Pomp Tends to Get in Way of Circumstances : Diplomacy: It was easier in Churchill’s day. Now a summit is in danger of being swallowed by its own trappings.

Just before Christmas, 1941, in the dark days of World War II, Winston Churchill traveled quietly to Washington and stayed as a guest at the White House.

Franklin D. Roosevelt made cocktails, and the prime minister pushed the crippled President from room to room in his wheelchair. The two leaders plotted military strategy and discussed the future world order.

A few days later, Churchill, Roosevelt and representatives of 24 other nations signed a Washington declaration against the Axis powers. That document, on New Year’s Day, 1942, marked the first formal use of the term “united nations.”

Roosevelt and Churchill met with the informality of schoolboys. They saw each other several hours a day, lunched together and even conferred in White House bedrooms.

Half a century later, great-power diplomacy is in danger of being swallowed by its own trappings.

As British Prime Minister John Major and 12 other heads of government convened in the U.N. Security Council chambers to consider the council’s broadened role in managing the world’s problems, the leaders had to wade through a swamp of protocol and security precautions.

Motorcades streamed through Manhattan streets. Squads of official photographers immortalized the leaders’ decisive moments. From rooftops, where sharpshooters were stationed, to the depths of sewers, which had been inspected for bombs, security was dominant.

Entering the United Nations building alongside the East River in Manhattan became a diplomatic ballet worthy of Balanchine. The leaders arrived at precisely timed intervals--choreographed so the heads of state could receive a handshake, a smile and a few warm words from new Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

The leaders then marched in slow step along a broad carpet between rows of brightly colored flags and saluting guards. As the heads of state strolled down the long hallway toward the council’s chambers, President Bush and Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, his shock of white hair standing out in the crowd, chatted amiably.

Surrounded by their advisers and flanked by security agents, the wall-to-wall caravan of leaders threatened diplomatic gridlock.

The speaking order around the council’s horseshoe-shaped ash table was the subject of delicate negotiations lasting for days. Only hours before the meeting was the order decided.

The compromise mixed protocol with politics, time zones with television.

Major, as the council’s president for January, spoke first, giving him easy access to prime time in England, where he faces reelection. French President Francois Mitterrand was first on the regular speaking schedule, guaranteeing prime time in Paris. Major, who organized the meeting, received added benefit: He also spoke last, as Britain’s council representative, and read the summit’s closing communique.

The summit--the 3,046th meeting of the council--also afforded time for voices often drowned out on the international stage. Tiny Cape Verde--a group of islands in the Atlantic west of Africa, population about 386,000--called for greater concentration by the major powers on poverty and the problems of underdeveloped nations.

Poverty “spawns instability in world affairs,” proclaimed Cape Verde Prime Minister Carlos Veiga.

Subbing for his nation’s president, whose wife died recently, Zimbabwe Foreign Minister Nathan Shamuyarira called on the big powers to shift funds spent on armaments to easing the plight of people in developing countries.

“In Africa, many countries are linking disarmament with development,” he said, also pointing out a delicate balance that members of the Security Council will face in the years ahead.