Ukraine's Reaganite First Lady

A REMARKABLE ELECTION TOOK PLACE in Ukraine on December 26. After the ruling party stole the November 21 presidential vote, massive street protests forced a new runoff, in which the rightful winner, Viktor Yushchenko, finally prevailed.

Although I have neither Ukrainian blood nor any special interest in foreign affairs, I have followed events in that country closely because a dear friend of mine, Katherine Chumachenko, is married to Yushchenko and about to become first lady of Ukraine.

Leading up to the election, I was called by Russian "reporters" looking for information on Kathy, or Katya, as she prefers today. I should say that they were looking for dirt, because the Russian press and its counterparts in Ukraine have been telling terrible lies about her for some time, saying that she is a CIA agent and other untruths designed solely to undermine her husband's political support.

I know that these things are untrue because I was intimately involved in several of her career moves, which are now portrayed as some sort of nefarious plot to move Kathy into a position of power in Ukraine. If anyone is responsible, I am; not the CIA.

When I first met Kathy in 1987, she was working for the State Department in the human rights bureau. We met at a Heritage Foundation event where John Podhoretz, now a columnist for the New York Post and a Weekly Standard contributing editor, was speaking. Shortly thereafter, I went to work in the White House in the Office of Policy Development, headed by Gary Bauer. The Office of Public Liaison (OPL) was headed by Rebecca Range (née Gernhardt), whom I had known since my first days on Capitol Hill, when she was working for the late John Ashbrook, the conservative congressman from Ohio. (She is now married to Rep. Christopher Cox, whom she met when he was working in the White House counsel's office for President Reagan.)