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To: Bobby Yellin who wrote (8913)	3/27/1998 7:18:00 AM
From: long-gone	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116762

What I was trying to say,reporting can reinforce actions. IE Everyone has heard so long "gold is dead" that gold is now very slow to return to life. rh

To: Bobby Yellin who wrote (8913)	3/28/1998 11:25:00 AM
From: goldsnow	Respond to of 116762

Yeltsin cabinet purge, one more in Russia history 08:10 a.m. Mar 27, 1998 Eastern By Oleg Shchedrov MOSCOW, March 27 (Reuters) - President Boris Yeltsin's decision this week to replace the entire government of veteran premier Viktor Chernomyrdin caught the nation and the outside world by surprise. But in fact Chernomyrdin's fate simply goes on to a long list of courtiers who paid the price for rising too high in uncomfortable proximity to the Russian sovereign -- be it tsar, Communist Party leader or post-Soviet president. Back in the mid-16th century, chancellor Alexei Adashov inspired tsar Ivan the Terrible to consider an administrative reform which would make the huge kingdom more manageable and its laws less arbitrary. But, when the changes were ripe, the tyrant, who felt he could lose unchallenged control of Russia, disgraced the influential aide and sent him off to exile. Some of Adashov's allies were less lucky and ended their lives on the chopping block. At the start of a more civilised 19th century, reformist Mikhail Speransky, a personal friend of emperor Alexander I who prepared a package of liberal reforms for Russia soon after the victorious war against Napoleon, repeated Adashev's fate. Alexander, jealous of Speransky's growing influence on the minds of educated Russians and scared by the prospects of limiting his autocratic rule, sent him away from court. ''The sovereign does not need clever people, he needs loyal people,'' one senior courtier of Alexander I said of Speransky's dismissal. In the early 1950s the ageing Soviet dictator Josef Stalin launched a purge among the Soviet political and military leadership. He withdrew marshals who had won popular support in World War Two and the top echelons of the NKVD secret police, who had acquired too many levers of power. His closest accomplice, dreaded NKVD mentor Lavrenty Beria, was about to lose his place in court -- and probably his life -- when Stalin died in March, 1953, under circumstances, which up to this day remain mysterious. Beria survived to be shot later that year on the orders of the new Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, as a foreign spy. Yeltsin himself is not a novice in getting rid of aides who became to influential. During his re-election campaign in 1996, he sacked the ''unsinkable'' trio of his chief bodyguard Alexander Korzhakov, First Deputy Prime Minister Oleg Soskovets and Federal Security Service chief Mikhail Barsukov. The three had long been a thorn in the side of Russian liberals, who said they were giving the president bad advice and diverted from the Kremlin leader too many potential voters. But Yeltsin himself described the ultimate reason for sacking by saying: ''They tried to take on too much themselves.'' Many analysts have said that loyal Chernomyrdin paid the price for taking too much power during Yeltsin's frequent absences through ill health and for starting off too early in the role of undeclared candidate in the next presidential poll. In his radio address on Friday, Yeltsin lavishly praised Chernomyrdin, whom he gave a vague new job of ''preparing the presidential election in 2000.'' Earlier in the week, Yeltsin outlined who he wanted at court. ''We must create an environment in which everyone knows and feels that non-compliance with (presidential) decrees means death,'' he told presidential staff. ''Otherwise you can either write your resignations or simply walk away.'' Yeltsin named the little-known 35-year-old, Sergei Kiriyenko, a former energy minister, to form the new cabinet. He made clear the young reformer was right for the job in all ways. ''He is a man who is not linked today with any (political) parties or movements,'' he said, listing Kiriyenko's virtues. ''He will have scope for showing his talents and skills. I believe that he will cope.'' ^REUTERS@ Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.