NEWS
December 20, 1991 | WILLIAM D. MONTALBANO, TIMES STAFF WRITER
While radical decrees in his name swept away the shards of the dying Soviet state back home, visiting Russian Federation President Boris N. Yeltsin received a royal welcome and a $1.3-billion Christmas present Thursday from an Italian government still unabashedly fond of Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev. "There is no more U.S.S.R.