Winging It: European Summit, Russia Trip Take Unexpected Turns

By Peter Baker
Monday, April 7, 2008

SOCHI, Russia International summits are usually the most scripted thing a president does. He shows up in a foreign capital, people read their talking points, sign the precooked documents that usually don't mean very much, shake hands, pose for pictures, declare it a great success and go home.

And then there was last week.

When President Bush arrived in Europe for a NATO summit and a follow-up meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi, he and his aides were not at all certain how things would turn out. Bush was pushing for NATO membership road maps for two former Soviet republics, Ukraine and Georgia, and advisers went into the summit thinking there was a better than even chance of getting them. In the end, Germany and France blocked him but agreed to an encouraging statement.

Similarly, the Sochi trip was a fluid exercise. The very decision to go there was not made until just 10 days before Bush's departure, which in presidential terms is a last-minute decision that set both governments scrambling to pull together the extensive logistics, not to mention the politics. Aides first predicted he might get a missile defense deal, then said he wouldn't, then hammered out a statement with the Russians and called it a major breakthrough.

At times, nothing seemed to be going quite according to plan. The NATO discussion of Ukraine and Georgia became so heated and so drawn out at one point that a dinner scheduled for 90 minutes went 3 1/2 hours. During the formal session the next day, when NATO expected to admit three new members, Greece vetoed one of the candidates, Macedonia, prompting the Macedonians to storm out of the meeting.

Bush, too, bolted out of a later meeting, though out of exhaustion rather than protest. Putin subverted all the careful planning by showing up uninvited to a NATO dinner that evening.

And he later surprised Bush in Sochi by pulling him onto a stage during another dinner to dance with the folk performers. ("It was a Russian version of the Africa move," spokeswoman Dana Perino said afterward, referring to Bush's impromptu dancing during his February trip to Africa.)

"People really got off script," national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley said at one point during the trip. "You know, the characterization of these meetings are people sitting around a table reading prepared talking points. [But] in the discussions today, people talked with a first person and a passion that was interesting."

Hadley was thinking in particular of what he called an "astonishing" scene when German Chancellor Angela Merkel was surrounded by a cluster of men in suits haggling out a statement on Ukraine and Georgia. "It doesn't happen in NATO meetings a lot," Hadley said. "It's a good thing. It's an indication of this alliance, I think, grappling with real issues in a very meaningful way."

And a spontaneous way, for a change.

Low-Carb Rice

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice joined Bush on his trip, catching up to him from her Middle East trip. She's been quite the globetrotter lately, challenging Henry Kissinger's record for foreign travel. So with all that frequent flying, how does she keep in shape?

Fitness magazine has the sweaty scoop with an interview and picture spread showing the chief U.S. diplomat doing tummy crunches and working with weights with her personal trainer. "How does one of the most controversial figures in the White House today seem to shut it all down, throw on a sports bra and let the pressures of the day slide off her back?" the magazine teased in its introduction.

Hmm. We're not sure what Kissinger would think. Or for that matter the Saudis or the Pakistanis. But Rice walked the magazine through her regimen, describing how she gets up at 4:30 a.m. and exercises on the treadmill or elliptical machine while watching "SportsCenter" highlights until 5:30, when she heads in to work.

She's asleep by 10 p.m., she said, and she restricts herself to healthy meals during the week but permits herself fried chicken or anything else she wants on weekends. As a girl, she reveals, she was "a little chubbette" but now she's a fitness fiend and wants to be like Mike. " Michael Jordan is probably the most beautiful athlete of all time," she gushed.

This reminds us of the wickedly funny anecdote in our colleague Glenn Kessler's recent book on Rice, "The Confidante: Condoleezza Rice and the Creation of the Bush Legacy." At a party, one of Rice's friends wanted to prove how tight her bottom was, so without her realizing what he was doing, he bounced a quarter off her tush while she was dancing.

Memo to NATO ministers: Don't try this.

Alley Cat

While Rice hits the elliptical, other top Bush advisers have their own ways of letting off steam. Take White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten, for instance. When he arrived in Bucharest, Romania, for the NATO summit, he sneaked off the first night for an evening of bowling, along with communications director Kevin Sullivan and some others.

When Bolten, an avid motorcycle rider, got to Zagreb, Croatia, he managed to get away long enough to hit the local Harley-Davidson store, where he bought a T-shirt. Then, in Sochi, he hit another bowling alley.

Moving On Up

More shuffling back home while the president was overseas: After Felipe Sixto abruptly quit as special assistant for intergovernmental affairs due to a scandal involving grant money, John S. Roberts was moved up from associate director. Patrick S. Aylward, who runs Bolten's office, was also given the title of special assistant to the president. And Amy L. Farrell was moved over from the Council on Environmental Quality to serve as special assistant for economic policy.

Glass Half-Something

"The White House has said it does not expect President Bush's talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin to produce a missile defense deal."

-- Associated Press bulletin from Air Force One as it headed toward Russia on Saturday

"White House says expects missile defense talks with Putin to head in 'right direction' toward signing 'strategic framework.' "

-- Reuters bulletin from the same midair briefing

Bush Word of the Week

"Hanger-on-ers."

-- As in Bush praising Romanian Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu for hosting the NATO summit: "It's not easy to host as many automobiles, bodyguards, world leaders, hanger-on-ers as you did."

Quote of the Week

"The latest incarnation of Elvis."

-- President Bush on French President Nicolas Sarkozy