Reporter’s Notebook : After You, Mr. President: In Brussels, Protocol Leads the Way

President Bush showed his egalitarian spirit at lunch Monday when Belgian Prime Minister Wilfried Martens escorted him to a Royal Palace repast of turbot with herbs, pigeon with truffles, cheese, and almond pastry.

Bush wanted Martens to lead the way, as the President would have done in Washington.

“Presidents should go first,” said Martens, emphasizing that Bush is a chief of state while the prime minister is only chief of government.

“But this is not the White House,” Bush responded, indicating that he thought the host should lead the way.

Sticklers for protocol were also surprised at a breach of convention Monday morning by NATO Secretary General Manfred Woerner, the official greeter.

Since French President Francois Mitterrand is the senior NATO chief of state--President Bush is the only other leader with that title--he was scheduled to arrive at the Brussels headquarters last, to avoid having to wait for his more junior colleagues.

Woerner was on hand a bit earlier to welcome President Bush at 9 a.m., and he escorted the American leader to the conference’s waiting room.

Inexplicably, Woerner did not return to the front door in time to greet Mitterrand several minutes later.

The haughty French president was forced to make his way, ungreeted, into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s headquarters. He did not look amused.

Another delicate protocol matter worried those in charge of the formal dinner Monday night: Would Greek Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou show up with his statuesque mistress?

Papandreou’s woman friend, Dimitra Liani, 34, accompanied him to Brussels, but it was not known whether the 70-year-old Greek leader considered her to be here in an official or unofficial capacity.

Papandreou’s estranged American wife, Margaret, was also in Brussels as a member of a group demonstrating on behalf of peace in Europe.

At a late hour, NATO officials said they had not received an official request from the Greeks to make a place for “Mimi,” as Liani is known.

“There is only limited seating at the banquet,” said one NATO official. “I don’t know what we are going to do if Papandreou shows up with her.”

He thought a moment, then--noting that the Greek press has run many front-page photographs of the former Olympic Airways flight attendant posing nude--added dryly: “We can always say we didn’t recognize her with her clothes on.”

British artist John Hughes-Wilson’s lively and controversial dining place-mats, cartoon caricatures of the 16 NATO members were, in his not altogether original phrase, “selling like hot cakes” in the headquarters foyer.

Illustrated to show presumed national characteristics, the circular design reads: The perfect NATO member should be:

Generous as a Dutchman.

Sober as a Norwegian.

Discreet as a Dane.

Reserved as an Italian.

Straightforward as a Brit.

Active as a Spaniard.

Organized as a Greek.

Relaxed as a Turk.

Conspicuous as a Luxembourger.

Intelligible as an Icelander.

Humble as a Frenchman.

Technical as a Portuguese.

Available as a Belgian.

Humorous as a German.

Calm as a Canadian.

Flexible as an American.

The cartoon designed to represent the Americans showed a U.S. soldier angering a subordinate as he flaunted a huge book entitled: NATO Regulations.

“One American officer told me national stereotypes were wrong,” the artist said. “But Secretary General Woerner, a German, said that anyone who could not laugh at the cartoons could not be a good member of the alliance.”