Bush to Use Speech to Leave Reagan Shadow : Acceptance Talk to Spell Out How His Presidency Would Be Different and Shift ‘Focus to the Future’

Vice President George Bush on Monday portrayed the Republican convention as his first opportunity to emerge from Ronald Reagan’s shadow and declared that, in accepting the GOP nomination here Thursday, he will spell out how a Bush presidency would be different from the Reagan Administration.

Bush said his nomination means that the party will be “shifting the focus to the future.”

Tribute to Reagan

In an interview with The Times in Washington, the vice president called the convention’s farewell to Reagan Monday night “a very nostalgic and fitting tribute” to the 77-year-old President, but he said the convention “not just symbolically but actually focuses on the change” in the party’s leadership.

“And I say actually,” Bush added, “because I will be the nominee of the Republican Party. It’s more than just symbolism. It’s an actuality.”

Bush, who is scheduled to arrive in New Orleans from Washington today, appeared tanned and upbeat, although a little tired, during The Times interview in his office in the Old Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House. He has been fine-tuning the fifth draft of his acceptance speech and mulling over the choice of a running mate.

He said he had not made a final decision on a running mate but indicated that he is through conferring with aides and will not let them in on his decision until the last minute.

As for when the “last minute” would be--Wednesday night, as some aides have suggested, or Thursday morning, as he had planned--Bush left himself some room to maneuver.

“Well, what’s under discussion with me is Thursday morning,” he said in answer to a question, “but I don’t feel locked on that. But that’s the plan. I think I should have whatever flexibility is required.”

He said he was not worried that announcing his choice Thursday morning would overshadow his acceptance speech later that evening, as some Republican strategists fear.

The drawn-out selection process brought some mild criticism, however, from Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas, who is believed to be one of the top contenders. Speaking to reporters here, Dole questioned the strategic value of Bush’s decision to wait until the last minute to name his running mate.

“There may be suspense around here . . . but I don’t know how much suspense there is in Topeka or Los Angeles or Chicago,” Dole said.

He asserted that his own ill-fated 1976 vice presidential campaign had been handicapped because then-President Gerald R. Ford named him so late in the convention that Dole was forced to begin campaigning before he could assemble a staff or make plans.

Support Team Assembled

Although noting that the Bush campaign has already assembled a support team for the eventual vice presidential nominee, Dole said: “I didn’t see any reason to give Bentsen and Dukakis a five-week head start.”

Convention organizers acknowledged Monday that time pressures caused by the delay in naming the running mate had forced them to begin writing “generic” speeches for last-minute use by the eventual nominee.

Bush, in his interview with The Times, stressed that his recent proposals in campaign speeches have been attempts to emphasize differences between a future Bush Administration and the Reagan Administration. And he suggested that he would dwell on those differences--on issues such as child care and education--in his speech accepting the nomination.

“I’ve been spelling out my position on issues with some differences from the Administration’s in speeches,” he said. “I don’t think the American people are too familiar with them, with my six-point program on drugs or the three things I’d like to do on ethics or the specifics on foreign affairs or energy.

“And, in each of these areas and others--environment--there’s an emphasis on difference or a specific approach difference with the present Administration. So . . . the process has begun.”

Won’t Attack Rival

Although Gov. Michael S. Dukakis, the Democratic nominee, attacked Bush and repeatedly criticized the Reagan Administration in his acceptance speech, Bush indicated he would focus his speech on his own philosophy and background and leave the attacking to other Republican speakers.

“It’ll be a combination of some specifics and some broad philosophical themes and then some personal comments about who I am,” he said.

As the GOP opened its 34th convention at the Superdome here Monday with speeches by party stalwarts, Dukakis was criticized as a champion of “the failed liberal policies of yesterday”--in the words of former Delaware Gov. Pierre S. (Pete) du Pont IV.

Du Pont declared that “the most interesting thoughts” from last month’s Democratic convention “came not from its presidential candidate . . . who represents the failed liberal policies of yesterday” but from civil rights leader Jesse Jackson.

And, to a bare sprinkle of applause, Du Pont went on to say of Jackson, “We need you and you need us . . . . As long as you have breath, yours will be a prominent voice, but, as long as you speak as a Democrat, you will never be a successful leader.”

Haig Criticizes Democrats

There was harsher criticism of Dukakis and the Democratic Party from former Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr., who savaged Bush during the Republican primaries but Monday praised the vice president as someone who “represents safe and progressive change for America.”

Haig, who rejected requests from Bush forces to delete some of his sharpest remarks, said that “Americans know that Michael Dukakis will trash them” and went on to compare the Democratic Party to a bat “flying erratically for brief periods at low levels and hanging upside down for extended periods in dark, damp caves, up to its navel in guano.”

When asked if Haig’s remark represented a departure from what Bush aides had sought, Fred Malek, the convention director, said: “You’re damn right. We did not think that was an appropriate sequence of words. That was Al Haig’s doing, not ours. We definitely told him we did not think that was a good thing to do.”

Malek said Haig had agreed earlier, but “slept on it” and decided to go ahead with the bat guano line.

Haig’s speech was delivered Monday morning and thus was not seen by the large prime time television audience.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) also offered biting criticism of Dukakis. In referring to the need for a strong national defense, McCain said: “Michael Dukakis seems to think that the Trident is a chewing gum, that the B-1 is a vitamin pill and that the Midgetman is anyone shorter than he is.”

For the most part, however, speakers refrained from directly attacking the Democratic nominee and instead simply contrasted the economic upturn of the Reagan era with the double-digit inflation and high interest rates of the last Democratic Administration, that of Jimmy Carter.

Kemp Praises Bush

Rep. Jack Kemp of New York, reportedly one of the top contenders to be Bush’s running mate, praised Reagan and Bush for bringing America back from “the dreary litany of domestic troubles” it faced when they took office in 1981: “Double-digit inflation, rising unemployment, a 21% prime rate, and a mortgage rate of 16% and falling living standard, and the fear that the world was running out of energy.”

As he spoke, a Kemp-for-vice-president campaign was started on the convention floor with a letter circulated in the Michigan delegation urging Bush to pick Kemp as his running mate.

Elizabeth Hanford Dole, former secretary of transportation and a potential Bush running mate, said the vice president would be a worthy successor to Reagan. “Peace, progress, opportunity,” she said. “That’s what we are here to celebrate. That’s the legacy of a great President, Ronald Reagan. And that will be the legacy of the next President of the United States, George Bush.”

Washington Bureau Chief Jack Nelson reported from New Orleans and staff writer Cathleen Decker reported from Washington. Also contributing to this story from New Orleans were staff writers Sara Fritz, David Lauter, Richard E. Meyer, Bob Secter and Henry Weinstein.

EVENING SESSION HIGHLIGHTS 5 p.m. Call to Order. 6:15 p.m. Speech by Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, former U.N. ambassador and keynote address by New Jersey Gov. Thomas H. Kean. 7:25 p.m. Speech by the Rev. Pat Robertson. 7:45 p.m. Speech by former President Gerald R. Ford. 8:30 p.m. Adjournment. CBS, NBC and ABC will provide live coverage of the convention from 6 to 8 p.m. CNN will broadcast from 5 to 8 p.m. Times listed are PDT.