Star of Malta

This article by Fred Barnes appeared in The New Republic on Christmas Day 1989:

Star of Malta

The moment of crisis for President Bush at the Malta summit didn't come when he went eyeball-to-eyeball with Mikhail Gorbachev. It came when his minions faced a mob of reporters with nothing to say. The press was desperate information about the first Bush-Gorby session on December 2, and Bush aides couldn't help. Marlin Fitzwater, the White House Press Secretary, had plenty to say. But he was holed up on the Belknap, a U.S. Navy cruiser, along with Bush, Secretary of State James Baker, and National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft. High wind and rough seas kept him from going ashore to the press center to brief. Because Fitzwater couldn't make it, Gennady Gerasimov, the Soviet spokesman, agreed that he wouldn't brief reporters either.

That didn't stop other Soviet officials, including the glib, English-speaking Vitaly Churkin, from circulating at the press center with tidbits. Naturally these did nothing to enhance Bush's role at the talks. Since the second Bush-Gorby session and their joint dinner had been canceled because of the weather, the Soviets mocked Bush's idea of a summit at sea. The President's aides grew all the more alarmed when they watched Don Oberdorfer, the Washington Post's diplomatic correspondent, complain on CNN's "Evans & Novak" that Soviet officials were talking but those from the open, democratic country weren't. (CNN was piped into the press center.) Reporters were left with one story line: Bush-choreographed summit washed out. This was a public relations disaster for Bush.

It was nearly 10 p.m., or 4 p.m. EDT, before the Bush contingent began a blitzkrieg of leaks. By telephone, Fitzwater gave Deputy Press Secretary Roman Popadulk, who was at the press center, a rundown of the 21 initiatives that Bush had presented to Gorbachev. Then Popaduik stepped into a hallway to brief reporters. He spoke "on background," which meant no attribution to him by name. (White House officials said the no-briefing pact with Gerasimov only applied to on-the-record comments.) Fitzwater called individual reporters. From the Holiday Inn, ten miles away on Malta, Robert Blackwill of the National Security Council and Margaret Tutwiler, the State Department spokeswoman, got other reporters on the phone at the press center. The Bushies succeeded in changing the story. It became Bush's proposals contrasted with Gorbachev's lack of a single initiative. Bush hogged the coverage and won the p.r. game at the summit. This is significant. Gorbachev had come to earlier summits with surprise proposals that made him appear to be the dominant force. Bush, criticized for responding passively to the dismantling of communism in the Soviet bloc, couldn't afford to be upstaged.

From the moment the Malta meeting was announced in late October, he was cultivating a long list of initiatives to drop on Gorbachev. White House officials insist that Bush chose them solely for their substantive value. Maybe. Bush also went to extraordinary lengths to keep them secret, which gave the proposals greater tactical value at the summit. Four days before the Malta meeting, he summoned reporters to the Oval Office to downplay the agenda. "So the surprise will be, if you're looking for a surprise, there won't be a surprise. That may come as a surprise."

Bush knew better. By that time, four senior officials-Blackwill and Condaleezza Rice of the National Security Council and Dennis Ross and Robert Zoellick of the State Department-had long since created a full plate of proposals. Bush had initially told them he wanted concepts, not detailed initiatives. "I don't want an ALCM, SLCM Mediterranean meeting," he said. In other words, the summit shouldn't get bogged down in the minutiae (air-launched cruise missiles, sea-launched cruise missiles) of arms control. "He didn't want it to look like SovietAmerican summits of the past," an aide says. The four drafted roughly 35 initiatives, then pared the list. "These were all in the framework of a Republican Administration," says a senior official. "There wasn't one that called for disbanding the armies." Bush hashed over the proposals with Cabinet members, but not their subordinates. He wanted secrecy. This was not done with the bureaucracy," the official says. "

He discussed it only with these people. There were no strap-hangers or interagency paper. That's why it didn't leak." The economic concessions-agreeing to start talks on a trade treaty and to bestow Export-Import Bank credits on the Soviet Union-were broached with Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady, Commerce Secretary Robert Mosbacher, and Trade Representative Carla Hills. Bush brought up the arms control initiatives with Defense Secretary Dick Cheney. And so on. Not all of the 21 proposals were fresh. President Reagan had proposed in a 1987 speech that the Olympic Games be held in Berlin in 2004. Still, Gorbachev seemed (to Bush aides) riveted as he listened to the President's hour-long opening monologue. He took copious notes in a small orange book. When Bush finished, Gorbachev referred back to all but one of the proposals. He left out the Berlin Olympics. In Gorbachev's mind, Bush aides guessed, this presupposes a unified Berlin and a unified German. Gorbachev doesn't like the prospect of that, or even talking about it. Bush let the Olympics idea die. He was happy to settle for Gorbachev's overall assessment of the proposals as evidence that he's on Gorby's side in supporting perestrolka.

Bush sealed his p.r. triumph by coming across as the fellow in command at his point press conference with Gorbachev aboard the Gorky, a Soviet cruise ship. He was friendly enough, but did not act smitten with Gorbachev the way Reagan used to. In Brussels the day after the summit, Bush declined to call Gorbachev a friend. "I'll say this," he said. "We had a friendly conversation.... What happened was, I think he took my measure and I took his, and I think we just feel more comfortable about our common objectives." I suspected Bush was merely trying to avert a headline ("Bush Calls Russk'e His Buddy"). I asked senior aides if Bush, who considers practically every European leader a friend, really likes Gorbachev. The answer was no. The relationship is cordial and respectful, but formal. "I don't think it's fair to call them close personal friends," an official said. Bush paid a price for dominating the summit. He made concessions. Gorbachev made none. A White House official said Bush had to reciprocate for Gorby's big pre-summit concession of letting Eastern Europe move toward democracy. When news reached euphoric Air Force One (as Bush was flying to Brussels) that the East German Politburo had resigned, Soviet expert Condaleezza Rice joked that the new Communist slogan is, "We're out of here."

Sununu argues that while Bush gave up something in only two proposals, it wasn't much. Bush agreed to start trade talks before the Soviets have codified free emigration and thus qualified for most favored nation status. They'll still have do this, though, for a trade pact to be completed, Sununu says. The President promised Export-Import Bank credits, but those are for American goods sold in the Soviet Union. "That's a net plus for the American economy," he says. In truth, Bush made at least two other important concessions. By setting a june deadline for new limits on strategic nuclear weapons, Bush put pressure on his negotiators, not Gorbachev's. This allows the Soviets to stall in anticipation of further American concessions, which is what happened repeatedly in the INF talks. "You want to put pressure on the other guy," says Paul Nitze, Reagan's chief arms negotiator. Bush also said he's willing to ban production of chemical weapons altogether. The trouble is, stockpiles of chemical weapons deteriorate. Production is needed to make sure chemical weapons are effective and a real deterrent.

Bush's biggest mistake was telegraphing his acceptance of Gorbachev's alibi that the Sandinistas and Cubans have assured him that they aren't arming rebels in El Salvador. Three days before the summit, Baker declared that either the Soviets are lying, or the Cubans and Nicaraguans are. He said he believes the Soviets. At Malta, Bush held forth for 15 minutes in his opening statement to Gorbachev about Central America. But he didn't insist that Gorbachev crack down on his clients. His aides handed a paper to Soviet officials that spelled out how Gorbachev could save $15 billion a year by cutting off Cuba, Nicaragua, Ethiopia, Cambodia, and Afghanistan. If Gorbachev was impressed by this, he didn't let on.

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