As Working Mother, Bhutto Misses the Little Things

Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto lauds her double life as working woman and mother but admits it’s tough when she misses special moments in her baby’s life because of affairs of state. For instance, there’ll be the missed birthday party this week for her 1-year-old son, Bilwal Zardari, born eight weeks before his mother’s triumph last November in Pakistan’s first openly contested elections in 11 years. “I’m missing my baby very much at the moment,” Bhutto said. “I have asked one of my relatives to arrange a little birthday party for him in Karachi.” The boy lives in Karachi with his father, businessman Asif Zardari, while Bhutto spends most of her time on the move or in Sind House, a sprawling mansion in Islamabad. She visits the two on weekends, making a two-hour flight. “I think children have this natural love for a mother, because I’m hardly ever with him, but when I see him his face lights up and he wants to come to me,” Bhutto said. As the world’s first Muslim woman elected leader, Bhutto sees her life as “a role model not only for Muslim women in Pakistan but for women in the entire Muslim world . . . to demonstrate that a woman can combine a home and a career.”

--Former President Gerald R. Ford, whose wife, Betty, received treatment for alcohol and drug addiction, believes President Bush’s crusade against drugs shouldn’t ignore alcohol. “He (Bush) focused on cocaine but he did not broaden it to include other mind-altering drugs,” Ford told about 2,500 people in a speech in Norfolk, Va. “Four times more deaths (in 1988) were related to alcohol accidents than to drug accidents. The problem is broader than hard drugs.” He said rehabilitation centers are good, but they don’t work miracles. “Treatment centers--you can’t just throw them up, establish and have them be successful overnight. I know something about that.”

--Finders aren’t necessarily keepers, says famed undersea explorer Jacques Yves Cousteau, in explaining why he doesn’t regret never having found a gold-laden treasure ship like the one recently discovered off the coast of the Carolinas. At an appearance at the National Press Club in Washington, the captain of the research vessel Calypso pointed out that France requires its citizens to report any such treasure to the government--and can then force the finder to assist in the salvage effort. Any compensation is left to the government’s discretion, he said. “So, knowing of those regulations, I would really hate to find a treasure ship,” he said. Besides, Cousteau added: “I’d lose my crew, because they would all want a share.”