Ivy-League Rivalries Spice Bhutto Dinner With Bushes

It was inevitable. She was a Cliffie. He was a Yalie. “I went to Harvard,” Benazir Bhutto said, “and I didn’t know until tonight that Yale ever produced a charming man, and I’m glad I’ve met the only one.”

At the White House Tuesday night, the after-dinner toasts were funny and casual. President George Bush made jokes about the Harvard-Yale game and about who was more fluent in English, he or Bhutto. But his toast was to Bhutto’s son. “He’s 9 months old,” Bush said. “He had to go to bed early so he couldn’t come to the White House. We were heartbroken, but I hope he’s having a good time in the United States.”

Benazir Bhutto had been at the White House 16 years earlier, accompanying her father, the prime minister of Pakistan. Tuesday night on the North Portico, she stood next to the President of the United States as the prime minister of Pakistan herself.

But the Executive Mansion looked different this time. And George Bush seemed to have some explaining to do. The President, gesturing at the ceiling and the columns, wasn’t talking to Bhutto about fighter jets or Afghanistan. No. This high-level discussion appeared to be about the not-so-white White House and its sandstone walls denuded of more than two dozen coats of paint that had been building up since the War of 1812.

Suddenly Bush turned and took her inside. Barbara Bush looked a little surprised to be so abruptly left behind with Bhutto’s husband, Asif Zardari--both of them smiling into a dozen cameras aimed in their direction.

State Dinner

It was the first official state dinner of the Bush Administration and the first visit by the 1973 Radcliffe College graduate to the United States as Pakistan’s new leader. Bush had already welcomed Bhutto to the White House earlier in the day. That’s when the two of them talked about reaching a political solution to the war in Afghanistan, and Bhutto also tried to allay U.S. fears about Pakistan’s development of nuclear weapons, an issue that threatens U.S. aid to Pakistan.

Interest in Bhutto was high long before her visit was announced. There had been the political execution of her father in 1979 and her own imprisonment, subsequent rise to power, arranged marriage and new baby.

She had accompanied her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, on a number of trips abroad. In 1973, she came to the United States when he paid a state visit as President Richard Nixon’s guest. Last night’s dinner guests included Nixon’s younger daughter, Julie, and her husband, David Eisenhower, and Benazir Bhutto will see Nixon in New York later this week.

The Usual Mix

The Bushes invited the usual mix of politicians, CEOs, media heavies and sports figures to the event.

Rep. Stephen Solarz (D-N.Y.) answered reporters’ questions about the President’s handling of U.S. relations with China. “If the killing continues,” he said, “then we’ll clearly have to take additional steps, but I think it was important for the President to go beyond mere rhetorical expressions of concern into a more concrete manifestation of our outrage over what’s happening.”

Fashion designer Arnold Scaasi, the man responsible for so many of Barbara Bush’s clothes, was mysteriously present at the dinner without being seen coming through the East Wing entrance. This aroused suspicions that he had already been inside the White House, perhaps working on new outfits. Tuesday night the First Lady wore a design of his--a bright pink chiffon dress with a rhinestone-studded top.

As she always does in public, Benazir Bhutto wore stylish but traditional dress, an emerald green silk embroidered with gold. Her head was shrouded with a scarf.

Even though married, she is always chaperoned. She first saw her husband-to-be, Asif Ali Zardari--a wealthy businessman--six days before their engagement was announced by her family. They were married in December, 1987, and have a son. Tuesday, there were rumors of a second child on the way, but when asked to confirm them, Bhutto said, “I wish I was. Keep your fingers crossed. Maybe the next time I come to Washington.”

Nicknamed Pinkie

Bhutto entered Radcliffe at age 16. Nicknamed Pinkie, she’s remembered for always covering her legs in pants, listening to Carly Simon and Joan Baez records and not dancing. She debated instead.

She went on to Oxford, where she studied diplomacy and was the first woman elected president of the Oxford Union debating society. She drove a yellow MG convertible. But shortly after she went home from Oxford her father was deposed in a coup.

Two years later, he was hanged, and Benazir Bhutto spent many of the following years in jail and under house arrest, until January 1984. She then went into exile, returning to Pakistan in 1986 as head of her father’s Pakistan People’s Party. She was sworn in as prime minister in December 1988.

On Wednesday, she was to meet with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and address a joint meeting of Congress, attend a luncheon in her honor at the Pentagon, given by Defense Secretary Richard Cheney, and host a reciprocal dinner for Vice President and Marilyn Quayle at the Pakistani Embassy. This morning, she will receive an award at Harvard, her alma mater, and in the evening, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy will host a dinner for her at the Kennedy Library in Boston.