POLITICS 88 : Bush Staff Says He Would End Noriega Talks : It’s Clearest Signal Yet of Disengagement From the President

An extraordinary public statement by Vice President George Bush’s staff Friday that Bush favors ending Reagan Administration negotiations with Panamanian strongman Manuel A. Noriega was the clearest signal yet of Bush’s slow disengagement from President Reagan, under whose vast political shadow Bush has conducted his campaign.

Bush Chief of Staff Craig Fuller’s comment also marked the second time in as many weeks that Bush aides have served to distance the vice president from Administration positions seen as damaging to his political future.

The Fuller statement, released by Bush’s press office, followed a Washington Post story that said Bush had pressed senior Administration officials to cut off the negotiations with Noriega, who is under indictment on drug charges in the United States. The Administration is considering dropping the charges as an inducement to get Noriega to give up power in Panama.

A Startling Exception

“The Administration sources who have suggested that the vice president favors ending the negotiations . . . are essentially correct,” Fuller said.

Terse as it was, the statement was a startling exception to the Bush campaign’s routine refusal to comment publicly on what the vice president says in high-level Administration councils.

Until now, the principle of confidentiality has been used by the Bush campaign--and the vice president himself--to deflect questions about the Iran-Contra affair, Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III’s legal predicament and a host of other issues that have emerged during Bush’s months-long presidential effort.

The release of the statement also underscored the escalating vulnerability perceived to surround Bush’s candidacy, as national surveys show a deepening gulf between his fortunes and those of the expected Democratic nominee, Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis.

‘Honeymoon Period’

Richard Bond, Bush’s deputy campaign manager, drew a distinction recently between the two campaigns, contending that Dukakis was in a short-term “honeymoon period.”

“Conversely, with Bush right now what do we have? Meese, plant closings, Noriega, Grove City, which is only one side to Bush,” Bond said.

The plant-closing remark referred to the Administration’s opposition to a trade bill’s stipulation that workers be notified in advance when employers close operations, and “Grove City” was the moniker of a recent civil rights bill vetoed by the President. Both issues continue to be used against Bush by Democratic candidates.

The public phase of Bush’s weaning from Reagan began on May 6, when two members of Bush’s inner circle, pollster-adviser Robert Teeter and Press Secretary Peter B. Teeley, were quoted in the Detroit News as criticizing the effect of Meese’s continuing legal problems on the campaign. Teeley called Meese “a liability,” while Teeter added: “All things considered, you would rather not have this problem going on right now.”

‘Troubled’ by Allegations

The closest Bush himself has come to publicly repudiating Meese was to say that he was “troubled” by the conflict-of-interest allegations raised about the attorney general.

Fuller’s satement Friday accomplished the same objective of putting Bush on the opposite side of a controversial action from Reagan without making the vice president himself come out with a decisive statement opposing the President.

Bush’s public comments about the Noriega negotiations were obvious--but still indirect--in a speech Wednesday at the Los Angeles Police Academy. Bush said then that he would not “deal with drug dealers, either, whether they’re on U.S. or foreign soil.”

The remark was widely taken as a measure of Bush’s opposition to the Noriega deal-making, and aides did nothing to disabuse that conclusion.

Bush also has in recent weeks put more emphasis on his plans to court minority voters and to mount a domestic agenda sensitive to the environment, in both cases indicating subtle differences from Reagan’s path.