Boris Yeltsin

This is fascinating (from Christopher Hitchens' review of The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History With the President):

The 42nd president of the United States was not infrequently accused of being needy, greedy, and tantrum-prone, as well as over-fond of fast or junk food. But try this, about his Muscovite counterpart, from an entry dated Oct. 18, 1994:

"Yeltsin did not always cope with the pressure. President Clinton said Yeltsin's chronic escapes into alcohol were far more serious than the cultivated pose of a jolly Russian. They were worrisome for political stability, as only luck had prevented scandal or worse on both nights of this visit. Clinton had received notice of a major predawn security alarm when Secret Service agents discovered Yeltsin alone on Pennsylvania Avenue, dead drunk, clad in his underwear, yelling for a taxi. Yeltsin slurred his words in a loud argument with the baffled agents. He did not want to go back into Blair House, where he was staying. He wanted a taxi to go out for pizza. I asked what became of the standoff. 'Well,' the president said, shrugging, 'he got his pizza.' "

One has to respect a reporter who can (a) bring off a deadpan description of such a hair-raising event, and (b) keep such a sensational scoop to himself for 15 years. Taylor Branch's latest book has made me whistle more than any comparable piece of work for a very long time, and not just because of its many remarkable disclosures. (On the ensuing night, you may care to know, a plastered Yeltsin managed to escape Blair House security again, and was—in Branch's understated account—"briefly endangered." So we almost but not quite had to read about the leader of post-communist Russia being shot down while the guest of an American president undergoing a midterm election.) * * *