Mission To Europe

By James Carney And Massimo Calabresi/Washington

George W. Bush is hungry to make a good impression this week on his first presidential tour of Europe, and no wonder. "This is the biggest trip of his life," an adviser says, his chance to look a Russian President in the eye, his chance to persuade the allies that he isn't the arrogant, missile shield-obsessed, execution-happy global warmer that so many Europeans take him to be.

How hungry is Bush? In late April, when former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who had suggested to the President's father that Dubya's foreign policy was off course, stopped at the White House to meet with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, the President dropped by for two minutes--and stayed for 20, pumping Gorby for advice. Bush has also heard from another old hand, the one whom Americans hope he consults but whom White House image-mongers are most sensitive about--his dad.

As the three generations of Bushes gathered at Camp David last week, the conversation turned to Dubya's five-day, five-country tour, which will culminate in a face-to-face session with Russian President Vladimir Putin Saturday in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The father, says a source close to the former President, has been thinking back on his own maiden voyage to Europe as President in May 1989--and recalling how valuable intelligence can be before a summit. "The old man had been getting signals from people in Europe," the source says, and gave his son "a little dose of realism" about the continental mood. But Bush already knew trouble awaited him, so he held a secret prep session on May 31 in the Yellow Oval Room, upstairs at the White House, and invited specialists from across the political spectrum. Sure, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell and Rice were there, along with a host of lesser Bushies. But none of them did the talking. Instead, five outsiders briefed the President, among them Michael McFaul, a Democrat and a Russia expert and Rice colleague from Stanford; Tom Graham, a Republican think-tanker; and Felix Rohatyn, the New York investment banker who was Clinton's ambassador to France. The surprising cast included two Brits--Lionel Barber, editor of the Financial Times, and the left-leaning Oxford scholar Timothy Garton Ash. For 2 1/2 hours Bush listened and asked questions. "He hasn't thought a lot about these issues before," says someone who was there, "so he's taking this very seriously."

To ease Bush into the first challenging diplomatic mission of his career, his advisers have made sure his first stop will be Spain. Why? Because Spain is a bridge to Latin America, a part of the world Bush knows reasonably well. He'll pay his respects to the King and Queen (Juan Carlos is an old friend of Dad's), spend a few hours at the Prime Minister's country retreat and then get some down time in Madrid. "A good warmup," admits a pleased senior Administration official. Then things get real. "The next day it's over to Brussels," the official says, a tinge of worry in his voice. "That's the first rough day of sitting around with men in suits."

Sitting around with men in suits may be a common pastime for world leaders, but it does not play to Bush's strengths. He is better in less formal settings that let him put his personality to work. And though there are moments on the world stage when charm can carry the day, they aren't likely to occur in Brussels or, for that matter, at the European Union conference in Goteborg, Sweden, which Bush will visit Thursday. These are places where talking policy is a treasured and complex art. There and elsewhere on his trip, Bush will face European Union members who are ideologically alien to him (11 of 15 E.U. governments are center-left) and wary of his reputation as a reckless cowboy, a unilateralist with scant regard for his allies. And when he caps his tour Saturday with Putin, he'll face his biggest challenge. The Russian is opposed to Bush's plans for a missile-defense system, and Bush needs to change Putin's mind. If Putin goes along, the rest of Europe--steadfastly opposed for now--will probably go along too.

If Bush's aides seemed nervous last week, it wasn't without cause. Their pupil has scant experience in foreign affairs, and when he has managed to work some in between selling his tax cut and his energy proposals, the results have been mixed. The spy-plane incident with China ended well, but in its early stages Bush was unsteady. Breaking off nonproliferation talks with North Korea, he contradicted his own Secretary of State and seemed dismissive of South Korea President Kim Dae Jung's Nobel Peace-prizewinning efforts at reconciliation with the North. Most of all, he infuriated allies across Europe by abruptly announcing that the U.S. would withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. Bush had promised a "humble foreign policy," but as far as Europe was concerned, he delivered the opposite in his first months as President.

