White House Chief of Staff John Sununu's managerial philosophy - which will be on display this week in an unusual visit to Moscow - is what he calls "the acorn theory of management."
He says he would rather deal "with a couple of dozen problems when they're acorns rather than one big problem when it's become an oak tree."In practice, it means keeping his door open and giving aides ample opportunity daily to contact him on even the most trivial matters.
Sununu isn't trying to graft his own style onto the Kremlin, and in fact is hoping to learn as much as he imparts on his five-day visit with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and company.
"I'm a great believer that whenever you talk shop with somebody, you can learn," he said in an interview with The Associated Press. "We're going over to the Soviet Union as much to take a look at what they have and learn as much as we can."
Sununu and a phalanx of top White House staff were departing for Moscow Sunday night from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. They will return to Pease Air Force Base in New Hampshire on Friday.
Sununu's trip actually is a return visit with the Soviet efficiency experts who got a backstage view of how the White House works following the Bush-Gorbachev summit in June.
The Soviet team led by Gorbachev aide Mikhail Shkabardnya, like Sununu an engineer by training, knew just what they wanted to talk about, such as how President Bush's scheduling works, how the White House interacts with Congress, how the administration separates responsibilities between domestic policy and national security policy.
"They were smart enough to understand that the needs of their new presidency" were very distinct from the "more autocratic ruling structure that they had before," Sununu said.
Sununu, a staunch conservative, confided that if he'd been told five or six months ago he'd be consulting for the Kremlin, "I wouldn't have believed it."
"It's a tribute to the president, to Mr. Gorbachev and what they've done with the U.S.-Soviet relationship," Sununu said.
It trip also marks the latest chapter in Sununu's own success story, which came as a surprise to Washington insiders who predicted the strong-willed engineer would be outmatched by the demands of running the White House.
Brookings Institution scholar Stephen Hess calls Sununu "the big surprise of the Bush administration."
"He has kept the White House staff efficient and importantly anonymous. . . . His relations with Congress (are) a little rocky from time to time but it's an opposition Congress," said Hess.
How has Sununu done it?
In part by working marathon hours, maintaining an open-door policy and, despite a reputation for ideological rigidity, displaying an ability to cut deals even with liberals such as Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.
Sununu, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate and former governor of New Hampshire, brought formidable intellectual skills to the job.
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Cook-off devoted to 'glad-roast'
"Less Missiles, More Pits" will be the theme of the first barbecue cook-off to be held in the Soviet Union next month sponsored by a Memphis, Tenn., barbecue connoisseur.
Silky Sullivan, a bar owner in Memphis, has traveled around the world conducting and judging barbecue contests. His best effort may be the contest to be held Sept. 7-8 in Tallin, Estonia, in the Soviet Union.
Twenty cooking teams from the Soviet Union and 20 from the United States will participate, Sullivan said.
"At least one large missile will be converted into a cooker to symbolize peace and encourage all nuclear powers to disarm their nuclear missiles and turn them into smokers," Sullivan said. "The spirit of `glad-roast' will rule the festival."