A Slow Start for Bush

...In an ensuing newspaper interview, Bush declared, "I haven't thought beyond one year...

...He replied, "I'd like to think that you might see by then some new foreign policy initiative...

...Pressed as to whether it was a four-year pledge, he responded, "I'd like it to be a four-year pledge, yes.' The tax question is not hypothetical...

...At the end of his first week in office, he was obviously exhilarated...

...Altogether, President Bush has been, in programmatic terms, slow in getting off the mark...

...The stationing of missiles in Cuba appears, a quarter-century later, to have been a bold effort at a quick fix for nuclear inferiority—an attempt by Khrushchev to get his generals off his back...

...When Richard G. Darman was asked, during his confirmation hearings as director of the Of fice of Management and Budget, for how long the pledge was valid, he answered, "As a starting position, we might as well assume forever...

...Against this, it is now revealed, the Soviets had only 20 intercontinental rockets targeted on the United States, not the 75 estimated by American intelligence at the time...

...On his preconfirmation rounds, he had told Senator Bob Packwood (R-Ore...

...The Administration seemed to be having trouble, too, avoiding the impression that it was hinting at some expiration date on its no-new-taxes commitment...

...It appeared that the Administration was making awkward efforts to open up some "wiggle room" for itself on taxes...

...The new President is manifestly enjoying his surprises...

...His generals were demanding an answer to a nuclear imbalance whose dimensions are now known for the first time...

...There was one, on the other side...

...He announced plans for trips to Canada, Japan, China and Korea, making it appear that he was working harder on his itinerary than his agenda...

...Another 20 missiles were on their way aboard a Soviet ship halted by the American blockade...

...At his January 27 news conference he was asked, "In what area are you going to try to move forward...

...Meanwhile, Faisal Husseini, an authentic West Bank Palestinian who is also prominent in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), has been released from prison by Defense Minister Yitzchak Rabin and has met with defense officials...

...Now, he had to backtrack again, and his confirmation hearing before the Senate Finance Committee was postponed indefinitely—for other reasons, the White House said...

...With regard to his "kinder, gentler" campaign proposals, like a child-care tax credit, he said, "We're just in the process of sorting all this out.' A bipartisan child-care bill that came close to enactment in the 100th Congress has already started moving through the 101st, and the President may find that the child-care train has left the station...

...Some Soviet officials had their families leave Moscow, Fidel Castro slept in a bomb shelter, and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara wondered if he would live to see another Saturday night...

...Secretary-designate for Health and Human Services Louis W. Sullivan, who has had difficulty reconciling his personal convictions as a physician with his resolve to implement the President's policies, was caught out once again...

...On the overarching problem of the budget deficit, Bush made an astonishing statement to Time magazine in a preinaugurai interview: "I've started going into the numbers finally and they're enormous...

...Foreign policy should be President Bush's strong suit, but here as well he seemed slow in getting off the mark...

...It was interesting to learn, too, that 20 Soviet missiles had already been deployed—aimed at American cities, including New York and Washington— with their nuclear warheads stored not far away from the launching sites under tight Soviet control...

...At his news conference he twice volunteered that he was not dragging his feet and would not allow the Soviets to put him in a foot-dragging "mode...

...It was evident in the relaxed, uncombative relationship established with the press, the pointed emphasis on ethics in government, and the expressed esteem for public servants...

...And since Pakistan is no longer so vital to supplying the Afghan guerrillas, Bush has an unpleasant decision to make, too long delayed, about whether Pakistan qualifies for foreign aid in view of its insistence on developing a nuclear weapon...

...Chief of Staff John H. Sununu said on television that it would apply "as long as the climate of this country is appropriate...

...He answered, "All of them...

...But the big question was, why did Nikita S. Khrushchev embark on a venture that he must have known was laden with risk of confrontation...

...In a preinaugurai interview with Newsweek, he was asked what he hoped to accomplish internationally in his first hundred days...

...In his first week he had already seen three portents of conflicts to come ("little ripples on the surface of an otherwise calm pond," he called them...

...Prime Minister Yitzchak Shamir, in preparation for a trip to Washington in late March or early April, has been oozing out tempting droplets of some new peace plan...

...Central America...

...At his January 27 news conference the President said, "I think it should be a fouryear pledge...

...This was two years after President John F. Kennedy had campaigned on the threat of a "missile gap...

