Putin

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want to thank George Soros for a valuable idea.

There are quite a few Russians I would like to thank for their insights and hospitality, but see no good reason to do so here when the current situation in their country does not reward association with books of this sort.

There was another American who was indispensible to this book, its editor, Marcia Markland. In all my years working as a writer, I have always taken pride in making the deadline whether it involved a restaurant review or a long tome. But this book thwarted me at every turn. Day after day my mind was as blank as the paper I stared at. The few pages I did manage to produce did not, when held between thumb and forefinger, provide the satisfying heft that indicates the coming of a book. Months passed, years.

In all that time Marcia and I would meet fairly frequently for lunch. The pleasures of conversation never faltered, though there was, of course, one subject that could prove awkward if broached. But Marcia never once mentioned the overdue manuscript. And when I could no longer stand it and said something on the subject, she would invariably reply—“Just make it good.” She was, if such an expression can be used, “a perfect gentleman.”