Ready for the Grand Tour

By WALTER ISAACSON

Pomp and uncertain circumstances greet Reagan on his trip to Europe

"It's a great world stage for him," said one of the French officials involved in planning Ronald Reagan's ten-day visit to Europe this week. Indeed, the pomp has been designed to match the circumstances of the President's first visit overseas since taking office. There will be a meeting with other Western leaders at Versailles, with a formal dinner in the fabled Hall of Mirrors and a king's bedroom for Reagan in the Grand Trianon. Then on to Rome to meet the Pope, as well as Italy's President and Prime Minister. In Britain the old celluloid trouper will canter with the Queen through Windsor Great Park before becoming the first U.S. President ever to address members of both houses of Parliament. Finally, after a NATO summit session in Bonn, there will be a pilgrimage to that oppressively ugly symbol of Communist tyranny, the Berlin Wall. The schedule is exhilarating and the pace exhausting: on one day of the trip, the President and Mrs. Reagan will have breakfast in Versailles, lunch at Rome's Quirinale Palace and dinner at Windsor Castle.

"I know better than to anticipate that I'm taking a leisurely trip," said Reagan last week. At Versailles, where leaders of seven major industrialized nations will hold their annual economic summit, he will have to fend off criticism that high U.S. interest rates are largely responsible for the recession afflicting Western economies. The NATO meeting in Bonn will give the President, in company with other allied leaders, a chance to display the vitality of Western resolve in the face of a Soviet challenge and to celebrate Spain's accession to the organization.

But the importance of the tour far transcends whatever economic and security understandings may be reached in Versailles and Bonn. It offers Reagan the chance to conduct for the first time diplomacy on a grand scale, to exert the natural leadership of the American presidency within the Atlantic Alliance, and to continue his efforts to regain from the Soviets the propaganda initiative on disarmament. The ambitious goal: to show that there is still a fundamental unity among America, Western Europe and Japan that transcends the well-publicized strains within the alliance.

As a key part of this effort, the White House views the trip as a major opportunity for the President, whose most important political asset is his infectious personal charm, to dispel a still prevalent impression in Europe that the leadership of the Western alliance is in the uncertain hands of a trigger-happy cowboy. A growing mood of pacifism on the Continent, suffused with latent anti-Americanism and guided in part by leftist forces, threatens NATO's plan to modernize its nuclear forces. The President will attempt to counter this attitude in a series of interviews with European newspapers and television stations as well as in his speeches to Britain's Parliament and West Germany's Bundestag. According to a ranking White House official, Reagan's address to Parliament will stress "the unity of the West and our common ground." In his Bonn speech, "the emphasis will be on peace through rational security measures and genuine arms reduction."

Whether these statesmanlike proclamations will quell the antinuclear protests that are scheduled to greet Reagan at each stop is unclear. A disarmament rally in London's Hyde Park on the day before Reagan arrives is expected to draw 200,000 people. In Bonn, a demonstration that has been planned since March may attract as many as 300,000.

The White House also hopes that the tour may help revive Reagan's falling ratings in U.S. polls. Said White House Deputy Chief of Staff Michael Deaver, who traveled to Europe twice this spring to make the logistical arrangements for the tour: "We knew it offered fine opportunities for the President, if we managed to set it up right." Indeed, the trip is part of a shrewdly orchestrated campaign to dispel criticism that Reagan has failed to involve himself personally in the development of a coherent foreign policy. It began in earnest with Reagan's proposal last April for a summit meeting with Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev and his speech at Illinois' Eureka College--his alma mater--outlining proposals for Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) with the Soviet Union. Reagan's address was partly in response to a growing grass-roots sentiment for a freeze on nuclear weapons. Six days after he returns from Europe, the President will visit the United Nations in New York City to address a special General Assembly session on disarmament.

Although Reagan is still not comfortable when dealing with foreign policy, and does not particularly like arduous travel, one of his top aides insists: "He feels good about the trip. He knows that it is going to be a physical strain, and he will be involved in some complicated stuff. He is studying hard and really working over those speeches. I think he's up for this adventure."

