Reporter’s Notebook : Mitterrand Tardy, Reagan Irked

TOKYO —  White House officials are fuming over what they regard as French President Francois Mitterrand’s deliberate attempt to upstage President Reagan by arriving late at virtually every summit event.

Because Reagan is the senior head of state in terms of time in office, protocol dictates that he arrive last at official functions, a subtle show of respect. But Reagan was forced to surrender that position at Monday morning’s group session when Mitterrand’s motorcade was running so late that Reagan got tired of waiting.

The presidential motorcade turned into the circular driveway of the New Otani Hotel, where it was prepared to remain until Mitterrand arrived at the nearby Guest House, the site of the talks. But after a pause of only two minutes, an exasperated Reagan ordered the motorcade to proceed. An aide suggested waiting for Mitterrand a bit longer, but Reagan said, “Hell, no; let’s go.”

The presidential limousine had already been moving so slowly, one U.S. official said, “it was like it was in a funeral procession.”

This is the third summit in a row in which Mitterrand has played havoc with diplomatic niceties and summit schedules by turning up later than Reagan. At the Bonn economic summit last year, White House officials say, Mitterrand made sure he would be last to arrive by waiting in a parking lot until Reagan arrived.

One U.S. advance official said Mitterrand’s stubborn disregard of protocol has created security problems for Reagan, who cannot wait on a street corner like an ordinary American tourist.

“We can only keep him out there so long,” the official said.

Mitterrand has a reputation for tardiness that extends beyond these annual summits. As a symbol of his defiance of ordinary time constraints, he reportedly refuses to wear a watch.

But White House officials are convinced that his lateness is more than a personal quirk and reflects a deliberate effort to outflank Reagan in the diplomatic protocol game.

There was also a bit of a diplomatic dance Monday between Mitterrand and his premier, Jacques Chirac, a conservative whose recent election victory places him in the position of sharing power in the French government with Mitterrand, a Socialist.

Chirac arrived a day late here, sparing the proud Mitterrand the ordeal of having to share the spotlight at Sunday’s official welcoming ceremony. But Chirac, whose position as head of government ranks him a step below head of state Mitterrand in protocol, joined the other summit leaders at a working dinner Monday night that was originally scheduled to be a private affair for the seven heads of state. Out of deference to Chirac, the dinner’s guest list was switched to that for the day’s official luncheon, which had included lesser officials from each country.

One of Tokyo’s finest traditional restaurants, Kitcho, sabotaged a plan by Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone to get Reagan and the other summit leaders to use chopsticks at lunch in the Japanese-style annex of the state Guest House on Monday. Kitcho catered the meal.

“The prime minister wanted all the leaders to use chopsticks, but Kitcho also provided forks,” a Japanese official disclosed. Some of the leaders “couldn’t hold their food” with chopsticks and switched to forks, he said, but he refused to disclose their names.

Even worse, Nakasone rushed into the tatami (straw-mat) dining room so fast that “some of the leaders didn’t see him take off his shoes and forgot to take theirs off,” the official said.

“The waitresses were really shocked,” he said.

“One tall man turned red in the face,” the official added. Reagan and West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl are the two tallest summit leaders, but again the Japanese official declined to name names.

The leaders walked to the subdued, Japanese-style annex, a stunning contrast to the luxurious palace, modeled after France’s Versailles, in which they are holding their discussions. Outside the annex, they paused to feed carp, with Nakasone clapping his hands to draw a swarm of the brilliantly colored fish to the edge of a pool.

Under ordinary circumstances, the onslaught of hundreds of well-heeled diplomats and thousands of reporters on expense accounts would be a cause for celebration among hoteliers, restaurateurs and shopkeepers. But that hasn’t been the case in Tokyo.

The streets surrounding the summit sites are like those of a ghost town, empty of civilians and heavily patrolled by Japanese policemen. In the wake of a bungled rocket attack Sunday by Japanese radicals, authorities doubled the security zone to include all areas within 2.5 miles of any summit-related building.

Cabdrivers are especially bitter about the tight security. The capital’s 40,000 taxis are confronted by a maze of checkpoints as they move about the city. They must obtain passes to drive down certain streets, a process that can add 15 minutes to each fare. Their trunks are regularly inspected. The frustrated drivers have reaped little benefit from summit guests, who remain for the most part in a sealed-off area within walking distance of all events and take shuttle buses from one summit event to the next.

The Hotel Okura, where Reagan is staying, estimated that it is losing about 500 million yen--or $3 million--because of the unprecedented security precautions. A spokesman said the Okura has been off limits to outside visitors and guests without summit connections since April 25, when security forces quarantined the hotel in advance of Reagan’s stay.

In their dealings with summit visitors, ordinary Japanese are unfailingly polite about the inconveniences forced upon them.

The other day, two journalists asked an unsuspecting taxi driver who stopped for them to load their full-size computer, keyboard and typing table into his trunk. He not only did that but then, for lack of a rope, used his own necktie to secure the lid of the trunk, which would not close with all their gear inside.

They protested, but the cabbie gallantly shrugged it off, saying, “It’s for the summit, so of course I will do it.”

Not only are 30,000 Japanese police taking seriously the threats from small bands of leftist Japanese radicals to disrupt the Tokyo summit; so, too, is at least one American journalist.

The Washington correspondent of one television network brought two bulletproof vests with him--just in case.

The journalist, however, learned after arriving that Japan’s radicals don’t have guns. Also, the five rockets they fired Sunday contained no explosives and missed their apparent target, the state Guest House, by at least half a mile. The last bomb incident in Tokyo that killed anyone other than the terrorist carrying it occurred more than 10 years ago.

Begging for anonymity--”You’re not going to print this, are you?” he asked--the correspondent confessed that he has left the vests in his hotel room, unused.

Times staff writers Sam Jameson and Andrew Horvat contributed to this notebook.