Nation : First Lady Won’t Go to Malta

Barbara Bush will not accompany the President to the Malta summit in early December, her spokeswoman announced today.

Anna Perez, the First Lady’s press secretary, said the journey to the Mediterranean had been ruled out, but she was unable to say why.

Last week, Mrs. Bush said she was waiting for an invitation--apparently from her husband--and said she could “pack in no time.”

Perez said the First Lady “wanted to do what her husband wanted her to do. . . . She wanted to do what was appropriate.”

There has been no word from Moscow on whether Raisa Gorbachev will accompany her husband to the meeting, scheduled for Dec. 2-3 on American and Soviet warships in the Mediterranean off Malta. But the Soviet leader and his wife have scheduled a state visit to Italy just before the summit.