Mandela Emerging as Forceful, Savvy Presence : Policy: The black liberation leader uses his growing stature in the United States to instruct no less important a figure than the President.

When Nelson Mandela and President Bush, in matching blue suits, faced the nation’s press on the south lawn of the White House Monday, the gray-haired African liberation leader sized up the leader of the Western world with a mischievous smile.

“We’re actually the same height,” Mandela said. Bush, smiling in return, responded: “Yes, I think we are.”

From those opening moments of their historic meeting, Mandela proved himself to be every inch the savvy statesman--as well as a disarmingly blunt politician willing to use his growing stature in the United States to instruct no less important a figure than the President.

Neither the U.S. President nor the African National Congress deputy president left the White House with any concessions from the other side. But Bush learned first-hand the full force of Mandela’s personality, which has been a key in the gathering momentum for peace in South Africa.

And, more important, the black South African took a significant symbolic stride in his freedom struggle that seems certain to bolster his legend at home and even strengthen his political position as talks with the white minority government continue.

“This will enhance Mandela’s standing and his prestige in South Africa,” predicted Pauline Baker, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and an expert on South Africa. “He’s dealing with the big boys now. He can speak with some authority on what the Americans will or won’t do. It can only strengthen Mandela’s hand.”

Seeing Mandela and Bush warmly shaking hands at the White House may even ease the fears of some white South Africans, who still consider Mandela an unreconstructed terrorist.

“It legitimizes him in the eyes of a lot of people in South Africa, particularly whites,” Baker added. Such a high-profile meeting with Bush “shows the regard with which the U.S. government now holds Mandela and the fact that it considers him central to the peace process.”

Mandela was treated to a White House welcome usually reserved for only the most important leaders: a two-hour meeting followed by an hour-long lunch in the Bush family dining room. Before it began on a mild, sunny morning, Bush and his wife, Barbara, ushered Mandela and his wife, Winnie, onto the lawn for what were expected to be the routine, inoffensive remarks of diplomatic rhetoric.

Bush began by warmly welcoming Mandela and he recalled the United States’ own racial history, pointing to the room in the White House where Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. The President also twice quoted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose dedication to nonviolent struggle against racial discrimination contrasts with Mandela’s support for the armed liberation struggle in South Africa.

In his response, though, Mandela took the attitude of a schoolmaster with an intelligent but wrongheaded student, suggesting that Bush perhaps had a few things to learn about the ANC’s position on the armed struggle.

“The remarks that he has made here (about the armed struggle) are due to the fact that he has not as yet got a proper briefing from us,” Mandela said as Bush smiled. He added that the ANC had no intention of continuing violence against the government “as long as the government is prepared to talk, to maintain channels of communication between itself and the governed.”

Borrowing from his own speech on the stand during his 1963 trial for sabotage, Mandela said: “When a government decides to ban political organizations of the oppressed, intensifies oppression and does not allow any free political activity, no matter how peaceful and nonviolent, then the people have no alternative but to resort to violence.”

Bush was clearly impressed with his 71-year-old guest’s extemporaneous speech. “Great speech,” Bush, who is 66, said in an aside, and marveled: “No notes.”

Mandela also came away with a warm feeling for Bush.

“The weakness . . . I immediately detected in President Bush is that he is a man with a head and with a heart,” Mandela said later. “And I exploited that. We left the White House feeling not only that we had been warmly received but that we had the ear of the President.”

Mandela’s 27 years in prison and his refusal to renounce violence in exchange for release have made him a bona fide worldwide hero and brought out millions to see him during the first six days of his 12-day American tour. Encouraged by his rousing American reception, Mandela told Bush that the U.S. government should consult with the ANC before taking any policy action on South Africa.

“We had no response to that,” Herman Cohen, assistant secretary of state for African affairs, told reporters later.

Bush has invited both Mandela and South African President Frederik W. de Klerk to visit the White House. De Klerk initially accepted an invitation for last week but postponed the trip indefinitely when he saw the countrywide reception planned for Mandela. “It would have raised a sort of competition,” one of De Klerk’s cabinet ministers explained.

The South African government believes, though, that the United States “has expended its potential to hurt us,” Stoffel van der Merwe, one of the South African government’s negotiators, said in a recent interview. “That’s not a challenge,” he added. “We’ve taken the punishment.”

After their meeting, Bush’s aides and Mandela said that they better understand each other’s positions and they also agreed that potentially sensitive issues--such as Mandela’s support for Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat, Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi and Cuban leader Fidel Castro--are side matters about which they would agree to disagree.

Yet Bush and Mandela remained far apart. Bush would like to reward De Klerk for the substantial reforms he has initiated in his country since Feb. 2, one of the most important of which was the release of Mandela. And the Administration would also like the ANC to renounce violence.

Mandela, on the other hand, is traveling the country with a different message, summed up by the slogan of his organizing committee--”Keep the pressure on.” Mandela wants economic sanctions against South Africa maintained until De Klerk has taken irreversible steps toward dismantling apartheid.

Mandela said at a news conference that Bush had suggested the ANC call an end to the armed struggle. But, Mandela said he noted that the ANC for four years had “deliberately scaled down our armed operations.” He added that once the government had removed all obstacles to negotiations, which is expected in the next few months, “we will then consider the cessation of hostilities.”

ADULATION ABOUNDS--Many are paying tribute to Winnie Mandela as she accompanies her husband. E1

HIGHLIGHTS OF TODAY’S SCHEDULE

Eastern Daylight Time 9:00 a.m.: Breakfast with Congressional Black Caucus 11:00 a.m.: Speech to Joint Meeting of Congress Afternoon: Meetings with congressional leadership 7:00 p.m.: Rally at D.C. Convention Center