President Bush complained testily Thursday about news accounts which he said portrayed him as deceptive, declaring he would hold fewer news conferences and initiate a ``new approach'' toward reporters. ``From now on, it's going to be a little different. ... So we've got a new relationship,'' Bush told reporters traveling with him aboard Air Force One to the four-nation Colombia drug summit. ``It will be pleasant. It will be fun. But it's different,'' said the president, who has averaged one question and answer session with reporters each week since taking office 13 months ago. Later, Bush's press secretary, Marlin Fitzwater, said the president was ``just kidding'' in asserting that he would have fewer news conferences and in declining comment on a series of questions. ``He was having fun,'' Fitzwater said. The president, who apparently read a wire service account of his testy mood on the plane, protested to reporters later: ``I'm not fuming.'' Bush's pique apparently was triggered by an ABC-TV report Wednesday night recapping instances in which Bush's words were belied by subsequent events. The president was criticized on the same score in a Feb. 26 article in The New Republic entitled, ``The Deceiving Line.'' Most recently Bush told a news conference on Monday that it wasn't time yet for a conference among the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain and France on the future status of Germany. ``Not at this juncture,'' he told the news conference. Yet, the next day, a major agreement was announced in Ottawa by Secretary of State James A. Baker III on a German reunification push that would include a summit among the four powers that vanquished Germany in World War II. ``When I told you ... that I didn't think there'd be a deal and there shortly was a deal, then I'm hit for deceiving you,'' Bush groused Thursday. Bush, a onetime CIA director, has conducted much of his foreign policy in secrecy. Two missions to China by national security adviser Brent Scowcroft came despite a Bush announcement in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square crackdown that he was barring high-level exchanges between the two countries. The president later insisted that Scowcroft's trips to Beijing were ``visits'' and not ``exchanges,'' and thus not covered by the Bush edict. Bush, who usually maintains a bantering relationship with reporters, said, ``I think we've had too many press conferences. It overdoes it. It's overexposure.'' By answering few questions directly, he said, ``I'm not going to be burned for holding out or doing something deceptive.'' The president, who slept the night before on Air Force One so he would be well-rested for Thursday's pre-dawn flight here, even gave a prickly response when asked if he had gotten a good night's sleep. ``I had a very good night's sleep. I can't get into the details of that because some will say it's too much sleep, some will say it's too little. ...,'' he said. Bush parried a series of questions from reporters, most of them dealing with the drug summit. ``I'm not going to discuss what I'm going to bring up,'' Bush said when asked about his agenda for the day's conference in Cartagena with the presidents of Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. ``I'm not going to discuss whether there's any surprises or not. This is a new thing. This is a new approach.'' He then said his non-answers were ``a trial run'' for later dealings with the media. In fact, Bush, who answers reporters questions about once a week, planned to finish his day in Colombia with yet another news conference. Bush's comments with reporters came shortly before his jet touched down here, where a U.S. press center was set up at the airport. Bush flew by helicopter the 60 miles to Cartagena and was returning here before flying home to Washington. Asked about an NBC-TV report that Colombian President Virgilio Barco had made a deal with some drug lords in his country not to extradite them to the United States if they turned over drug labs, Bush snapped: ``I have no comment whatsoever on that. I have no comment on whether I know about it or not. I can't comment on whether it's true or not.'' Bush did not mention which particular news reports had irked him the most. However, Thursday's editions of the Washington Post had a story on what it called ``the debate between President Bush and the press over secrecy and deception.'' And ABC-TV had a news report on Wednesday night by White House correspondent Brit Hume on the same subject. Hume was one of several reporters invited to a recent off the record lunch at the White House with Bush, at which the subject reportedly came up. News accounts said that Bush told the reporters at the lunch that he had undertaken no further secret diplomatic missions _ like Scowcroft's clandestine visits to China. Then, the next day, it was disclosed that Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger had gone on a secret mission to London to notify U.S. allies of Bush's latest plan to reduce troops in Europe. Bush also gave what some have seen as misleading comments on his surprise seaside summit at Malta in December with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev. The president in September had said that there were no plans for a superpower summit before 1990, but he later revealed that the session had been arranged as early as last July.
