Gov. Deukmejian: He’s an American in Paris

Gov. George Deukmejian stood before dozens of guests at a reception in his honor at the American ambassador’s residence here and provided a rare glimpse of the emotion that constantly churns beneath his controlled, passionless exterior.

“This is a little bit nostalgic for me this evening,” he began.

The California governor had arrived a few hours earlier in brilliant sunshine at the Paris train station, stepped out of a first-class dining car and into a waiting limousine, and then was whisked to a genteel, century-old hotel within sight of the Louvre, the Place de la Concorde and the Champs Elysees.

But now, surrounded by elegance, sophistication and money, looking out through graceful French doors into a blossoming garden, Deukmejian recalled his first and only previous arrival in Paris--at the same train station and as a 24-year-old Army private of very limited means. “I didn’t know anyone, of course,” he said.

“I came in late at night. No one was there to greet me. I had to find my own way around town. Some (34) years later, I have finally arrived. I am at the home of the ambassador of the United States.

“And,” he added, punctuating each word and displaying a wide grin, “I am so happy.”

Deukmejian’s 11-day trip to London, Brussels and Paris, which ends Sunday with a trip home to Sacramento, was nothing if not a journey into nostalgia.

It also was a personal celebration of the American Dream, a concept that his intimates say has profoundly influenced this intensely driven son of Armenian immigrants, whose rug-merchant father lost it all in the Depression and whose mother worked in a garment sweatshop.

Officially, of course, it was a trip to promote California trade and investment and to open a London office. And the governor did that, too, although not with the fervor of his January trip to Japan, where trade tensions are far more strained and the issues much more clear-cut.

California’s trade deficit was less than $1 billion with the 12-nation European Economic Community in 1985--the last year for which figures are available--in contrast with a whopping $19 billion with Japan.

Everybody seems to be upset with Japan on trade: Deukmejian, President Reagan, congressional leaders--and all the European government and business leaders that the California delegation met.

Francois David, the French trade minister, vehemently denounced the Japanese on Friday, according to a Californian who was present, and told Deukmejian that Japan’s “closed markets” would be the No. 1 agenda item of European nations at this year’s economic summit conference in Italy of leading industrialized democracies.

By contrast, according to people who sat in on the meetings, there was calm acknowledgment by Deukmejian and the Europeans alike that both sides share blame for the most controversial trans-Atlantic trade problem affecting California: agriculture subsidies.

Besides distorting the world market, Deukmejian noted, the subsidies have become “a tremendously heavy burden” for taxpayers on both continents--costing $22 billion a year in Europe and $26 billion in the United States. “I sense that government leaders here are far more eager to try to address this issue than they were in Japan,” he told reporters.

Official Aspects

As for the official aspects of his trip--which included meetings with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, British Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe and Economic Community External Affairs Minister Willy de Clerq--the governor asserted that “all the key things that we wanted to achieve, I feel we did achieve.”

“The most we can accomplish,” he said, “is to meet with the key people and express our principal concerns. We’re not in a position to negotiate. That’s not our jurisdiction. . . . (but) we can no longer simply sit back and expect that our economy (in California) will grow by itself. We have to constantly work at it to compete.”

Deukmejian’s performance in Europe is difficult to evaluate.

“Neither his best friend nor his worst enemy would say he is a dramatic man,” observed Graham Burton, British consul general in San Francisco, who accompanied Deukmejian to many of his meetings and heard him speak to the London Chamber of Commerce. But Burton added, “I would say there’s an advantage in that, frankly. Businessmen don’t want drama. They want common sense.”

Drama Disdained

Drama and Deukmejian never have been synonymous. As a political tool, he disdains it as hype. True emotion boils inside, say intimates, but is controlled. On the surface, he appears cool.

Why? “I don’t know,” says one trusted adviser, who for years has urged Deukmejian, without success, to open up.

As the trip went on and Deukmejian drew closer to Paris, however, he became noticeably more relaxed, animated, even excited.

Aboard the train from Brussels, he joked to reporters about not being able to take his wife, Gloria, “to all the places I went to when I was in the Army before I got married.”

And later he confessed to a “little white lie” told to an Army officer in Frankfurt, West Germany, recounting it as if this almost had been some treasonable offense. He had claimed to have relatives in Bonn so he could get a three-day pass there and apply for an opening in the Judge Advocate Corps in Paris.

VIP Tour of Louvre

He stayed in Paris two years, renting a room from a Scottish minister on one side of the Arch of Triumph and working in an Army office on the other side. He walked almost everywhere, he recalled.

But Friday, after lunch with a couple of old French buddies and a VIP tour of the Louvre, the California governor got a police escort--lights flashing, horns sounding--down the the Champs Elysees to the Arch.

There he stood, proudly pointing out to his wife and 18-year-old daughter, Andrea--neither of whom had ever been to Europe--where he had worked, where he had resided and how he had lived.

“I hope you don’t wait another 34 years to come back,” Mrs. Deukmejian told him.