THE MALTA SUMMIT : Bush Refuses to Abandon Ship Despite a Land Plan

MARSAXLOKK BAY, Malta — It was his plan, and George Bush was determined to stick to it, come high wind or high water.

A former Navy man whose favorite recreational activity is racing about Kennebunkport, Me., in his speedboat, Fidelity, Bush took credit early for the idea of holding his first summit meeting with Mikhail S. Gorbachev aboard ship.

And even after his seaboard summit had been renamed by rain-soaked staff members and reporters as the sodden summit, the swamped summit, the submerged summit or the Malta mistake, Bush was still insisting he had done the right thing.

Indeed, it turns out that Bush insisted on staying with ships even though his own staff had a perfectly good alternative site for the talks ready and waiting on land.

Bush’s advance planners had arranged ahead of time for land facilities to be available to handle the summit in case of bad weather.

But the President would have none of it. “Sorry you didn’t get on the ships,” he told reporters Sunday. “It was so nice.”