REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK : Filthy Lucre an Acceptable Subject, Even to the Queen

Money. For years it wasn’t considered a topic for polite conversation in this terribly proper city. This week, it has been nearly impossible to avoid.

For one thing, money and how to nurture it on a national and global scale lay at the heart of most of the substantive issues discussed by the leaders of the major industrialized democracies during their 17th annual economic summit.

For another, despite the danger of the richest nations appearing to flaunt their wealth at a time when most of the world’s population still struggles for bare necessities, money was the recurrent theme of the summit’s dazzling final social gathering Tuesday night.

During the state dinner--held at Buckingham Palace, home to the richest woman in the world--a military band in full regalia entertained Queen Elizabeth II and her guests with such tunes as “Money, Money, Money,” and “If I Were a Rich Man”--with Her Majesty singing and humming every song.

Continuing the fiscal theme, a fireworks and laser show filled the night sky with giant dollar signs and symbols of other currencies.

After the conclusion of the economic summit proper, the seven summit partners--Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States--held encore meetings with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev on Wednesday afternoon.

There was a one-on-one luncheon meeting between Gorbachev and President Bush, who took pains to stress that Gorbachev was not visiting hat in hand, even though some U.S. officials have privately scorned the Soviet Union as “a Third World basket case” and derided Gorbachev as ignorant of basic economics.

And Gorbachev, arriving for the luncheon with Bush at Winfield House, the sumptuous U.S. ambassadorial residence in London’s Regent’s Park, had something of the air of a man who lives in a declining neighborhood coming to break bread with bankers.

He emerged from his car--a Soviet-made Zil limousine--and gave his blue suit jacket a furtive tug to spiff up his appearance just before shaking hands with Bush.

Asked by reporters, as the two leaders posed for photographers in the garden, whether he was optimistic, Gorbachev tellingly replied: “In my position, I have to be optimistic. . . . Otherwise, I wouldn’t endure this.”

John H. Sununu has been found.

The White House chief of staff, whose flights aboard Air Force jets for Colorado skiing trips, visits to a dentist in Boston and other personal and political travel brought a presidential rebuke, had kept an uncharacteristically low profile during the summit.

He was busy, White House officials explained, keeping track of domestic policy issues in Washington, even as he ran the White House staff from offices set up in London’s Churchill Hotel.

He did, however, make an appearance Wednesday. When the historic agreement on the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty was announced at Winfield House and Bush and Gorbachev sat down to lunch with senior aides, there was the seldom-seen chief of staff.

It was one of those “small world” incidents that sometimes occur in the midst of historic events. While summit leaders pondered the weighty issues before them, a group of Washington-based reporters finished their own chores late Tuesday night and set out none too optimistically in search of dinner. Wandering the nearly deserted streets of Mayfair, they spied the lights of an open restaurant.

In what seemed a good omen, it was called Tiberio’s--the same name as a restaurant in Washington popular with politicians and journalists.

Inside, sleepy waiters were waiting to close, but the owner welcomed the diners and even ordered the piano combo to keep playing.

And when the grateful customers explained how the name of the restaurant had caught their eye, the owner--Alberto Navato--declared that he knows the Washington Tiberio’s well. Indeed, he grew up in Naples with the owner, Julio Santillo. Navato had emigrated to London in the 1950s. When Santillo followed, Navato helped him get started.

Each dreamed of one day owning his own restaurant. Each succeeded. The only difference: Santillo could not abide London winters and staked his claim in Washington--and took the Tiberio’s name with him.

The Bush-Gorbachev agreement on slashing strategic nuclear weapons was unquestionably a historic event. But the way the two superpower leaders broke the news to the world was anything but dramatic.

Without fanfare, the two men walked into a drawing room of the U.S. ambassador’s residence here. Bush laconically pronounced himself pleased with their luncheon meeting and turned the microphone over to Gorbachev, who matter-of-factly intoned:

“Now, what I wanted to say was, in view of the fact that we were told that all of the issues are solved on the START treaty, we, with the President of the United States, have agreed to finalize everything in Geneva, and we will give commensurate instructions so that we could then sign that treaty.”

With not much more said than that, Bush and Gorbachev hurried off to their next meetings.