Secret Service picked up drunken Yeltsin during Washington visit

[tt11758]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6842763.ece

Boris Yeltsin got so drunk during a visit to Washington in 1995 that Secret Service agents found him standing on Pennsylvania Avenue clad only in his underwear and trying to hail a cab so he could fetch a pizza.

That was among the indiscretions revealed in a new "oral history" of Bill Clinton's presidency, based on 79 taped interviews between Mr Clinton and the historian Taylor Branch in late night visits to the White House family quarters.

The pair were flatmates in the early 1970s when they had helped run George McGovern's presidential campaign in Texas. But they had no contact for 20 years until Mr Clinton decided to enlist Mr Branch - by then a Pulitzer Prize winner - as unofficial historian of his administration.

According to the USA Today newspaper, Mr Branch would usually receive a telephone call in the late afternoon summoning him for a chat with Mr Clinton. He would head off from his home in Baltimore with two tape recorders and a notebook full of questions.

One tape recorder would be used during the interview and given to Mr Clinton - who kept the collected tapes in a sock drawer. Mr Branch would switch the other one on as he headed home, making an instant record of Mr Clinton's remarks.

The result, a 707-page volume entitled The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President, is published on September 29.

According to a preview, Mr Clinton was reluctant to discuss the affair with a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky, that led to his impeachment - although did once tell Mr Branch that he had "just cracked" under political and personal pressure.

In 2000, after Al Gore had lost the presidential election to George W Bush, Mr Clinton told how he told his former Vice-President that he should have used him more on the campaign trail in states such as Arkansas or New Hampshire which could have swung the result.

"Gore replied that Clinton's scandalous shadow was a 'drag' that had plagued Gore at every step of the campaign. The two 'exploded' at each other in mutual recrimination," the newspaper reported.

Mr Clinton also told of how a late night drinking binge by Mr Yeltsin during a visit to Washington in 1995 almost ended in an international incident when the Russian President, dressed only in his underwear, was found in the street by US Secret Service agents.

"The next night, Yeltsin eluded security forces again when he climbed down back stairs to the Blair House basement," the newspaper added.

"A building guard took Yeltsin for a drunken intruder until Russian and US agents arrived on the scene and rescued him."

[ratcatcher55]

Clinton + oral = lots of jokes but not the truth

Sooooo.... I'm to believe Soviet/Russian security let their President run out in public twice in a foriegn country so he would be embarrassed on the international stage?  Or am I to believe that a drunken Yelstin has ninja like moves and escapes his security element at will.

[Ichiban]

Boris Yeltsin got so drunk during a visit to Washington in 1995 that Secret Service agents found him standing on Pennsylvania Avenue clad only in his underwear and trying to hail a cab so he could fetch a pizza.

Sure that wasn't Ted Kennedy?

Oops!  Did I just besmirch Saint Edwards recently cleansed reputation?   

[TAB]

Sure that wasn't Ted Kennedy?

Oops!  Did I just besmirch Saint Edwards recently cleansed reputation?   

please, teddy would have been completly naked looking for a crab cakes.

[PegLeg45]

please, teddy would have been completly naked looking for a crab cakes.

Am I a bad person for laughing at that?

[Sponsor]

[Pathfinder]

please, teddy would have been completly naked looking for a crab cakes.

Am I a bad person for laughing at that?

I'll let you know once I stop puking! 

[tombogan03884]

Clinton + oral = lots of jokes but not the truth

Sooooo.... I'm to believe Soviet/Russian security let their President run out in public twice in a foriegn country so he would be embarrassed on the international stage?  Or am I to believe that a drunken Yelstin has ninja like moves and escapes his security element at will.

Yeltsin was notorious for his alcoholism, and Russian security is more geared toward obedient muscle, so it is quite possible.