...The President felt obliged to address a Right-to-Lifers demonstration, albeit by telephone, and to tell them what they wanted to hear—that he believes Roe v. Wade "was wrong and should be overturned...

...Where...

...It was interesting to discover how real the threat of nuclear war seemed to those involved by the weekend of October 27...

...Sometimes he seemed to be pinching himself to make sure it was really true that he was out from under the long Reagan shadow and could say and do what he wanted...

...Yet some situations passed on by the Reagan Administration demand an early resolution...

...What will stop it remains unclear...

...With his faltering economy under strain, his hopes for arms control agreements buried in the collapse of the 1960 Paris Summit and the ensuing Berlin crisis, the Soviet leader appeared to be involved in a classic guns vs...

...Outgoing Secretary of State George P. Shultz, for example, recommended ending trade restrictions on the Soviet Union now that its troops are being withdrawn from Afghanistan...

...Daniel Schorr is currently the senior news analyst for National Public Radio...

...butter conflict...

...This suggests that a way is being sought to deal with indigenous Palestinians while trying to mute their PLO connections...

...The Mideast...

...In the initial days of his Administration he put much emphasis on a different style...

...But the President was realistic enough to say he knew he could not long get away with merely setting a tone and enunciating inspirational themes...

...a freedomof-choice advocate, that he personally supported the decision legalizing abortion...

...But we've got to have a little time...

...Disappointment then greeted the news that former Secretary of Education William J. Bennett, now coordinator for the "war on drugs, " would not sit in the Cabinet, would not have significant additional money for rehabilitation, would not deal with law enforcement, and as far as could be seen would not be doing a great deal beyond replacing Nancy Reagan in the "just say no" role...

...In the case of Soviet-American relations, however, Bush may not have much time...

...I happened to be driving past the White House on January 27 when I heard on the radio that President George Bush would be holding a news conference in 10 minutes...

...A tentative idea for levying fees on savings deposits as one way of financing a solution to the "thrift crisis" leaked from Capitol Hill, producing sharp reactions from Congress and the public...

...In the Middle East, President Bush is fortunate to have "a little time" because, in any event, the Israeli-Palestinian dynamic is where the action is for the moment...

...The third "ripple" was connected with the fact that the 15th anniversary of the 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade coincided with Bush's first working day, January 23...

...I don't know how or when...

...More important is the stand of the United States as Afghan "freedom fighters," the mujahedeen, besiege the crumbling Kabul government and prepare for strife among themselves...

...Cuban Crisis One piece of old business...

...President Bush has said he wants to play a "catalytic" role in Afghanistan, but he has some hard decisions to make on how to encourage a more orderly transition of power, what further military supplies to send the guerrillas and, indeed, what military equipment to ask to have returned before it falls into the hands of the wrong Muslim group...

...McNamara agreed that, given the Bay of Pigs landing, the attempts to overthrow and assassinate Castro and the contingency plans for a larger incursion, the Russians had reason to fear invasion, but he said none was planned...

...In 1962, the United States had 203 intercontinental missiles targeted on the Soviet Union, along with 105 intermediate-range missiles deployed in Britain, Italy and Turkey...

...Although his was the first intraparty transfer of power in 60 years and he had been part of the Reagan Administration for eight years, he seemed to have no immediate idea of what he wanted to do...

...The one specific promise in Bush's "new breeze" inauguration homily was in relation to drugs, "This scourge will stop...

...It also happens to be an election year...

...The Soviet conference participants suggested that the answer was fear of an American invasion of Cuba...

...A Moscow conference last month brought together American, Soviet and Cuban decision-makers in the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962...

...He has mentioned that there could be a role for the United Nations in an Israeli-Palestinian negotiation, and he has said that if, in line with the Camp David accords, autonomy on the West Bank was agreed upon, then the Israeli Army might move out of some urban centers...

...That will be much harder to do for the succeeding year, with a $65 billion deficit limit...

...Conceivably, the Administration could work out a way of meeting the $ 100 billion deficit ceiling under the GrammRudman-Hollings Act for the coming fiscal year without new revenues...

...Thus, 40 missiles in Cuba would have tripled effective Soviet strategic strength against the United States, providing some hope of surviving a first strike...

...The Democratic leadership in Congress, reluctant to allow the tax issue to be postponed until then, is likely to insist on a two-year agreement that would resolve the matter this year...

...My own impression, from the information released at the Moscow meeting, is that Khrushchev was impelled by something much closer to him than worry about Cuba...