Drawing Putin Into War
The Gist
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Vladimir Putin - A Russian Nerd?
In the late 1990s I was working at the National Security Council staff and out of nowhere Vladimir Putin became the head of Russia's security service. There's a panel in the book where we see Bill Clinton going oh no that guy when told that he would be the new leader of Russia. So my memory of that day is that president was doing an event in what was then called the old executive office building, across street from the White House. It seemed like exactly the wrong guy for the job. He seems to have become this larger-than-life figure which is a key focus in the book but he did not at the time bring any of that to the table.
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