Title: Milestones: 1993–2000 - Office of the Historian
Headings: Bill Clinton, Boris Yeltsin, and U.S.-Russian Relations
Milestones: 1993–2000
Bill Clinton, Boris Yeltsin, and U.S.-Russian Relations

Content: Milestones: 1993–2000 - Office of the Historian
Home
Milestones
1993-2000
Bill Clinton, Boris Yeltsin, and U.S.-Russian Relations
Milestones: 1993–2000
NOTE TO READERS
“Milestones in the History of U.S. Foreign Relations” has been  retired and is no longer maintained. For more information, please see the full notice. Bill Clinton, Boris Yeltsin, and U.S.-Russian Relations
Upon his inauguration in January 1993, President Bill  Clinton became the first president since Franklin Roosevelt who  did not need a strategy for the Cold War—and the first since William Howard Taft  who did not need a policy for the Soviet Union. In his inaugural address,  Clinton saluted the service of his predecessor, George H.W.  Bush, in the peaceful resolution of the conflict between the  superpowers. He also acknowledged that, even without the Soviet Union, the world  was still threatened by “ancient hatreds and new plagues.” Planning to focus on  domestic affairs, Clinton intended to leave the day-to-day management of foreign  policy—including dealing with the “ancient hatreds and new plagues” of the  former Soviet sphere of influence—to senior members of his national security  team. He also recruited Strobe Talbott, a journalist and  Russian expert, to assume a portfolio for the region, first as  Ambassador-at-Large and then, from February 1994, as Deputy Secretary of State. By appointing Talbott, a close friend since both had served as Rhodes scholars  in the late 1960s, Clinton wanted to demonstrate his personal commitment to  Russia in the emerging post-Cold War world.