Just when you thought Richard Nixon could never again make it onto the front pages, "Tricky Dick" has found salvation in Russia. So furious was President Boris Yeltsin at Nixon's decision to meet with Alexander Rutskoi this week that he created a scandal, shutting down all of the former U.S. president's access to the government.


That may have been great news for Nixon, who for a moment on Wednesday occupied the spotlight as though he were an important world leader again. But the whole affair speaks some disturbing truths about Russia's faltering political system.


You might argue that, on the contrary, Wednesday's diplomatic flap would have happened anywhere. Rutskoi, after all, had only just got out of jail where he had been awaiting trial for having attempted the violent overthrow of a government -- Yeltsin's government. True, the former vice president was not convicted, because he was amnestied. But Rutskoi certainly was filmed ordering an armed insurrection in which nearly 150 people died. Most people would think that was a problem.


If you add in the fact that Rutskoi is planning to run for president in two year's time, then Nixon's decision to be photographed smiling and shaking hands with him ahead of his meeting with Yeltsin would seem a little tactless.


But however understandable Yeltsin's pique may have been, nowhere else in the world could the scandal have unfolded the way it did.


Where else would a piece of hot information like Nixon's plan to meet with Yeltsin's bitterest rival have gone uncommunicated because it happened to be a public holiday? Was no one on duty in the Kremlin to pass on the message? Where else would they have taken away Nixon's car and security guards in retribution, as Nixon's aides claim? And where else but in Russia is it supposed to be a sign of strength that you take away somebody's privileges and other toys when you get angry with them?


Knowing the peculiarities of his country and president, Rutskoi could have warned Nixon all about the risks he was taking. For Rutskoi knows better than anyone that Yeltsin's antipathy for him is not just political. It is a deep personal hatred based on a sense of betrayal. Rutskoi has also been through all this before. He too lost his guards, cars and staff when he broke with Yeltsin last spring.


In fact, had Rutskoi and Nixon decided really to make a day of it and crack open a bottle of vodka when they met on Monday, they might have found that they had quite a few things in common.


Both men, for example, got caught in the act doing something pretty hard to excuse: Rutskoi ordering insurrection, Nixon burgling his opponents and generally cheating at politics. Had the two made it to a second bottle, they might have exchanged a few rather similar regrets -- not, of course, that they sinned, but that they let themselves get caught sinning so easily.


Nixon has doubtless reflected since the Watergate affair that taping the phone calls in which he arranged to cheat at politics was not such a bright idea. Rutskoi, if there were a next time, probably would not allow video cameras onto the balcony with him as he ordered the masses to storm the Ostankino television tower.


But at this point in their imaginary liquid afternoon, Nixon would have cause to feel a little jealous. To him, Russia must look a little like a political paradise -- a place where you can get away with almost anything under the guise of hardball politics. Back home in Washington, they were so picky by comparison.


Had Nixon, for example, been in the Kremlin when he paid people to raid the opposition's campaign headquarters, he would never have got into so much trouble. Does anyone really care that Sergei Baburin's party offices were raided by armed officials during the election campaign last autumn?


As for Rutskoi, he not only managed to avoid jail after attempting an armed coup but also seems to have incurred virtually no moral or political costs from his actions. He called for an armed rebellion and was let off scot-free by people who believed that what he did was fair enough in Russia's brutish style of politics.


And imagine this -- Rutskoi still has a shot at becoming president, only a few months after the October debacle. That is an illusion that Nixon could never entertain, even today, some 20 years after the Watergate affair was closed.