The Untold Story: Hillary Clinton & Naina Yeltsin

The contrast could hardly be greater. In the US-Soviet honeymoon of the late ‘80s, the relationship between First Ladies Nancy Reagan and Raisa Gorbachev was a constant source of embarrassment for their husbands. In today’s less harmonious times, Hillary Clinton and Naina Yeltsin seem to have hit it off. Helen Boldyreff Semler reports on a truly productive friendship.  Photos by the author.

In the early days of October 1993, a group of American medical specialists checked into Moscow’s Hotel Mir, overlooking the ‘White House,’ then Russia’s parliament building. The Americans had brought US Army dental and medical equipment to Russia from military hospitals in Germany.

But instead of setting up the equipment, the medics found themselves barricaded in their hotel as troops loyal to President Yeltsin stormed the White House, where the mutinying parliamentarians sat entrenched. With tanks firing shells into the upper floors of the White House and snipers firing back, the US medical men were struck by the irony of their situation. The equipment brought to Russia had once been intended to take care of the wounded in Soviet attacks. Now they imagined it being used to treat victims of a Russian attack upon Russians.

What brought the specialists to Moscow in the first place was a commitment made at the 1993 Tokyo summit, the first meeting between First Ladies Hillary Rodham Clinton and Naina Yeltsin.

The combination of high-profile, professional Clinton and modest, little-known Yeltsin proved surprisingly productive, as the two quickly found common ground. Both were interested in children’s welfare, and even before they met, Yeltsin’s plea for dental supplies provoked an immediate response. Clinton asked for surplus dental equipment to be sent to Moscow.

“It was the passion for children and concern for their health that created an immediate bond between us,” remarked Mrs. Yeltsin.

“I was impressed by her commitment to the children of Russia and her strong feelings that she wanted to help them in any way she could,” said Mrs. Clinton.

After Tokyo, Operation Provide Hope went into action. Bloodshed and upheaval notwithstanding, by the end of October, 400 Sealand vans had arrived safely in Moscow with $38 mn worth of equipment.

By their second meeting in January 1994, the Clintons’ first state visit to Russia, the US equipment had been installed in a children’s dental clinic and nine other Moscow hospitals. Naina Yeltsin went in person to the clinic to see the equipment installed and to watch American specialists train the Russian orthodontists in its use.

Knowing that Clinton was keen to see Russian health care facilities for women and children, Yeltsin took her to the Savior’s Hospital for Peace and Charity in eastern Moscow. She picked it because the local church was involved, having been restored the right to engage in philanthropy by the Russian President’s first post-August 1991 decree.

Another reason was to see the progress of the partnership program between Savior’s and Magee-Women’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The program had been set up in 1992 under the aegis of The American International Health Alliance (AIHA), with a grant from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Dr. Alexander Goldberg, Savior’s chief physician, and Irma Goertzen, president and CEO of Magee-Women’s Hospital, greeted the First Ladies and took them on a tour of the pediatric unit. In one of the wards Yeltsin drew Clinton’s attention to children’s beds which came with an Operation Provide Hope shipment from Germany. They then observed a Magee-trained teacher conduct a childbirth class.

After the tour, Dr. Goldberg and Mrs. Goertzen briefed the First Ladies on future plans, including a family planning center scheduled to open in July 1994. The new clinic was to provide comprehensive family planning services for Russian women, with an emphasis on individualized care and patient education.

“This represents the kind of partnership that the United States wants to have now and in the future with Russia,” said Mrs. Clinton, commending the work of the partnership and praising Smith for “his energetic and creative direction of the program.” The First Ladies’ support appears to have boosted the confidence and enthusiasm of the partners themselves. There are now 23 such partnerships in the former USSR.

The September 1994 summit in Washington was the First Ladies’ second full-scale session and their fourth meeting (they also met in Naples). On the 27th, they attended a round table discussion with officials from the US State Department, the US Agency for International Development and heads of non-governmental organizations involved with the former Soviet health care system. Clinton requested that Yeltsin be given the chance to hear progress reports on programs in Russia and voice her own concerns.

The highlight of the meeting was the announcement of the opening of a Women and Family Educational Center at Savior’s, and a new grant of $540,000 Magee had received to establish 20 more similar centers in Russia.

It is not unusual for First Ladies to visit hospitals and show concern for sick children. What is unusual, however, is that Clinton’s and Yeltsin’s concern is long-term.

“This was not a one-time event on the First Ladies’ program,” explained Clinton’s first deputy chief of staff Melanie Verveer, “but yet another installment in an on-going project they care about. This is the untold story of Hillary and Naina.”

On May 9th, 1995, the Clintons elected to join Moscow’s VE Day celebrations despite international criticism of Russia’s Chechen conflict. On the second day of the visit, Hillary and Naina found time to visit the Moscow Children’s Hospital at 19 Bolshaya Pirogovskaya. While touring the neo-natal intensive care unit with hospital director Dr. Alexander Baranov, Hillary pretended not to notice the smell of drying paint, specially applied for her visit. In his turn, Dr. Baranov did not mention that the critically ill triplets they saw had just been flown in from the war zone.

Despite sometimes shaky US-Russian relations, and the doubtful political future of Boris Yeltsin, Clinton believes that she and Yeltsin will remain friends.

“She is an immensely attractive, appealing person,” she said, “and I am delighted to have gotten a chance to know her and work with her on health care issues.”

Whatever lies ahead for this friendship, advances in the Russian health service will have made it worthwhile.

The author is the wife of a senior American diplomat, who became close to Yeltsin after acting as interpreter for her meetings with former US First Lady Mrs. Barbara Bush. She is a business consultant on Russia, freelance writer and author of the authoritative travel guide Discovering Moscow. A health enthusiast in her own right, Semler also wrote Shape Your Future, an exercise training manual to accompany the program by the same name she launched in the ‘70s with Mrs. Richard Nixon’s personal endorsement.