Subtle Departure From Reagan : Stronger Human Rights Stand Needed, Bush Says

Vice President George Bush, appearing once again to subtly distance himself from President Reagan, said Thursday that the United States should insist on more substantive Soviet compliance with human rights accords before agreeing to another summit meeting.

“We have an objective standard--an objective standard they agreed to, the Helsinki Final Act, and I would press for the maximum adherence to that,” Bush said.

His remarks were made a day after President Reagan, apparently easing up on the Soviet Union’s human rights record, said the communist bureaucracy--not intentional policy--had caused limited Soviet emigration in violation of the Helsinki accords. Bush refused to answer directly when asked about the President’s statement, but his comments took a harder line than Reagan’s.

On another foreign affairs topic that has dogged his presidential campaign, Bush defended himself in a Times interview as “one of the few” in the Administration who tried to persuade Panamanian leaders to clean up their drug-torn country.

He turned aside criticisms that he should have followed up on early suggestions that Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega meant trouble for the U.S.

“Did I see that Noriega would take over? No, I didn’t see that he would take over and become a totalitarian, total dictator,” Bush said.

In the interview, Bush bristled about Democratic complaints that he is too privileged to be President. He also outlined his plans for an aggressive, yet delegating, presidential management style, and he defended his campaign’s reliance on staged photo opportunities--although conceding “they sometimes do seem endless.”

The interview, conducted at Bush’s seaside estate here, came at the close of six days of meetings to map out issue positions and campaign strategy. It came also at a time when Bush is increasingly under pressure to declare independence from Reagan, a move he has made in recent weeks by using aides to outline policy differences between the two.

Asked if he would ever personally confront those differences in public, Bush answered tersely: “No. I don’t see a point in pointing out differences.”

And in discussing the completed superpower summit meeting, Bush appeared once again to follow the path of indirect disagreement.

Speaking to reporters outside his home here, Bush lauded the President’s initial approach, taken last Friday, when Reagan blistered the Soviet Union for failing to live up to the Helsinki accords of 1975, under which the Soviets vowed to provide more liberty for their citizens.

“I think the human rights question being raised very forcefully by the President was very good,” Bush said. But when asked about Reagan’s later statement that bureaucracy, not policy, was behind the lack of compliance, Bush said he would press for “maximum adherence” to the agreements.

Human Rights Compliance

In the interview, Bush went further, saying he would consider human rights compliance in deciding, as President, whether to call a superpower summit meeting.

“But I don’t think you can set a standard,” Bush said.

“I think the answer is to look at events at the time . . . . Where we stand on negotiations, where we stand on trying to achieve things, should be the determining factor, not meeting for the sake of meeting.”

On the subject of Noriega, whose indictment on drug charges and refusal to leave Panama has proven an embarrassment to Bush’s campaign, the vice president defended his activities and sought to shift responsibility onto the U.S. State Department.

Bush has come under fire for taking little obvious action after he was alerted at least twice to irregularities involving drugs and Panamanian officials.

In December, 1983, Bush met with Panamanian officials, including Noriega, and according to Bush urged them to clean up money-laundering operations. Two years later, Bush and two aides met with the U.S. ambassador to Panama to discuss Panamanian problems. One of the aides, national security adviser Donald Gregg, testified recently that the participants came away “with the sense that Noriega was a growing problem--politically, militarily and possibly in the drug area.”

Bush said in the interview that he had exhausted his responsibilities: “I talked to the president of Panama with Noriega there about laundering, you know, Panama getting involved in money laundering, being sure that--exhorting that they not do that. Took action, went there, talked to them as part of the overall policy of the United States government, one of the few people who did something of that nature.”

Asked what he did to follow up on the accusations, Bush replied: “The State Department is the policy-making thing and you know, they were very pleased with the meeting, you know, and they obviously followed up.”

