EIGHTEEN men in dark suits buried the Cold War at the Elysee Presidential Palace yesterday.
Sunlight flooded through the red-curtained windows of the Salle des Fetes as first a grinning NATO Secretary General. Mr Javier Solana, then the Russian President, Mr Boris Yeltsin, followed by the heads of state of NATO's 16 member countries, put their signatures to the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Co-operation and Security between the Russian Federation and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.
The French President, Mr Jacques Chirac, opened the two-hour morning ceremony, saying that "there are moments when the future of whole populations is in the balance. .. This summit is one of those appointments that history has made with itself."
Ironically, the idea of a charter between NATO and its former Russian enemy was first proposed by Mr Alain Juppe, the French Prime Minister who this week announced he is about to resign. Mr Juppe suggested the idea when he was foreign minister, in January 1995. The charter became a way of ensuring Russian acquiescence to the eastward expansion of NATO - a move which Moscow still "views negatively", in Mr Yeltsin's words. The Madrid summit in July is expected to admit Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic to NATO.
The agreement states that "Russia and NATO do not consider each other as adversaries" and are determined "to give concrete substance to their shared commitment to build a stable, peaceful and undivided Europe". Yesterday's signing, the 16-page text notes, "marks the beginning of a fundamentally new relationship between Russia and NATO."
Mr Yeltsin, who is known for erratic behaviour, apparently took those words seriously; he surprised the leaders assembled in the gilt-panelled hall hung with d'Aubusson tapestries by popping out of his seat for an impromptu intervention as Mr Clinton finished speaking.
"I, today, after having signed the document am going to make the following decision. Everything that is aimed at countries present here, all of those weapons are going to have their warheads removed." The heads of state looked perplexed, but applauded strongly.
Mr Yeltsin's spokesman later said the Russian leader meant he would re-target rather than dismantle the warheads. Mr Nicholas Burns, the State Department spokesman said he had received no advance warning" of the Yeltsin announcement. If Russia was really serious about disarmament, the Duma (parliament) ought to ratify the SALT II agreement, which was signed in 1993, he said.
Before he was upstaged by Mr Yeltsin, Mr Clinton said that NATO leaders were "determined to create a future in which European security is not a zero-sum game - where NATO's gain is Russia's loss, and Russia's strength is our alliance's weakness. That is old thinking; these are new times."
