First Lady Voices Disappointment Over Americans' Indifference to World Events

November 16, 1997

YEKATERINBURG, Russia, Nov. 15 -- Missing his two front teeth, Sasha Ivanov, 6, was a beacon of smiles today after first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton embraced him and praised his singing of "America the Beautiful" in Russian at a children's health center

Asked for his reaction, the little boy rolled his eyes skyward in delight and clutched a picture book on forest animals, given to him by Russia's first lady, Naina Yeltsin.

A few hours later, at Urals State Technical University, in a three-story central hall with ceiling frescoes crowned by the Soviet hammer and sickle, Clinton got a blunter reaction from a fourth-year student.

At a forum on women's issues, the student asked Clinton: Why do Americans know so little about Russia? On a recent visit to the United States, the student said, Americans asked her "if polar bears roamed the streets" here. They do not.

The two scnes were apt bookends for a day in Clinton's five-nation tour of the former Soviet Union, including Russia, Ukraine and three Central Asian nations. She devoted attention to her favorite causes, such as children's health and women's issues, stressing volunteer programs and grass-roots efforts to overcome hurdles in the transition to free markets an democracy.

But reflecting on the trip in comments to reporters today, Clinton also acknowledged that the student's question about American attitudes was a good one and that in the struggle to fill the post-Communist vacuum is not a particularly hot topic back home.

"There is no doubt that the end of the Cold War led to the collapse of . . . what you might call opinion leaders' interest in foreign affairs," the first lady said. "There have been a lot of public-opinion surveys that show Americans at all levels of society just don't pay attention anymore. And so we were left with this kind of vacuum, which we had to refill and make it of interest."

Asked what disappointed her most on the tour, which included Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, Clinton said it was the description of Americans as ignorant about events overseas. "I wish more Americans would focus" on it, she said.

Asked why Americans are not interested, Clinton said only that the president had given many speeches on the subject. She went on to blame Congress and the news media for the mood of isolation at home, saying that media executives have told her foreign news "doesn't sell." She criticized "popular movies" that "paint pictures about what is going on in certain countries that are very gripping but not necessarily accurate." She appeared to be referring to last summer's film "Air Force One," partially set in Russia and Central Asia.

Clinton also met with Central Asian leaders and nudged them to improve their often dismal human rights records. But she said the progress being made on human rights is not well understood in the United States.

"Americans are prone to be very impatient people, and I wish we would all take a step back and think about what it would be like if we were living in a society that seven years ago forbade us to practice our religion, to have a free press, to vote to elect our leaders, to travel freely, to own property and all the other totalitarian prohibitions . . . and then all of a sudden, that disappears.

"If you take a longer historic view instead of a short-term perspective that is fueled by out impatience about what we would like to see happen," she said, "what has occurred in those six years is rather remarkable."

Clinton did not always get an unvarnished picture of life in the former Soviet Union, and she acknowledged there were "obstacles" to doing so when leaders were laying down fresh carpets and paint at every stop.

In Kyrgyzstan, for example, healthy children greeted her at the airport, but according to a report broadcast later on Russian television, she was deliberately kept away from a filthy orphanage where children were seen groveling on the floor for crumbs.