That adventure promises to be a colorful extravaganza. The economic meeting at Louis XIV's palace in Versailles will be capped by a special performance of the Paris Opera and a son et lumiere fireworks display. The President will meet with the Pope in the Vatican's Papal Apartments, five days after the Pontiff's return from his trip to Britain, and then fly by helicopter to meet with President Sandro Pertini at the Quirinale Palace, built in 1574 as a summer residence for Pope Gregory VIII. At the invitation of Queen Elizabeth, Reagan will be the first U.S. President since Woodrow Wilson to be a royal house guest. Another first will be a televised white-tie dinner for 160 guests in the castle's 185-ft.-long St. George's Hall.

Logistical preparations for these spectaculars were almost as complex, and delicate, as the substantive spadework for the summits. "Listen, tell the Queen to go off to the left a bit," insisted one American as a group of photographers and palace aides discussed possible camera angles for the ride through Windsor's 1,800 acres by the two famous equestrians. "One does not tell the Queen anything," replied a palace aide tartly. A White House advanceman had a request on behalf of National Security Adviser William Clark, who will be among Reagan's total retinue of about 300. "Judge Clark likes to ride too," he said pointedly. The Palace pointedly said no. Her Majesty would not ride with a posse.

"And then came the worst bit," said one royal staffer. Prince Philip, who prides himself on his skill with the reins, had volunteered to drive the First Lady in a carriage. According to the British, one of her aides naively objected: "She couldn't possibly do that. People might say she was trying to be queen." Prince Philip's offer was eventually accepted. The British briskly refused an American request to allow photographs of Mrs. Reagan with the Queen in Her Majesty's private quarters. "No, that is not the way we do it," a royal aide starchily explained.

After the President's Versailles trip had been expanded to include "unofficial" stops in Italy and Britain, West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt made it clear that his government would feel slighted if Reagan bypassed Bonn. Secretary of State Alexander Haig was not only sensitive to Schmidt's concerns, he was anxious to have Reagan attend a NATO meeting. Haig helped arrange the shift of a proposed NATO summit from Brussels to Bonn and persuaded the White House to add the Federal Republic's capital to the President's itinerary.

After that, it was all but inevitable that Reagan would include a visit to Berlin, to peer over the 10-ft. masonry wall that separates the Eastern and Western sectors of that city. Reagan's trip may suffer by a comparison: 19 years ago, John Kennedy mesmerized a crowd of 150,000 with his famed "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech. This time, by contrast, police are braced for anti-American rallies, including a "welcoming concert" for Reagan of blaring sirens by leftist peace protesters.

Unlike Kennedy's address, delivered from the balcony of West Berlin's city hall, Reagan's speech will be given at an invitation-only reception on the elegant, and secure, grounds of an 18th century palace, the Schloss Charlottenburg. Indeed, the President's advance team, understandably, has been very careful about where Reagan will appear publicly throughout the trip. As one French political adviser put it: "The Americans are super security conscious--ooh-la-la--and they are not about to let him dive into a crowd to shake hands."

Grand as the scope of Reagan's tour is, it will be tempered by the serious disputes within the Western alliance. The most complex of these will involve the economic issues confronting the leaders of the seven industrialized nations who will meet at Versailles.* The first Western economic summit was held in 1975 in Rambouillet, France, to grapple with worldwide inflation and soaring energy costs; not since then have so many economic problems seemed so difficult to control. For nearly three months, middle-level diplomats--known as "sherpas," after the Tibetan guides who lead the way to the summits of the Himalayas--have been trying to work out tentative agreements on the major issues. Said Assistant Secretary of State Robert Hormats, who has been involved in all seven previous economic summits and is now the chief American sherpa: "This summit takes place in a more complex international environment than we have ever faced. It may be a crossroads for the world economy. Do we strengthen cooperation or do we begin to move in opposite directions?"

