Plots, Plots & More Plots

The idea first came up at a Moscow lunch: What if an American correspondent were to accompany Russia's most flamboyant political firebrand on his very first visit to the U.S.? The proposal seemed intriguing, since it came from the Liberal Democratic Party, which normally views Western journalists as foreign agents. My contact stressed that Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the party's leader, had approved the idea.

The assurance was comforting, until I phoned his son to make arrangements. The younger Zhirinovsky's sullen tone made me suspect that I was not a welcome addition to the group -- an impression that was strengthened when I arrived at Moscow's airport and was informed that the Zhirinovsky party had bought out all the tickets in first class.

Self-contradiction has been a Zhirinovsky trademark ever since he first surfed to notoriety atop a self-generated wave of incendiary rhetoric and cloddish antics in 1991. Most politicians build their public personalities upon the bedrock of consistency; Zhirinovsky prefers to confect his views from the moods and passions of his audience. He has a talent for timing the rhythm of his harangues to the emotional heartbeats of those around him. How, then, would the man who may become Russia's next President tailor his message to America, a country that is a catch basin of his harshest invective?

On the plane to New York, it swiftly became obvious that this was not the rowdy Zhirinovsky of past foreign forays. The Liberal Democratic Party leader who has gadded about with ex-Nazi storm troopers and nubile nightclub strippers was the soul of propriety. As he stood waiting to disembark, surrounded by the latest members of his ever-shifting constellation of advisers, bodyguards and hangers-on, his pale blue eyes betrayed the hollow disorientation of an actor between scripts who suddenly finds himself at a loss for words.

No sooner had Zhirinovsky set foot on U.S. soil than all indecision vanished. The purpose of his visit was nothing less than a complete revamping of his aggressive anti-Western image. He announced that he was "no ! nationalist" and wanted "to be a friend and not an enemy." Listening to the warm message, I found it hard to believe that only a few days before in Moscow, he had been lambasting the U.S. for an alleged plot to destroy Russia, aided by Israel. How had this peddler of intolerance metamorphosed so smoothly into a mild-mannered missionary of goodwill?

There were more surprises to come when Zhirinovsky met journalists at the Sheraton Palace Hotel in San Francisco. Such encounters rarely fail to provoke him to crude histrionics. This time, however, he kept himself tightly under control. Amid a barrage of hostile questions, his face expressed only earnest deliberation. His fists, normally clenched and waving, relaxed and retreated to his sides. Throughout the day, the Liberal Democratic Party leader politely dodged questions about his past excesses. He was not an anti-Semite, he protested. He was not a fascist. Such demurrals amounted to a display of astonishing incongruity for a sensation lover who has spent the past three years seeking out and embracing controversy. How long would it take for him to slip back to true form?

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