MOST OBSERVERS OF RUSSIA’S historic presidential election on July 3 believed that Boris Yeltsin and his colleagues had made a dramatic bid for reelection and won. But Time magazine’s ensuing cover story, “Yanks to the Rescue,” by chief political correspondent Michael Kramer, and the ABC news Nightline feature “Secret Weapon,” aired July 8, had a different take. They chose to downplay the greatest political event of the decade — the triumph of democrats and democracy in the first direct election of a head of state in Russia in a thousand years — and featured instead three American consultants who allegedly won the race for Boris Yeltsin. As one of these men boasted on Nightline, “We have brought democracy to the evil empire and the world will be forever changed because of it.” This is ludicrous.

The pieces both in Time and on Nightline get the facts wrong, exaggerate the importance of the Americans, insult the intelligence and sophistication of the Russians who really orchestrated the campaign victory, embarrass American journalism, and taint the legitimate achievements of Americans who have lived and worked in Russia for years to strengthen that country’s nascent democratic institutions.