He mumbles, pulls at his tie, looks uncomfortable when mobbed by celebrities and knows little about protocol. This, plus a simple moral message, is what endears Vaclav Havel to a world weary of made-to-measure politicians. When he made his first presidential journey abroad, to East Germany, his aides had to scramble to get him his passport. It had been confiscated by the ousted Communist bosses. Now, three months after his fairy-tale ascent from prisoner to president, Havel has visited 10 countries. This week it was France and Britain. As usual, he was watched with adoration. Havel is using his position as a platform to expound on a political philosophy developed over 20 years of writing. His voice is gravelly from years of chain-smoking, he sometimes mumbles or bumps into the microphone, but his words are clear, simple and direct: ``Totalitarianism deforms the human soul. People in Czechoslovakia are constantly asking me about ways to implement the new freedom. And I tell them, implement it in any way you wish.'' He is one of a kind, an artist-stateman and the darling of the intelligentsia: Kurt Vonnegut, Zubin Mehta, Paul Simon, Edward Albee in New York; in Paris, an all-star cast led by actor Alain Delon; Tom Stoppard, Harold Pinter and Jeremy Irons among the guests at a reception given by the Royal Shakespeare Company in London. ``In the United States we encountered almost embarrassing adulation,'' said Havel's spokesman Michael Zantovsky. ``They treated him as if he were some kind of modern prophet, and he is not particularly eager to become one.'' Instead he is modest, shy, prone to blush. He deflects attention with humor and irony. He stands behind tables and against walls, away from the center of the room. At one point he even managed somehow to hunch his short frame under a loudspeaker. Except for the suit and tie, there is little to distinguish Havel the harassed dissident from Havel the president. ``The reception he gets is something we have been absolutely unprepared for,'' Zantovsky said. ``It really is too much of a good thing.'' At the London reception Thursday night, in his own milieu of theater and art, Havel looked relaxed. With a cut-crystal glass of white wine and a cigarette in one hand, gesticulating with the other, he chatted with men in ponytails and earrings and women in men's suits. Havel clearly enjoys the drama of his situation and the theatricality of the presidency. The new uniforms he picked to replace the drab khaki of communism on the palace honor guard, for example, were created by the costume designer for Milos Forman's film, ``Amadeus.'' But Havel's performance abroad is unrehearsed and improvisation is not without pitfalls. At his Paris news conference he kept tugging at his tie as if it were a noose around a neck more accustomed to open-necked shirts. A British TV commentary described him as ``refreshingly naive.'' After shaking hands with Prince Philip on the stately steps of Buckingham Palace, he wiped his sweaty palm on his pants, apparently unaware that the nation would see it on TV. But if there were rough edges, they were always softened by Havel's polished and thoughtful words. Like all the speeches he has given over the past three months, they were a logical extension of the limpid essays he has written for 20 years. Introducing him to an audience of intellectuals on Wednesday, political commentator Timothy Garton-Ash called him ``an exceptional example of what I might call moral leadership through language.'' From a moral base built on years of fighting tyranny, Havel preaches political morality at a time when old political blocs and policies are crumbling. His watchwords are ``living in truth,'' preserving the sanctity of words, revering freedom. He insists he will serve as president only until Czechoslovakia has free elections, and these are scheduled for June. But already his impact looks permanent. His words, Ash said, have become ``letters to the world.'' Or, as The Times of London put it: ``Havel is an idea whose man has come.''
