The Presidency

By Hugh Sidey

"Just decided. Just placed the call, and his phone rings. It works." That was from George Bush. He was talking in the filtered sunlight of the Oval Office about the three times he has reached out and touched Mikhail Gorbachev. The first time was just after Bush took over the presidency. The second call came in January, when German unification was hot, the third in February, after the Nicaraguan elections.

Last week, with the Lithuanian situation coming to a boil, Bush noted that Britain's Margaret Thatcher had phoned Gorbachev. Bush wondered aloud to aides if he should call Gorbachev again. Bush was walking a high wire, supporting both Lithuania's right to be independent and Gorbachev's leadership. His message had been conveyed in public statements, diplomatic channels. But phoning is different. "Just to call," Bush explains, "say, 'Look, how's it going? What do you think about this?' I learn from it. I mean, it's a two-way street. It's better than a cable."

Bush has elevated the phone to new virtuosity. "Interesting diplomacy," he says. "If there are going to be disagreements between the Soviet Union and the U.S. -- and there will be -- I want to be sure they're real and they're based on fact, not on misunderstanding. If ((Gorbachev)) knows the heartbeat a little bit from talking, there's less apt to be misunderstanding."

An echo from 30 years ago: John Kennedy held up Barbara Tuchman's book The Guns of August, told visitors that its story of the start of World War I and the modern age of slaughter was a tale of failed communication. Still, he never called.

"The President has a propensity for physical communication," says Brent Scowcroft, his National Security Adviser. From a phone conversation, Bush gauges things like Gorbachev's conviction and assuredness, which are beyond the printed word.

The Bush-Gorbachev phone relationship is not yet on a George-and-Mike basis, but maybe next time, says Bush. Nor, despite the President's easy "just placed the call and his phone rings," is it quite that simple yet. When Bush gets the urge to call, he signals Scowcroft, who goes to Soviet Ambassador Yuri Dubinin, who checks out Gorbachev's availability, which so far has been afternoon Moscow time and morning in Washington. The Kremlin insists on placing the call to the Signal Corps in the White House. An interpreter and a notetaker listen in on extensions in the Situation Room in the White House basement, and Bush pens personal notes on the talk.

There were no jokes, no patter in the three long-distance hookups. "It's more serious, but very open, agreeable," says Bush. And private. "Part of the reason for phone calls is that you build a relationship that is confidential, where you can speak freely ((and)) frankly discuss differences," he says.

Bush assesses the message and the emotion of the moment with aides. The notetaker rushes through a memo. The President's secretary, Patty Presock, copies Bush's own hand scratchings, and all of it is consigned to dark, barricaded cabinets, silent records of the next best thing to a face-to-face conversation.