A few weeks ago, Bush and his advisers began preparing for his European tour by pulling back on some contentious issues. Last week they received the results of a report on climate change that indicated global warming is--surprise!--an indisputable reality. Suddenly the President was no longer casting doubt on the problem or calling for "sound science." By Monday, he was expected to announce funding for new market-based initiatives aimed at reducing greenhouse emissions even as he remained deliberately vague on the issue of mandatory U.S. emission reductions, a key European demand. And to smooth ruffled South Korean feathers, the Administration last week announced it would offer to resume talks with the North on missile testing and development. Even the hard-nosed Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, who had previously argued for withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Balkans, conspicuously celebrated the righteousness of their mission on a visit there last week.

Those concessions produced a softening on the European side. Even the perennial Yank-bashers in Paris are trying to play nice. "Bush came in with big theories," says a French diplomat, "but on all these questions the Administration has evolved." Yet Bush is hardly rolling over on all issues. In response to American steelmakers' allegations of "dumping" by foreign manufacturers, the Administration may impose import tariffs on steel, an idea protested across Europe and Asia. "Bush is a single-minded ideologue," complains Portugal's former President, Mario Soares. "The U.S. is doing things that have grave consequences for the world." Some Europeans are angry about other issues, from "American cultural hegemony"--the Golden Arches on the Champs Elysees--to the perceived barbarism of the American death penalty. The planned execution of Timothy McVeigh has brought renewed protests from the E.U., where membership requires abolishing capital punishment.

The big money issue is missile defense, which most of Europe opposes but knows it probably can't stop. The question is, How ugly will this get? The Administration won an initial battle against European resistance in Munich last February, when it insisted it would go ahead no matter what. And it has pursued that advantage by furiously repackaging the missile-defense concept as a collaborative venture, inviting Russia and E.U. members to be founding partners. No one has agreed to come aboard, but the Administration is convinced European objections will evaporate if the U.S. can get Russia to do so. "The bottom line for [Europe] is, Don't put us in the middle of a fight between you and the Russians," says a senior State Department official. And so all eyes are on the Putin meeting.

Back when he was still campaigning for the G.O.P. nomination, Bush remarked to TIME that "anyone who tells you they have Putin figured out is blowing smoke." A year later, Putin remains a mystery. Last week Bush told a visiting business executive that he wondered whether Putin's KGB past would make him even harder to read. "I want to look him in the eye," Bush said, "and see if I can see his soul."

Bush has discussed Putin with world leaders ranging from Britain's Tony Blair to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. And he's been briefed by CIA experts on the way the former KGB officer charms foreign leaders in meetings such as this. Putin will be ready to banter on everything from the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty to Bush's love of baseball. He may even make some private small talk in English in an attempt to ease the tension of their first meeting. In that sense, at least, the Russian is a bit like Bush.

Putin is only marginally more experienced as a diplomat than Bush. For the Russian leader--whose key achievement has been to begin pulling his country out of an inferiority complex 10 years in the making--the meeting itself is the message. Securing quality time with a U.S. President signals that Russia remains a "great power" --if only because it retains its Soviet nuclear arsenal. Moscow lobbied hard for the meeting and wasn't pleased that Washington was slow to agree. Russian officials took note of every dismissive remark the Bushies made about Russia and were quick to point out that Bush found time to meet with the Prime Minister of Caribbean St. Kitts and Nevis (pop. 40,000) before he managed to squeeze Putin into his schedule.

When the Bush team took power, so intense was the desire for a missile shield that the only question seemed to be, Should we tear up the ABM treaty now or wait and do it in Putin's face? Five months later, officials gush about how "constructive" Putin has been on missile defense. As Europe's opposition stiffened, a meeting with Putin became a priority. "There was nothing to be gained by keeping Russia at a distance," says an aide. "We're more likely to work out our differences if we build up a decent relationship."

The Bush-Putin meeting is not expected to produce any grand agreements. Bush will come armed with loosely worded proposals for cooperation on missile defense and Russian membership in the World Trade Organization. But there will be little detail, and with the two-hour meeting eaten up by niceties and translation time, no deal is likely. But a deal isn't the point. What Bush is doing is setting a new tone for Europe. Five months into his term, it's time to make a better impression.

--With reporting by Jay Branegan and John F. Dickerson/Washington, Paul Quinn-Judge/Moscow and Thomas Sancton/Paris

With reporting by Jay Branegan and John F. Dickerson/Washington, Paul Quinn-Judge/Moscow and Thomas Sancton/Paris