Patio diplomacy: a time-honored tradition for breaking the ice

Bush will host Russian President Vladimir Putin in Kennebunkport, Maine, on July 1.

By Peter Grier | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the June 29, 2007 edition

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Washington - Relations between Washington and Moscow were tense. So President Dwight Eisenhower decided on a bold stroke: He'd invite Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to his house.

Not the White House, mind you, but Eisenhower's family farm in Gettysburg.

It worked, after a fashion. On Sept. 26, 1959, a visibly delighted Mr. Khrushchev powered through Gettysburg like a tank. He admired Ike's house, his cattle, and, especially, his assembled grandchildren. He told all the children what their names were in Russian, then invited them to Moscow and gave them little red stars to wear on their lapels.

Khrushchev, in these surroundings, came off at his best: "genial, grandfatherly, folksy," remembered John Eisenhower, Ike's son, in a 1984 oral history interview.

When George W. Bush hosts Vladimir Putin at his family's Kennebunkport, Maine, compound on July 1, he'll be engaging in a time-honored American tradition: patio diplomacy.

Virtually all modern US presidents since Herbert Hoover have brought world leaders into their homes – both personal and ancestral – to escape the formality of the Oval Office and encourage freedom of discussion. It's a tactic often used when a geopolitical association has hit a rough patch. Sometimes the visits seem contrived – but sometimes, as with Khrushchev in 1959, they're oddly effective.

"The atmospherics are very different. The idea is those atmospherics will affect later private talks," says Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

In some ways it's no surprise that President Putin should be Bush's partner in what some call the "lobster roll summit." The pair appear to get along on a personal level. Yet lately they've disagreed about issues from the fate of Kosovo to US plans to base missile defenses in Eastern Europe.

And some of their recent rhetorical exchanges have been sharp.

Most experts don't expect much substantive progress to come from the Bush-Putin meetings. At best, the US and Russia might agree to a joint study of missile-defense plans.

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