WI Boris Yeltsin killed in 1995 visit to the US?

So, apparently this bizarre incident took place.


[Clinton] relayed how Boris Yeltsin's late-night drinking during a visit to Washington in 1995 nearly created an international incident. The Russian president was staying at Blair House, the government guest quarters. Late at night, Clinton told Branch, Secret Service agents found Yeltsin clad only in his underwear, standing alone on Pennsylvania Avenue and trying to hail a cab. He wanted a pizza, he told them, his words slurring.

The next night, Yeltsin eluded security forces again when he climbed down back stairs to the Blair House basement. A building guard took Yeltsin for a drunken intruder until Russian and U.S. agents arrived on the scene and rescued him.

( http://www.politico.com/blogs/on-co...n-drunk-in-his-underwear-hailing-a-cab-021553 , http://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-09-23/yeltsin-drunk-near-naked-outside-white-house/1438342 , http://historybuff.com/drunk-pantsl...ab-from-white-house-to-get-pizza-meZBDBYgA9YK )


A grim but fairly simple "what if" is that Yeltsin loses his footing and hits his head forcefully on the pavement or sidewalk before aides or the secret service can reach him.

Now you have the Russian president killed in an extremely embarrassing manner in the capital of the United States. Besides being a PR disaster for both countries there's the fact that it's only two years after the Russian Constitutional Crisis and (as far as I can tell) Yeltsin's successor is apparently not very well-liked.
 
A fitting end to that alcoholic traitorous bastard... before speculating how things would have went afterwards, can i ask who was Yeltsin's would-be successor in 1995?
 
A fitting end to that alcoholic traitorous bastard... before speculating how things would have went afterwards, can i ask who was Yeltsin's would-be successor in 1995?

Prime minister (in this case Victor Chernomyrdin) would be intermin president and there would be soon presidential election.
 
I wonder if the governments of both countries would come up with some cover story that he "died of a heart attack in his sleep" or something less embarrassing than the truth.
 
I wonder if the governments of both countries would come up with some cover story that he "died of a heart attack in his sleep" or something less embarrassing than the truth.

Russians surely try cover truth. They don't want tell people that their president slipped when he was too drunken.
 

James G

Gone Fishin'
That would be on hell of a POD for a TL.
First thoughts: expect conspiracy theories about how this could be allowed to happen for the there are no such things as accidents.
And Chernomyrdin!? He's a character indeed and might be worse than Yeltsin.
 

cpip

Gone Fishin'
I would suspect that the particular's of Yeltsin's death, embarrassing as it was, would end up giving the Russian Federation quite the public black eye. The State Department and the Russian government may try to squelch the worst parts of the story -- that he was drunk and in his underwear.

As said above, Viktor Chernomyrdin would be acting President while a special election would be called. Chernomyrdin wasn't the most popular of sorts, so I wouldn't expect that he would win the special election, though...
 

Wallet

Banned
Here's a even more interesting POD. What if he catches a cab and goes far away. Imagine watching a drunk Russian president in his underware at the mall on live TV before people could arrive. Or he gets even more drunk and starts hitting on women in a bar and ends up in a fight. Video footage ends up at CNN

But in all seriousness, I expect a coup by either Putin or the military
 

James G

Gone Fishin'
Here's a even more interesting POD. What if he catches a cab and goes far away. Imagine watching a drunk Russian president in his underware at the mall on live TV before people could arrive. Or he gets even more drunk and starts hitting on women in a bar and ends up in a fight. Video footage ends up at CNN

But in all seriousness, I expect a coup by either Putin or the military

The military or someone else; not Putin in 1995. He was only a somebody after heading up the FSB in 98 and then being PM - the others hadn't lasted long - in 99.
 
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