NATION, Page 22A Busy ThursdayBetween ordering troops to Panama and hearing from the Kremlin,Bush welcomed visitors. An intimate look at a tough twelve hours
By HUGH SIDEY
The world is misbehaving again, and George Bush's puppy
presidency, like Jerry Ford's English-muffin phase, has passed from
American screens. Once again, as so often before, troops moved
through the night; a defiant dictatorship strode the dark streets
of a tiny, helpless nation; NATO complained and quibbled; the
Soviets unexpectedly moved a bishop in the great chess game of
power. The convicted ghost of Ollie North haunted Pennsylvania
Avenue, and House Speaker Jim Wright -- a linchpin in this
Government, like him or not -- teetered. The weary old terrestrial
sphere was either too hot or too cold and capricious in doling out
its moisture. God may be in his heaven, but for the nonce he is not
a Republican and not at the end of Bush's overheated phone line.
From dawn to dusk these days, Bush has taken the dewy path
along the Rose Garden and wondered about his fate. Not in
despondency -- that is not his nature -- but in a detached, curious
and wary way. Once he looked up after long hours of deliberation
and said, "The decisions are getting tougher." So true. No good
answers present themselves. He chooses now from the best of the
bad, which is the usual way in government. Last Thursday his crisis
pace reached its peak, as shown in these remarkable pictures.
Between the global troubles, the President spent time with
Richard Darman, director of the Office of Management and Budget.
"I've been talking about 1991," he said with a rueful smile, "and
I don't like a thing I've heard so far." For the moment Mikhail
Gorbachev, the wily Slav, and General Manuel Noriega, the Latin
scoundrel, hold the spotlight, but Bush knows that in the long run,
the monstrous, suffocating federal budget may be his biggest
threat.
As the world has closed in on him, Bush has gone to his
faithful telephone. Just 15 minutes before he was scheduled to make
his statement to the nation on sending troops to Panama, Bush
paused in his hurried preparations and put in a call to Costa
Rica's President Oscar Arias Sanchez, the Nobel Peace laureate,
even though he had spoken with him just a few hours earlier. "I'd
just feel better if I know what's on his mind," the President said.
As the minutes ticked down to airtime, he suddenly looked up
and asked, "Is there anything else I should know about?" One of his
assistants said that earlier in the day Gorbachev had made a new
proposal on arms reduction but that the U.S. had not fully digested
it. "What is it?" Bush snapped. "Find out." Aides scurried for
information from National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft. Bush
tucked the new development away in his mind without comment, a kind
of armor against questions that might arise in his upcoming press
conference.
Almost every morning now it is somewhat the same. The first
light is just touching the old elm planted by John Quincy Adams
when a somber-suited CIA briefer with his bagful of woes pulls up
beside Bush's desk. The cables from the secret operatives have
grown distinctly more worrisome. By 7:30, when the angry traffic
has built up on streets beyond the iron fence, Bush has heard from
Scowcroft and chief of staff John Sununu. The President's own
gleanings from his ceaseless phone calls and television viewing are
cranked into the day's crisis agenda. Last week he glanced at the
men around him, his principal national security staff, and said,
"I saw on TV last night those pictures of Billy Ford ((Panama's
opposition vice-presidential candidate, beaten by Noriega's
goons)). They had tremendous impact, seeing him standing up to
those beatings." Few things are as sacred to Bush as the free
election process. Seeing it violated so savagely hit him
particularly hard.
In the world of presidential crises, last week was about a 3
on a scale of 10 -- no great threat to civilization. Yet there is
a law in the exercise of power: whatever the true dimensions of a
crisis, it tends to fill the time and space of the moment. Bush
needs to understand that and keep things in perspective. He may.
Walking through the gathering dusk, he marveled at the world
that had plagued him for the preceding twelve hours. Then he
suddenly brightened. "Well," he said, "I think I'll call up George
Plimpton and ask him down to play some horseshoes."