French President Franc,ois Mitterrand, who has been carefully preparing for the summit for a year, hopes that the seven nations will work toward similar policies for fighting inflation and unemployment. "We need to better coordinate among ourselves what kind of growth we want," he told reporters last week. Mitterrand is particularly concerned that, during the current recession, countries have been pursuing domestic policies with regard for how they will affect the world economy. Said he: "It is difficult to have a military alliance if you are going to wage economic war on each other. We have to find a minimum of consensus."

Well aware that differences on some major short-term issues may be too wide to be bridged in a brief summit, the French would prefer that discussions at Versailles be freewheeling, and the final communique be very short and limited to generalities. One U.S. official who has been involved in the preparations disagrees with this bland long-term attitude. Said he: "If it's just going to be a general discussion without conclusions, why have a summit at all?" Adds a European sherpa: "Watch out, or they will say that you are throwing parties at Versailles while the world economy is burning."

Whether or not meaningful agreements are reached, a number of substantive issues will be aired. Among them:

U.S. Interest Rates. With varying degrees of intensity, the European leaders will argue that high interest rates in America serve as a barrier to business investment throughout the West. As Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir Geoffrey Howe argued at the annual meeting of Western finance ministers in Paris three weeks ago, "The impact is felt not only in the U.S., not only in the industrialized world, but also among the less developed countries." U.S. officials will answer that they fully recognize the severity of the problem, and argue that congressional dithering over budget deficits is largely to blame. But even if interest rates come down, Treasury Secretary Donald Regan has warned, the industrialized West still has problems to face. Said he: "Correcting high interest rates will not be a panacea."

Trade. Recessions tend to spur the rise of protectionist sentiment. A consistent proponent of free trade, the U.S. will urge that the summit endorse an expansion of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, as a prelude to a special 22-nation meeting of Western trade ministers in November. Much of the trade talk will be aimed at Japan, which has kept its severely restrictive import policies despite a trade surplus with Europe and the U.S. that is expected to be more than $22 billion this year. In order to head off what some members call the "Jap-bashers," the government of Prime Minister Zenko Suzuki last week pledged to reduce tariffs on computers and other high-technology products. Suzuki urged the Japanese to reject mounting protectionist sentiment. Said he: "What is necessary is the attitude to welcome foreign manufactured goods." U.S. officials praised Tokyo's move but expressed disappointment that there were few concessions on agricultural imports.

Technology. Partly to inject an upbeat and forward-looking note, Mitterrand plans to stress the importance of high-technology manufacturing as a way to help lift the West out of its stagnation. The French President feels that investment in advanced technology has been allowed to languish, and last week he said he would propose that industrial nations pool their research efforts. In preliminary discussions, American officials have insisted that the role of private industry in making such investments must be emphasized.

East-West Relations. The U.S. has backed off from attempts to scuttle the first phase of the European-financed Soviet pipeline that will pump natural gas from Siberia to Western Europe. But Washington is still putting strong pressure on its allies to tighten credit and end the preferential interest rates offered to Eastern bloc nations. The Soviets and their clients are now $80 billion in debt to the West. Warned Secretary Regan last week: "We are trying to tell [the allies] that it is not in anyone's interest to be dependent on the Soviets. If a debtor runs up enough debt, he has the creditor where he wants him." Europeans will counter that the U.S. is in no position to lecture, since it was unwilling to sustain a grain trade embargo against the Soviets. Admits Regan: "We don't come with clean hands. True, the grain sales are cash and carry. But it is trade. How can we ask the allies to cut back on trade if we're not going to?"

