To their credit, Travelers’ Weill and Dimon smelled a rat in Russia when others didn’t. “Sandy hated Russia,” according to one of his London traders. “He said it was lawless.” An IMF official met with Salomon in June and urged the bank to back Moscow, whose leadership he praised. The IMF mission chief in Moscow tried a different tack, assuring Salomon that the United States would never let a nuclear power default. But Weill and Dimon were uncomfortable with being exposed to surprises, and they sensed that Russia would bring nothing but. Though fascinated by geopolitics and Russia in
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