With Dash and Panache

Less than 72 hours after he took his office, Vice President Walter Mondale was off on a ten-day 22,000-mile tour that would whisk him to half a dozen European capitals and back across the Arctic icecap to Tokyo. His mission: to promise that the new Administration would work to strengthen economic and military ties with its chief allies. On board Air Force Two was TIME Diplomatic Correspondent Strobe Talbott. His report:

The week was a bravura diplomatic debut for a Midwestern ex-Senator of primarily domestic bent who in the past year had barnstormed the American heartland aboard a chartered commercial jet nicknamed Minnesota Fritz. Mondale successfully managed the transition to Air Force Two and international relations, thanks in part to intensive homework (during Inauguration week, he put himself through a 30-hour crash course). He was also helped by his self-deprecating good humor. "Where's the bed?" he exclaimed with a look of mock desperation on his face as he padded down the aisle in tennis shoes. "Jerry Ford promised me there was a bed somewhere on this thing." (In fact, the bed was in the forward section.) Air Force Two had been Henry Kissinger's flying State Department. "We had to have this plane specially exorcised to get rid of Kissinger's ghost," joked the vice-presidential press aide, Albert Eisele. There was no need to; Mondale won friends wherever he landed.

During a freewheeling session with the NATO Council in Brussels, he reminded a representative of Norway that "as a Senator from Minnesota, I probably have more Norwegian constituents than you." The chamber erupted in laughter. In a smoke-filled room full of Common Market leaders, he apologized for his love of Cuban cigars, which are banned in the U.S., and promised to do penance by "donating a few to my favorite charity." During a visit to 10 Downing Street, Mondale helped strengthen the Atlantic alliance by joining British Prime Minister James Callaghan and other British officials in a spontaneous rendition of some Yorkshire drinking songs.

In Bonn, Mondale gave Chancellor Helmut Schmidt--who had been plugging for Gerald Ford in the election and had been suspicious of Carter's economics--an autographed, ornately bound copy of Carter's Inaugural speech. "Of course," cracked Mondale, "Schmidt said what he really wanted was a bound collection of my speeches."

In Rome, Mondale met for an hour with Pope Paul VI, who praised Carter's hopes to halt the global arms race. The Vice President gave the Pope a presidential Inaugural medal, adding, "I would have liked to give you a copy of the Inauguration speech, signed by President Carter, but my efficient staff left it on the plane." To which the Pope replied benevolently, "You have a very young staff. I am astonished."

Mondale called Carter twice, on a scrambled phone from a local U.S. embassy. ("You sound like Donald Duck," remarked Carter at the beginning of the first call. "I am Donald Duck," replied Mondale.) He had some progress--and a few problems--to report:

STRENGTHENING NATO: During the campaign, Carter had talked about reducing American forces in Europe and cutting $5 billion to $7 billion from the U.S. defense budget. Mondale reassured alliance leaders that Carter's proposed effort to trim fat from the defense budget would not cut into U.S. contributions to NATO. On the contrary, he promised, the new Administration would preserve a modest increase in the NATO allocation contained in the Ford budget and would propose additional increases if the allies built up their own defenses.

LIMITING THE NUCLEAR SPREAD:

Mondale found the Germans and the French reluctant to modify their deals for the sale of nuclear reprocessing plants to Brazil and Pakistan respectively. But they told Mondale they were willing to tighten international safeguards to prevent the conversion of spent reactor fuel into atomic weapons--a high Carter priority. Mondale also got agreement for further high-level international negotiations to limit the export of nuclear facilities.

FOSTERING ECONOMIC RECOVERY:

Mondale set out to convince the West Germans last week--and the Japanese this week--that they should take governmental action to stimulate their economies, thus helping to banish the lingering worldwide recession. But the Vice President found the inflation-wary West Germans reluctant to go beyond their own stimulus package of $4 billion to $5 billion spread over 4 to 5 years --a modest and in Mondale's view disappointing program compared with the Carter Administration's commitment to spend $31.2 billion in 20 months. In Rome, Mondale listened sympathetically to Premier Giulio Andreotti's explanation of Italy's need for a $1 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund to shore up its inflation-racked economy. Watching Mondale's odyssey from back home, one State Department official said: "He has been doing extraordinarily well. There's a lot of elation at how it's going."

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