dissolved and replaced by a loosely associated Commonwealth of Independent States. In December, Gorbachev resigned the presidency of a superstate that had ceased to exist. Strauss was quickly reappointed as Ambassador to the largest of the Soviet Union's successor states, the Russian Federation. With Strauss's assistance, Yeltsin quickly established amicable relations with the United States. Strauss resigned shortly after the 1992 presidential election in the United States and returned to private law practice with Akin Gump. Later life and death Apart from his law practice and government service, Robert Strauss had long been a popular public speaker and lecturer, and had written on law, business, and public affairs for professional journals, magazines, and newspapers across the United States and abroad. He had also served on the boards of major corporations, including Xerox and the Archer Daniels Midland Company until his death. In the academic world, he had occupied the Lloyd Bentsen Chair at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, where he lectured to students of law, business, and public affairs. In his later years, Strauss served as Chair of the U.S.-Russia Business Council and was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a trustee of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. His sister-in-law, Annette Strauss, served as mayor of Dallas from 1987 to 1991. On March 19, 2014, Strauss died of natural causes at his home in Washington, D.C. He was 95 years old. See also List of U.S. political appointments that crossed party lines References External links Strauss profile and bio at the Academy of Achievement Strauss bio at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, LLP Strauss bio at Answers.com Strauss bio at U.S.-Russia Business Council McGarr, Kathryn J. The Whole Damn Deal: Robert Strauss and the Art of Politics. PublicAffairs, 2011. |- |- |- |- 1918 births 2014 deaths 20th-century