NEWS ANALYSIS : Clinton Shows Style and Skill on World Stage

President Clinton, virtually untested on the international stage when he arrived here five days ago, made a triumphant exit today after dominating the seven-nation economic summit in both style and substance.

The question that critics and even some supporters had raised about the former Arkansas governor was whether he might find himself over his head in dealing with older, more experienced foreign leaders.

But Clinton dominated the agenda and discussions, took a lion’s share of the media coverage and achieved most of his admittedly modest goals, including an economic framework agreement with Japan, a breakthrough on long-stalled international trade negotiations and a boost in aid to Russia.

Perhaps most important of all for the future of Clinton’s presidency, his performance in Tokyo was orchestrated and delivered with thoroughly professional skill, a marked change from the often inept and self-defeating episodes that marred his first months in the White House.

White House aides argued that the summit was a natural for Clinton, whose policy-wonk side thrives on extended discussions of complex issues and whose politician side likes few things better than to discuss political problems with fellow elected officials.

What glimpses were available of the usually closed-door summit sessions tend to support the Administration officials’ admittedly biased reading.

Other summit participants openly angled to get close to Clinton. At one point, reporters overheard British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd asking Secretary of State Warren Christopher to introduce him to Clinton. At other times, Clinton could be seen working his way around the conference table, chatting up each of the other participants.

Clinton had worriedly said to his advisers in advance that the heavily scripted nature of the summit would prevent the sort of back-and-forth dialogue about policy options at which he excels. In the end, however, the event turned out to be better than anticipated.

“There was more energy and more zip in it than I thought there would be,” Clinton told a press conference at the conclusion of the summit. “Very few of us carried a lot of notes around. Very few people referred to them. We really talked about these issues.”

To be sure, the weakened condition of the other leaders of the world’s major industrialized nations meant that the President faced little challenge in the realm of personal leadership. And the substantive gains, while significant, were modest.

The agreement on tariff cuts, for instance, broke a longstanding stalemate but left some of the most difficult issues still unresolved, including the most stubborn of them all, agriculture. And the Russian aid package involved mostly loans and credits, with a sharply limited amount of direct cash to Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin’s government.

Still, the achievements of most summits have been modest at best, and other Presidents have been judged successful on the basis of no greater accomplishments.

“You don’t have to do much to beat the average,” one senior U.S. official with long experience of such meetings said last week.

Before the summit began, the President and his aides had systematically lowered public expectations. Once in Tokyo, they played expertly on the fact that, as one senior aide put it, the summit attracted “8,800 journalists with not a lot to do.” Their numbers alone would amplify whatever agreements were reached.

Clinton also avoided any gaffes, which would also have been amplified.

Before the President left Washington, David Gergen, his influential new counselor, advised him that substance is not necessarily the most important thing at a summit. The key to success, Gergen said, speaking from his experience with other Presidents, is to appear presidential, show leadership and avoid the kind of embarrassing mistake that marred Gerald R. Ford’s visit in 1975 when he became the first American President to visit Tokyo.

“Don’t forget to bring your tuxedo, Mr. President,” said Gergen, recalling that as a Ford aide, he had looked on in dismay as Ford, who had left his tuxedo behind and had to borrow evening clothes from his hosts in order to attend an unexpected formal dinner, appeared in pants that were 14 inches too short.

That incident, like President George Bush’s attack of stomach flu during a banquet here last year, became the dominant image of the visit.

Gergen, recruited by Clinton six weeks ago to help stabilize a presidency shaken by political miscues and ill-served by an inexperienced White House staff, was the President’s chief adviser here and orchestrated an Administration public relations blitz to influence news coverage of Clinton’s performance.

When not personally briefing the press, Gergen directed briefings by Secretary of State Christopher, Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen and other senior officials.

With Gergen’s considerable help, Clinton and his top aides relentlessly focused attention on their key theme--that the summit matters to average Americans because its ultimate objective is to produce jobs.

U.S. negotiators also managed to insert much of their favored rhetoric on the importance of job creation into the final summit communique, starting with the document’s title: “Tokyo Summit Economic Declaration: A Strengthened Commitment to Jobs and Growth.”

And the summit partners explicitly praised congressional passage of Clinton’s budget, a statement that the President seized upon to spur congressional leaders on toward final approval of the budget bill.

“I am hoping what happened this week will strengthen the resolve of Congress to go ahead and pass the economic plan and do so in short order,” Clinton said at his press conference.

The summit’s praise for Clinton’s budget-reduction efforts was especially welcome for another reason: Every year for the past decade, the other summit leaders have criticized the United States for not taking steps to curb runaway budget deficits that they view as a key factor in global economic problems--a point that Clinton drove home at the press conference.

The summit leaders also accepted his invitation to send their top education, labor and economic ministers to Washington in the fall for a conference on creation of jobs, another showcase for hammering at what has clearly become the central theme of his presidency.

In addition to the issues he sought to highlight at the summit, Clinton also hoped to use the session to begin establishing his own personal relationships with key world leaders.

Unlike Bush, who had been active in diplomatic circles for 17 years before moving into the White House, Clinton’s foreign experience before his inauguration had consisted almost solely of the sorts of investment-seeking trips that governors conduct to tout their home states. And although Clinton had met with several of the G-7 leaders in the last few months, he arrived in Tokyo having had limited personal experience with them.

“You can talk to people on the phone, or even see them at the White House, but it’s different when you spend two days with a group of people talking about policies they care about,” said a senior White House official. “These seven people all have the same job. It’s like seven musicians; they get together, and they may be different people, but there’s a common ground.”

“He’s spent much of this week developing one-to-one relationships,” the aide said.

The best relationship so far, aides say, has been with German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, whom Clinton singled out twice for praise during his closing press conference Friday, calling him a “very wise man.”

The relationship between the two began last spring when Kohl visited Washington. During an Oval Office meeting, the German leader gave Clinton an emotional account of growing up during the days when American aid helped rebuild a war-destroyed German nation. “Tears came to his eyes” as he talked about his feelings for America, the senior aide said.

Subsequently, White House officials say, Kohl has been the only major European leader to support Clinton in his efforts to lift for Bosnia-Herzegovina the U.N. embargo on arms shipments to Yugoslavia and its former republics.