Bush Confers With Mexico’s President-Elect

President-elect George Bush, who has moved quickly to build political bridges at home, today greeted Mexican President-elect Carlos Salinas de Gortari in an effort to extend a similar offer of cooperation across the border.

Bush told Republican governors at an earlier meeting in Alabama that he will appoint special negotiators to deal with the federal budget deficit, and he told reporters traveling with him that he has not decided on a new defense secretary, despite reports that he plans to appoint former Sen. John Tower of Texas.

Bush greeted Salinas at Ellington Air Force Base, shook his hand and escorted him to a waiting limousine for the motorcade to the Johnson Space Center, where the two future presidents had a luncheon meeting.

Initial Meeting

It was Bush’s first encounter with Salinas, the intellectual technocrat and novice politician who, beginning Dec. 1, will lead Mexico into what could be a period of historic, if difficult, change.

The meeting between Bush and Salinas occurred at what William Rogers, a former assistant secretary of state, described Monday as potentially “an important watershed” in a bilateral relationship subjected to conflict and tension over drugs, immigration and foreign policy.

It was, in a sense, a get-acquainted summit of Ivy Leaguers--Bush the Yale economics major and Salinas the Harvard-educated political economist.

Tower Story Denied

In his earlier conversation with reporters about the naming of a defense secretary, Bush said, “The Tower story is not right.”

Bush said he hopes to finish naming top-level members of his team within a month but expressed mild irritation about “reading these stories about what I have decided.” He indicated that the defense job would not be filled this week. Before flying to Houston, the Republican vice president spoke with GOP governors in Point Clear, Ala., where he promised the state executives that in the first day of his presidency he would name White House negotiators to meet with leaders of Congress about the federal budget deficit.

Bush told the governors he plans to sit down with Congress personally to deal with the deficit and also will reach out to governors for their “knowledge and good sense.”

“The American people, in voting for me, have said in clear terms that the solution for the federal budget deficit is to get better control of federal spending, keep the economy growing and not raise taxes,” he said.