The military and diplomatic aspects of East-West relations will be the subject when NATO leaders meet in Bonn three days later.* A few strains within the alliance were eased by Reagan's "zero option" proposal of last November to remove intermediate-range nuclear missiles from Europe, and by the resumption in Geneva of U.S.-Soviet negotiations on the reduction of nuclear forces in Europe. Some NATO members, West Germany in particular, expressed concern last year that the Administration was not fully committed to NATO's "double track" policy of linking the deployment of new Pershing II and cruise missiles in Western Europe with a genuine pursuit of arms control. The President's Eureka College proposal to begin START with the Soviets was also heartily welcomed by NATO. So will be Reagan's announcement this week that the U.S. has decided to continue honoring important parts of previous arms agreements--such as the expired SALT I and the unratified SALT II--as long as the U.S.S.R. does the same.

But basic differences remain within NATO on how best to deal with the Soviet Union. Reagan and Haig will stress the need for increased defense spending to counter the Soviet military threat. The West Germans will attempt to couple any such declaration with one that emphasizes the need to reduce East-West tensions. The final result may be a statement similar to one worked out last month by NATO foreign ministers at a meeting in Luxembourg: "The allies will persevere in their efforts to establish a more constructive East-West relationship aiming at genuine detente . .. Arms control and disarmament, together with deterrence and defense, are integral parts of alliance security and policy." This compromise, first proposed by Denmark, was pleasing to Bonn because it explicitly mentioned detente, while Washington could argue that the stress was on "genuine."

Although the U.S. would prefer what Haig calls a more "robust" affirmation of the need for a military buildup, any variation of this formula will satisfy Washington. The Administration had considered calling on its allies to renew a collective pledge, first made in 1979, to increase defense spending by 3% per year. Haig, however, opposed such a numerical target because he believed it would be an unfair way to gauge the relative contributions of member nations, and over the past three years has led only to fruitless finger pointing. Washington dropped the idea. Besides, noted one high State Department official, "an attempt to reaffirm the 3% would have failed."

There will be virtually no debate on these issues at the Bonn summit, which is largely ceremonial. Each head of state will have about twelve minutes to present a speech before the four-hour meeting recesses. The final communique, which may be split into two sections to accommodate France's reluctance to agree to any military statement, is being worked out in advance.

In addition to the two summits, Reagan will hold bilateral discussions with the leaders of his host countries. His reception in all four capitals should be cordial. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher will surely express her gratitude that Washington has come down firmly on Britain's side in the war with Argentina. Mitterrand will restate his support for NATO's plan to modernize its nuclear forces. His enthusiasm has pleased the Reagan Administration, which initially had been wary of the Socialist President. West German Chancellor Schmidt finds himself more sympathetic to the Reagan Administration now that it has suspended its efforts to block the Siberian natural gas pipeline and begun to pursue arms control negotiations. Italian President Pertini, whose country is constructing NATO's first cruise missile base, has no substantial problems to raise with Reagan and is eager to repay the warm welcome he received in Washington last March.

Homer said of Odysseus: "He saw the cities of many men and knew their manners." Reagan's pilgrimage to modern cities of other men will help him better understand European attitudes. "I have never found him closed to talking about any given question," Mitterrand said last week of Reagan. The allies hope that he will return home with a better appreciation of the need to frame economic and strategic policies with greater attention to their effects on America's Atlantic partners.

The summits should put the much discussed strains within the Western alliance in proper perspective. The grandiose displays of unity at Versailles and Bonn will remind all of the participants, as well as the rest of the world, that the allies still share a good deal of common ground. While the Soviets have found it necessary to quash dissent within the Warsaw Pact by brute force and intimidation, disputes within the Western alliance, however deep they may seem, are testaments to what is clearly a more genuine cohesion. -- By Walter Isaacson. Reported by Laurence I. Barrett/Washington and Lawrence Malkin/ Paris, with European bureaus

*The U.S., Canada, Britain, France, West Germany, Italy and Japan.

*In attendance will be government leaders from the U.S., Britain, Canada, West Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Iceland, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Greece, Turkey and Spain. Since France's formal withdrawal from NATO'S military command in 1966, its President does not attend summit meetings. Mitterrand, however, will be at the opening dinner. Premier Pierre Mauroy will represent France at the summit.

With reporting by Laurence I. Barrett, Lawrence Malkin

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