Describes Management Style

In the interview, Bush described his management style as aggressive yet delegating, vowing to work as a hands-on President on pressing matters while handing off others to trusted aides. In essence, what he described was a middling approach between those of Jimmy Carter, known as a micro-manager, and Ronald Reagan, who has been criticized for delegating too much.

Bush, in keeping with his pledge not to pick at Reagan, refused to characterize his description of how he would manage the White House as a criticism of Reagan. “I’m not going to join the corps of criticism against President Reagan,” he said. “But I might bring it up on Jimmy Carter.”

Bush said he would personally monitor negotiations with Congress over the budget and left open the possibility that other topics would receive similar attention.

“You give a general direction to people and you get people who are very knowledgeable in their fields, they flesh out the details and you familiarize yourself with some--not every single--detail,” he said in describing his management tactics.

The vice president is widely known for accommodating a vast number of advisers, whom he contacts by phone or in the dozens of missives he regularly jots down. But he expressed some concern that the burdens of the presidency could force him into a narrowed perspective.

“You see the pressures in the White House,” he said. “I’d like to be able to maintain talking to people around the country, you know, listening to them. I’m a good listener. And I think to be President you have to be a good listener . . . . I have learned from that. I like conflicting ideas.”

Bush has been criticized, however, for the similarity among his advisers in one obvious respect--most are white, upper-class males like him. He acknowledged Thursday that he faces a “perceptual” problem among the women and minority voters he needs to win in November.

No women or minorities, for example, are included in the highest levels of the Bush campaign structure. But Bush said he does not believe that poses a problem. He said he believes voters understand that he has hired women and minorities in the past for positions in his vice presidential office.

“I think they know me and if they look at our campaign structure they see very able women involved in it, so I don’t think there’s a problem on that,” he said. “I think the answer to the gender gap and all is to get out there and make clear what you’re for,” he shrugged. “And maybe there’ll continue to be one . . . .”

In the week of meetings in Kennebunkport, Bush and his advisers laid plans for appealing to the concerns of middle-class Americans--child care, education, jobs. But it was not lost on some that the discussions were held in a rambling seafront estate. Bush’s wealthy background, in fact, has become a major jabbing point for Democrats, and the vice president Thursday indicated he plans to return the blows in kind.

“Some are suggesting that there may be some similarities between the backgrounds of Dukakis and Bush,” he said, in an apparent reference to the relatively comfortable surroundings in which Dukakis grew up.

“I don’t think injecting a class thing is the American way,” he said. “I don’t remember that being raised against Franklin Roosevelt or (John F.) Kennedy, liberal Democrats.”

‘Invest in Kids’ Theme

In recent days, Bush has tried out a campaign theme of “Invest in our kids,” saying that all children deserve an equal chance at the starting line. On Thursday he acknowledged persistent gaps in opportunity.

“There’s always been regrettable levels of poverty, even though a lot of people are doing well and even though the education system basically across this country is pretty good,” he said. He refused to discuss whether opportunities could have been expanded had the Administration invoked different policies during the past two terms.

“I don’t see any point in going back and criticizing an Administration of which I’m proud to be a part,” he said.

Bush answered questions from an easy chair in the den of his home, dressed casually in battered pants, a black jacket and a green shirt to ward off the Maine cold. He stared at the sea from time to time.

He also, as is customary when he speaks to small groups, displayed an ease at kidding himself. He did so when asked whether he is bothered by the constant trips to factories across the nation that his campaign sets up to spur television coverage.

“I know it’s viewed with a certain degree of cynicism--you know, in the political arena,” he said. “People go: ‘There he is, photo op (opportunity).’ But I learn from those things.”

Bush said he remains confident about his chances in November, but there was a slight droop in his typical buoyancy when he was asked what forces would control the election.

“I don’t know the answer,” he replied. “I’ve normally felt that people--that the economy is what controls federal elections. How people are doing, how they think they are going to be doing; that’s what I have historically felt is the driving force. The jobs, the neighborhoods and the economy.

“But we’ll see.”