WASHINGTON INSIGHT

STRAINS OF AUTUMN: Political turf fights in the nation’s capital are about as predictable, although not as pretty, as leaf turnings on the Mall in October. One such tussle, embroiling economic pooh-bahs at the Treasury Department and White House, threatens sensitive U.S. trade talks with the Japanese. . . . Lawrence H. Summers, an ambitious former Harvard University professor making his first foray into government, believes that being assistant secretary of the Treasury for international affairs entitles him to oversee global economic policy for the Administration, sources say. But he is colliding with the rank-pulling maneuvers of Deputy Treasury Secretary Roger Altman, a former New York investment banker and close friend of President Clinton from their days at Georgetown University. Altman has taken over U.S.-Japan trade policy in conjunction with W. Bowman Cutter, deputy assistant to the President for economic policy. . . . A concerned bystander says the tugging “raises questions about how solid a front we can present” in negotiations with the Japanese over American imports into Japan. “It’ll be interesting to see how long Altman and Summers stay in their positions.”

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HE’LL BE RIGHT BACK: If memory serves, not even Californian Ronald Reagan, when he was President, dropped in on the Golden State three months in a row. President Clinton soon will, following up his trip to California in early October with fund-raising jaunts in November and December--for Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) in San Francisco and the Democratic National Committee in Los Angeles. . . . That means Clinton, who struck electoral gold in California last November and is clearly prospecting for 1996, will have visited the state eight times in his first year in office. He’s dipped into his native Arkansas only half as often.

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ANOTHER TRAVELER: Former President George Bush plans an intriguing trip to the Far East next month, hoping to visit both Taiwan and China--old friends of his but bitter foes of each other. Talks reportedly are set with Taiwanese President Li Teng-hui. Although Bush’s vice president, Dan Quayle, also was in Taiwan for talks last summer, few sitting or former American officials have gone to the booming island nation since the United States recognized the mainland Chinese government in 1979. Bush seeks meetings in China too, but nothing has been firmed up, spokesman Jim McGrath said. . . . The trek recalls the awkward time in 1971 when Bush, as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, tried to preserve Taiwan’s seat in the world body even as Henry A. Kissinger, an aide to then-President Richard Nixon, began secret dealings with the Chinese Communists. Later, Bush served as U.S. envoy to China before formal relations were established. . . . It will be Bush’s first foreign trip since he went to Kuwait last spring and dodged an assassination plot by Iraqis upset over his leading role in the Persian Gulf War.

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FUNNY BONE: With health care plans proliferating, a waggish “medical dictionary” circulating in Washington helpfully defines some basic terms. Such as artery : the study of paintings; bacteria: the back door of a cafeteria; cauterize: made eye contact with her; dilate : to live long; enema: not a friend; node : aware of; seizure : a Roman emperor; terminal illness: getting sick at the airport; varicose : nearby; vein : conceited.