Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Bush briefs Clinton on world hot spots Date: Thu, 19 Nov 92 15:23:03 EST Message-ID: \SE A \HD Bush briefs Clinton on world hot spots \SH 'Helpful' says president-elect \BY Frank J. Murray \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES President-elect Bill Clinton - returning to the Rose Garden, where his White House dream began 29 years ago - was welcomed yesterday by President Bush with a handshake and "candid" foreign policy advice. The 40th and 41st members of American government's most exclusive club met overtime in strict privacy, dissecting prospects in world trouble spots in the Oval Office. "The American people were well served," Mr. Clinton told reporters as he headed off late for a visit with residents and businesspeople on Georgia Avenue in a gesture toward the generation of jobs in small businesses. After the meeting, Mr. Clinton told associates privately that Mr. Bush had been "nice" to him although before the session the president-elect had trepidations, they said. The president did not speak publicly in his welcome of Mr. Clinton, but press secretary Marlin Fitzwater put out a written statement describing "a warm and informative conversation" that satisfied both men. After the first hour, Mr. Bush and Mr. Clinton dropped in at the White House's Roosevelt Room, where transition officials of the incoming and outgoing administrations were meeting on technical issues involving such matters as security clearances, financial reporting and the procedure for appointments. Attending that meeting was transition board chairman Vernon Jordan, who also hosted a private dinner last night with several journalists and Washington celebrities for Mr. Clinton, Vice President-elect Al Gore and their wives. After a plane-side peck on the cheek and affectionate smoothing of her hair by Mr. Clinton at National Airport, Hillary Clinton went off by herself yesterday before making her first speech since the election last night at a fund-raiser for the Children's Defense Fund. She is a director of the organization. Today, Mrs. Clinton was to meet with Barbara Bush for tea and a tour of the second-floor family quarters and notable spots in the historic mansion. Mr. Clinton said his talks with the president focused on foreign policy areas in which he has remained relatively uncritical and sometimes even supportive, although Mr. Bush had said somewhat jocularly that his dog Millie knows more about international issues than Mr. Clinton and Mr. Gore combined. Despite Mr. Clinton's new doubts about the administration's deficit estimate of $268 billion, the men reportedly sidestepped thorny domestic economic issues that led Mr. Bush just three weeks ago to call Mr. Clinton a "bozo." During the campaign, Mr. Clinton responded that Mr. Bush was unprincipled. "Campaign rhetoric ends with the campaign," Mr. Fitzwater said, a sentiment endorsed by Mr. Clinton whose apparent nervousness at the White House evaporated as soon as his motorcade headed up Georgia Avenue. "It was very helpful . . . just very, very helpful. We talked about the kinds of problems I might face in the rest of the world," Mr. Clinton said of talks that touched on "more than a dozen actual or potential trouble spots in the world." Neither the transition staff nor the White House would specify topics, but Mr. Clinton said they were "just what you would expect." This was taken to include fighting in Bosnia, growing tensions surrounding Boris Yeltsin in Russia, election of a former communist leader to replace independence hero Vytautas Landsbergis in Lithuania, U.N. sanctions on Iraq, weapons sales to Iran, North Korea's nuclear capabilities, Haitian refugees, the growing isolation of China, and the Middle East peace talks. "He was very candid and he gave me the benefit of his thinking about a lot of things. I asked him for his advice about a lot of things. It was a terrific meeting," Mr. Clinton said. Mr. Clinton previously visited the White House about a dozen times, most recently for a governors' association dinner on Feb. 4, 1991. Until yesterday, no stop was more memorable than his July 24, 1963, Rose Garden handshake with his political hero, President John F. Kennedy. That event was included in a biographical movie shown at the Democratic National Convention. Mr. Clinton describes that visit, and his front-row spot among 100 "senators" attending American Legion Boys' Nation, as the moment when he realized his own fascination with politics and set the White House as his goal. Civil rights was the issue of the day, and Mr. Kennedy congratulated the high school boys on their stand. Yesterday Mr. Bush gave Mr. Clinton a public silent treatment and voiced none of the usual welcomes but posed for photos and appeared to get along well with the Arkansas governor, who will inherit his power and worries on Jan. 20. The president strode briskly from the Oval Office to receive his successor just steps from the armored limousine that brought Mr. Clinton from National Airport precisely on time for his presidential appointment, a rare occurrence for Mr. Clinton, whose trademark is running behind schedule. They paused briefly behind some bushes to thrash out ground rules before walking to the Rose Garden to face two dozen television cameras, three times that many still cameras and dozens of writers whose hopes were nipped by a curt announcement from Mr. Bush. "He's going to be available to the press, I'm sure, before he leaves Washington, so we didn't want to get into a full-scale press conference," the president said, cutting off a flurry of shouted questions. A confidant of Mr. Bush said the president felt "comfortable" before the one-hour, 45-minute session about renewing a civil relationship with Mr. Clinton, whom he has said he likes. Before Mr. Clinton arrived, the president spent an hour discussing plans for his presidential library with James Cicconi, a former White House aide who is an official of the library. Other officials at the technical meeting on transition activities were director Warren Christopher and deputies Mark Gearan and Alexis Herman. Administration officials were Transportation Secretary Andrew Card, Chase Untermeyer and Robert Zoellick. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM