Clinton Aims for Elusive Goal: Meeting of East, West : Summit: The casual setting, which was the President’s idea, demanded a measure of tolerance from the often-formal Asian heads of state.

Thus the curtain lifted on U.S. dreams for this thing they call the New Era of the Pacific: On a wind-swept forest islet, in a native long house, in casual clothes and simple chairs, the leaders of nearly half the world gathered round in a quintessential American bull session.

For five hours, leaders of some of the most dynamic economies in the world, accompanied only by a single note-taker, slowly and carefully and without temper chewed over the troubles and promises of a region now possessed, uplifted and sometimes baffled by whirlwinds of economic competition.

Their ultimate task is nothing less than mapping the road to peace and prosperity. But the Renaissance weekend style of their meeting on this mist-shrouded island in Puget Sound, a format personally selected by President Clinton, was a tacit reminder of just how vast is the cultural and historical gulf represented by the Pacific Ocean.

With Clinton slouching comfortably in a brown leather jacket and plaid shirt and with many of his guests seeming bemused by a scene so foreign to their notions of diplomacy, the long-house talks underscored the fact that the young American President was attempting a feat that has eluded countless others--the meeting of East and West.

The island setting amid cedars and firs and hemlocks was handpicked, the personal brainstorm of Clinton, himself reared in the sit-down, talk-it-out age of pop culture. But it asked a measure of tolerance from the formal and stoic Asian heads of state who were most on Clinton’s mind--the leaders of those countries that account for much of the U.S. trade deficit, notably Japan and China.

Perhaps the progress of such an all-American encounter session will be measured over time--the birth of personal relationships that could be the foundation for understanding.

If so, it occurred in the most Western of all Western settings, a replica of a Native American long house in the style of coastal Northwest tribes, with ceremonial carved wooden masks peering down and a log ceiling overhead.

Wearing a flannel shirt and outdoor half-boots, Clinton was flanked by the government leaders of Australia, Brunei, Canada, China, Indonesia, Japan, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea and Thailand. Ranking leaders of Hong Kong and Taiwan also were part of the group. In total, they represented half of the world’s gross national product.

Among them was the world’s richest man, Sultan Muda Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei; the president of the world’s most populous nation, China’s Jiang Zemin, who wore a suit but no tie; the prime minister of the world’s fiercest trading economy, Japan’s Morihiro Hosokawa, elegantly casual in a dark jacket with a long camel-colored scarf around his neck; the world’s newest leader of an industrialized nation, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, and one of the world’s most venerable leaders, Indonesia’s President Suharto.

The day began on a ferry dock in Seattle, where Clinton, then wearing a leather bomber jacket, welcomed the leaders one by one aboard a Washington state passenger ferry, the Tyee--regional slang for “chief.”

After all were aboard, an armada of Coast Guard ships and boats and a small spectator fleet escorted the Tyee out of Seattle’s Elliot Bay and into the dark-blue waters of Puget Sound. The sky was leaden, but dry. The temperature near 40 degrees.

According to senior Administration officials, who briefed reporters positioned on the chilly island well before dawn, the boat ride was highly informal. Clinton took a few minutes to chat with Jiang about the U.S. President’s favorite subject, health care, and how it is delivered in their two countries.

The Tyee docked about 40 minutes later at Blake Island, a Washington State Park eight miles southwest of Seattle and still within sight of its skyline.

Blake Island is a popular summer tourist destination--the type that advertises its nightly salmon roasts and Native American dances in brochures in freeway motels. It’s also a weekend getaway destination for Seattle boat owners, since the only way to reach the island is by watercraft.

The center of activity for Clinton’s summit was the wood-plank long house, like those that tribes once erected here in the damp Northwest for their potlatches.

The long house, some supporting buildings and a dock, collectively known as Tillicum Village, are the only structures on Blake Island. The remainder of the 473 acres is forested, webbed with hiking trails and campsites.

Informal as the scene inside may have been and hard as Clinton strived for a freewheeling atmosphere, the task throughout was made difficult, if not nearly impossible, by the cacophony of six languages resonating through the single room. Two shifts of 30 translators each were stationed elsewhere in the long house and watched the conference on closed-circuit television, translating back to the leaders over headphones.

A little over two hours into the meeting, Clinton and his 13 guests donned their jackets and filed down a redwood-chip walk to a temporary stage, where they stood against a breathtaking backdrop of Puget Sound. There, Clinton announced they had agreed upon an upbeat, if vague, “vision statement.”

After lunch, the leaders retired to their private meeting--this time without interruption.

At midafternoon, after thousands of hours of set-up work and a week of international anxiety, the meeting adjourned. The Blake Island 14 then reboarded the ferry Tyee and cruised back to Seattle.