Bush meets Clinton, Gore in effort to heal divisions caused by presidential election

The US President-elect, Mr George W. Bush, yesterday met his erstwhile opponent, Vice-President Al Gore, in a continuing effort to heal the bitter divisions fomented by the election. The two met at the Vice-President's official residence in Washington after Mr Gore returned from the Virgin Islands where he had taken a short break.

As the presidential historian, Dr Richard Shenkman, pointed out, the two men's meeting was "not important for what those guys say to each other" but for the fact it happened.

Earlier Mr Bush had met President Clinton in the White House in an encounter that was a strange mirror image of that between his father and the latter eight years ago, but more polite. Then president Bush had kept cameras out of the Oval Office and refused to talk to the press, bitterness from a hard-fought campaign still rankling.

Yesterday Mr Clinton was determined to show magnanimity and the mood was relaxed. "The only advice I have for anyone is get a good team and do what you think is right," Mr Clinton told journalists of their chat.

There were reports, however, of some differences, most notably over the state of the US economy, with the President insisting that any characterisation of the period as a recession is technically incorrect. Both Mr Bush and his Vice-President-elect, Mr Dick Cheney, have been gloomier in recent days.

Mr Clinton is also understood to have sounded out his successor on the advisability of a trip to North Korea, seen by diplomats as a necessary quid pro quo for the concessions from the Pyongyang regime on its missile programme. Yet if the legitimacy of the Bush presidency yesterday received the tacit seal of approval of both his opponent and the incumbent, he still has his detractors on the left.

The Rev Jesse Jackson has called on African Americans to join a demonstration in the capital on January 20th, the day of the inauguration.

Despite his appointment of two high-profile African-Americans, Gen Colin Powell and Ms Condoleezza Rice, to senior administration posts, Mr Bush has a long way to go to convince a community that voted 90 per cent Democrat that he has their interests at heart.

A new poll conducted for CNN and USA Today revealed yesterday that only one in five African-Americans believes that the President-elect will work hard to defend their interests while six out of 10 say his actions in the past week, including the appointments, have lowered him in their eyes.

Two-thirds feel cheated by the result of the presidential election while three-quarters say the voting system is discriminatory. And while 54 per cent of whites to 7 per cent of African-Americans say that the election was won "fair and square", 50 per cent of the latter to 14 per cent of whites say the election was "stolen".

Mr Gore, beginning to contemplate his future, has been nominated by supporters to the prestigious post of president of Harvard University. Some 500 nominations for the job have to date been received, a fact satirised by the cartoonist Garry Trudeau in his Doonesbury series, but Mr Gore's nomination will be seriously considered if he is genuinely interested, University officials say.

Although they admit such an appointment would add to the university's profile, it is likely they will opt for someone with a more academic background.

"Harvard doesn't need more prestige," one official is quoted as saying.