Clinton’s Rome Visit Turns Into <i> Famiglia </i> Affair

So he chatted with the Pope, captivated clerics, hobnobbed with a billionaire prime minister and supped of one of the world’s great cuisines.

Abroad in the hot streets of this city Thursday, it was mostly Roman passersby and accidental tourists who witnessed President Clinton’s visit to celebrate what he characterized as an extraordinary, all-in-the-family relationship between the United States and Italy.

Indeed, Clinton seemed as much awe-struck as awe-inspiring to Romans as he made a relaxed, tourist-like debut in the Eternal City.

“I came all they way from Omaha, Neb., to see this. I can’t believe it! The tour director had tickets for the President, so we just abandoned the tour,” said Morine Dosert in the majestic Piazza Campidoglio, where Clinton spoke in front of Rome’s City Hall.

If Romans behaved almost as if an old friend had dropped in to call, not all of them were pleased.

Clinton was not good news for Kavir Ahmed, who makes his living on the sidewalk inscribing “Your Name on a Grain of Rice.”

“A tourist from Vienna named Kurt had me put his name on one side of a grain and Clinton’s on the other, but business is lousy. A lot of people are staying away, and the rest don’t seem to care that he’s here,” said Ahmed, a 28-year-old Bangladeshi.

Central Rome in offhanded fashion digested the friendly invasion by a President commanding more limousines and security cars than Hannibal had elephants. People went to work. Ugly orange buses growled messily. Motorini buzzed busily. Helicopters coptered. Everybody knew that Clinton would make the traffic worse, if that is possible. He did.

There were U.S. flags here and there, cops galore, bunches of people, but few crowds to speak of except at the Campidoglio.

There, in a folksy speech partially translated by Budget Director Leon Panetta, an Italian American, Clinton evoked Marc Antony’s “Friends, Romans and countrymen,” hailing Italians, in Italian, as Alleati, amici, una famiglia. (Allies, friends, family.)

“I shaked his hand,” shouted Jude Jeyankachan, 10, with greater exuberance than grammatical nicety. A police band played “Cheek to Cheek” as Clinton warmly greeted seven Romans born on June 4, 1944--the World War II liberation of Rome by U.S. troops--and all named Italian variations of “America.”

“From the hearty atmosphere and the number of people here, America is alive and well in Rome,” said Sister Brigid Murphy, a teacher at Marymount International School amid a forest of Italian and U.S. flags in front of City Hall.

Like Hillary Clinton, who swapped M & M’s for smiles with chanting, delighted Italian school kids in the Piazza Navona (“EE-la-ree! EE-la-ree!” the children cried), the President seemed to enjoy the experience at every stop on a cloudless Roman day more summer than spring.

“It’s unbelievable,” said Clinton, enjoying Michelangelo’s restored frescoes in the Sistine Chapel.

Even a long news conference with new Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, one of Europe’s richest men, was outdoors in a landmark 17th-Century courtyard of the distinguished old Palazzo Chigi. Then on to a glittery, caloric, black-tie state dinner in a Renaissance villa designed by Raffaello.

At the height of Rome’s tourist season, many who saw Clinton on Thursday just happily happened upon him.

“The first President I’ll have seen since L.B.J.,” said Jim Tudor of Chicago, who stopped in curiosity on Via del Corso and was rewarded with a motorcade.

Thomas Kubik, a German in from Frankfurt for a long weekend, observed of the President: “He’s worth waiting for; some of us see him as a new J.F.K.”

“Splendid advertising for us,” said Raffaele Ciarelli, leading a demonstration for immigrants’ rights that city authorities had unaccountably forgotten to reschedule for another day.

Clinton, who jogged his way through jet-lag in a red baseball cap and a gray T-shirt that said “Radio City,” got his first view of the day of the Italian capital from a famous hilltop lookout called the Pincio.

After his encounter with a stiff, frail-looking Pope recovering from a broken thigh, Clinton was buoyant and beaming in an encounter with 140 American priests and seminarians.

Striding into a baroque salon at the Apostolic Palace, the President told the clerics that his encounter with John Paul was “an awe-inspiring experience.”

When Raymond Flynn, former Boston mayor and U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, assured Clinton that all the priests were Democrats, Clinton turned to accompanying Cardinal Angelo Sodano and joked: “After that political comment he (Flynn) made, he has another good reason to go to confession now.”

Speaking off the cuff, Clinton, a Baptist graduate of a Catholic university, lavished praise on the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. “The church has brought together faith and action, word and deed, bringing together people across the lines of rich and poor, of racial lines and other lines perhaps better than any other institution in our society,” he said.

He commended the clerics for the “ultimate commitment of your entire lives in the service of that in which you believe. . . . I stand here today to tell you that, as an American President, I am immensely proud of the commitment you have made.”

The Rev. Christopher Coyne of Boston had praise for Clinton, saying he was “very eloquent. I think he spoke from the heart.”

As he swept through Rome, Clinton received both the deference and the familiarity that his presence and demeanor encouraged.

At the Vatican, “gentlemen of honor” stood at attention in morning coats. Swiss Guards in plumed helmets hammered their halberds in salute. And yet, by late afternoon, when Berlusconi invited Clinton to address a news conference, the Italian prime minister turned to the leader of the Free World and said in English: “Please, Bill.”