Irate Bush Vows to Limit Contacts With Press

Stung by news reports that he is secretive and deceptive, a fuming President Bush told the news media today as he flew to Colombia for a four-nation drug conference, “From now on, it’s going to be a little different.”

Bush vowed to hold fewer news conferences and to limit his sessions with reporters in the future.

“I’m not going to be burned for holding out or doing something deceptive,” Bush said.

Bush aired his grievances with the news media in a chat with reporters aboard Air Force One, shortly before he landed here to transfer to a helicopter that would take him to Cartagena for a drug summit with the presidents of Colombia, Bolivia and Peru.

What apparently riled the President were news stories suggesting he had sometimes said one thing, then done something else.

For instance, his comments at a news conference Monday that he did not think it was time for a four-power conference on the future of Germany came a day before a major agreement on German reunification was reached in Ottawa.

“When I told you . . . that I didn’t think there’d be a deal and there shortly was a deal, then I’m hit for deceiving you,” Bush said.

He said that at his news conference he did not know that an agreement that would involve oversight by the four post-World War II European powers--the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain and France--was at hand.

The President expressed his testiness from the start of today’s exchange with reporters accompanying him here on Air Force One.

Bush had slept aboard the plane in a hangar at Andrews Air Force Base in the Maryland suburbs so that he would not arrive in Colombia sleepy after today’s pre-dawn flight, and he was asked if he had enjoyed a good night’s sleep.

“I had a very good night’s sleep. I can’t get into the details of that because some will say it’s too much sleep, some will say it’s too little.”

Then the President added: “I think we’ve had too many press conferences. It’s not good. It overdoes it. It’s overexposure.”

Bush has had about one news conference a week on the average, since he took office on Jan. 20, 1989.

“I’m taking no answers to questions. I’m not going to discuss what I’m going to bring up,” Bush said when asked about his agenda for the day’s drug conference.”

Asked about an NBC-TV report that Colombian President Virgilio Barco Vargas has made a deal with some drug lords in his country not to extradite them to the United States if they turn over drug labs, Bush snapped: “I have no comment whatsoever on that. I have no comment on whether I know about it or not. I can’t comment on whether it’s true or not.”

“So from now on, it’s going to be a little different,” he added. “We’re going to have a new relationship. It will be pleasant. It will be fun. But it’s different.

“I’m not going to be burned for holding out or doing something deceptive.”

Bush did not mention which news reports he was referring to. However, today’s editions of the Washington Post, copies of which were on Bush’s plane, had a story on what it called “the debate between President Bush and the press over secrecy and deception.”