Injured Clinton Delays Yeltsin Summit for a Day

The wheels of international diplomacy will turn more slowly than planned this week, as President Clinton--hobbled by emergency surgery to repair a torn tendon in his right knee--on Sunday delayed by one day his summit with Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin.

Looking tired but relaxed in a black-nylon running suit, Clinton checked out of the Bethesda National Naval Medical Center late Sunday morning and arrived at the White House around noon. He entered the mansion in a wheelchair pushed by First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Shortly thereafter, White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry announced that despite the president’s previous insistence that he would go to the summit in Helsinki, Finland, as scheduled, the start of the talks had been pushed back a day, to Thursday. Clinton will embark for the meeting Wednesday instead of Tuesday, as planned.

In addition, Clinton has scrapped a visit to Denmark that was to have followed the summit. He will make that trip in July instead, the White House said.

Clinton’s injury will force some other changes in his schedule. He will skip a traditional St. Patrick’s Day meeting with Irish Prime Minister John Bruton; instead, McCurry said, Vice President Al Gore will accept “the customary bowl of shamrocks.”

The president will, however, participate in a planned meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny M. Primakov, who is in Washington to prepare for the Helsinki summit.

The two-day summit is intended to help the United States and Russia reach an understanding about the Western alliance’s plans to enlarge the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to include some former Soviet bloc nations, and to ensure that democracy retains a strong hold in Europe.

“This is really a meeting in which the two presidents are going to look ahead to the 21st century,” McCurry said, adding that Clinton is “anticipating the summit with a fair amount of relish.”

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McCurry said Clinton--who had his first round of “very vigorous” physical therapy Saturday night--needs the extra day in Washington to adjust to his crutches and newfound immobility. For his part, the president said he is up to the task.

“I think it will be an interesting experience,” Clinton said as his wife rolled him toward the White House. “I just want to be careful and not make any mistakes. . . . You just have to learn to use a few different muscles.” He also said that while he feels a twinge when he moves, he’s not in great pain.

The president was asked if doctors had to twist his arm to get him to delay the Helsinki trip. “No twisting of arms,” the first lady joked, “or any other limb.”

The president traveled from the medical center to the White House in a minivan borrowed from former White House Press Secretary James S. Brady.

Dr. Connie Mariano, the president’s physician, said the van was used because of its built-in wheelchair lift. Brady has used a wheelchair since he was wounded in the 1981 assassination attempt on President Reagan.

Clinton, who at 50 is the youngest president since John F. Kennedy, tripped and injured himself early Friday while walking down a flight of steps at the Florida estate of pro golfer Greg Norman. He was flown to the Bethesda medical center in Maryland later that day, and underwent a two-hour operation to reattach the torn tendon.

An avid golfer and jogger, the president will have to refrain from those activities for up to six months while he recuperates, but doctors say he should regain complete mobility.

For the White House, the knee problem has been a welcome distraction from more pressing troubles--the fund-raising furor that has enveloped the president and his aides in recent weeks. As he arrived home Sunday, a reporter asked the president if he thought his surgery would win him any “sympathy votes” on Capitol Hill, where some Republicans are already raising the specter of impeachment.

“I don’t know,” Clinton replied, laughing, “but if it does, I’ll take them any way I can get them.”

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The president came home to a White House that was slightly altered from the one he left. After a physical therapist toured the Executive Mansion on Saturday with Hillary Clinton, some furniture was moved and rugs were taped down to ensure that the president does not trip and re-injure himself.

The president also discovered that the elevator to his private residence in the White House is snug for a wheelchair; he has to slide in sideways.

Although Clinton was not expected home until late Sunday afternoon, he pressed his doctors to let him leave early so he could spend some time with his wife and daughter, Chelsea, before their departure on a two-week goodwill mission to Africa. The pair left Sunday afternoon for Senegal; their trip had been delayed a day because of Clinton’s injury.

“Hillary wanted me to come home before she left for Africa,” Clinton told reporters. “She and Chelsea wanted me well settled.”