Mission To Europe

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.