18 See Sergei Khrushchev, Pensioner soyuznogo znacheniya (Pensioner of USSR rank) (Moscow: Novosti, 1991), 69–71.
19 Anatolii Chubais, first interview with the author (January 18, 2001).
20 Yel’tsin, Marafon, 58.
21 Madeleine Albright, with Bill Woodward, Madam Secretary (New York: Miramax, 2003), 253–54.
22 Strobe Talbott, The Russia Hand: A Memoir of Presidential Diplomacy (New York: Random House, 2002), 246.
23 In the VTsIOM tracking poll in April 1997, 3 percent of the electorate gave Yeltsin unqualified support, 7 percent gave him qualified support, 41 percent were opposed to him in one degree or another, and 39 percent were ambivalent. Yu, A. Levada et al., Obshchestvennoye mneniye—1999 (Public opinion—1999 edition) (Moscow: Vserossiiskii tsentr izucheniya obshchestvennogo mneniya, 2000), 100–101.
24 Korzhakov has said (interview with the author, January 28, 2002) that he was offered $5 million to cancel publication of the book. He thinks the source of the money was a businessman out to protect Yeltsin’s interests. I have no corroboration of this claim.
25 Yurii Mukhin, Kod Yel’tsina (The Yeltsin code) (Moscow: Yauza, 2005). Like Salii in 1997, Mukhin, a Stalinist and anti-Semite, placed great stock in photographs of hands and other body parts. He has not commented on whether the death and state funeral of the real Yeltsin in 2007 led him to revise his interpretation. One of his other contributions as an analyst is work disclaiming Soviet responsibility for the 1940 massacre of Polish officers at Katyn. A competing version of the trashy tale holds that Yeltsin was an invalid from 1996 until August 6 or 7, 1999, when he died, and that three ringers, controlled by the Yeltsin family and not the CIA, filled in for him before and after his death. “Kozly i molodil’nyye yabloki” (Goats and green apples), http://www.duel.ru/200231/?31_1_3.
26 See Vladimir Shevchenko, Povsednevnaya zhizn’ Kremlya pri prezidentakh (The everyday life of the Kremlin under the presidents) (Moscow: Molodaya gvardiya, 2004), 106, 138.
27 Yeltsin’s office told reporters he played tennis for about ten minutes on July 11, 1997, at Shuiskaya Chupa. That seems to have been the last time.
28 Yelena Tregubova, Baiki kremlëvskogo diggera (Tales of a Kremlin digger) (Moscow: Ad Marginem, 2003), 53. Yeltsin in Stockholm was tired after a trip to Beijing. He advised the Swedes to wean themselves from coal and sign a contract with Russia for natural gas deliveries, apparently thinking back to background notes for the China visit. Sweden burns almost no coal; half of its power needs are met by atomic reactors and one-third by hydroelectric stations.
29 For a full early report, see Nikolai Andreyev, “Prezident Rossii postoyanen v svoyei nepredskazuyemosti” (The president of Russia is constant in his unpredictability), Izvestiya, May 6, 1992. Compare with Jacob Weisberg, “The Complete Bushisms,” www.slate.com/id/76886.
30 See Tregubova, Baiki kremlëvskogo diggera, 117.
31 Yelena Dikun, “Yel’tsin v Gorkakh” (Yeltsin in Gorki), Obshchaya gazeta, April 2, 1998. Kukly, the satire program on the NTV television network, had broadcast a cruel skit comparing Yeltsin to the immobilized Lenin in January 1997.
32 Of recent presidents, Jimmy Carter took the fewest vacation days, seventynine over four years. Bill Clinton took 152 over eight years.
33 Anatolii Kulikov, who replaced Viktor Yerin as interior minister in 1995, says that after his operation Yeltsin misaddressed some hand-written notes. “My accurate and delicate attempts to correct the president were not well taken,” writes Kulikov. “He would look at me and continue to write.” Anatolii Kulikov, Tyazhëlyye zvëzdy (Heavy stars) (Moscow: Voina i mir, 2002), 416–17. But most former high officials whom I interviewed, including four second-term prime ministers (Chernomyrdin, Kiriyenko, Primakov, and Stepashin), emphasized his mental acuity and exceptional memory. Primakov and Stepashin, whose tenure was in the second half of term two, also emphasized the limits on his energy. Both felt he was at his full powers for two to three hours per workday. But neither, of course, knew this from direct experience, and family members insist that days this short were the exception rather than the rule.
34 Sergei Stepashin, interview with the author (June 14, 2001).
35 Yel’tsin, Marafon, 350.
