Briefing journalists in the White House last Thursday on President Clinton's visit to Europe this week, his National Security Adviser, Mr Sandy Berger, set the tone. He recalled Europe in January 1994 struggling for a new global identity in the era following the Cold War, NATO impotent in Bosnia, Russia teetering between democracy and nationalist revival.
And then, Mr Berger hinted, came Mr Clinton on his first visit as President with a "blueprint" and things began to change. Today's EU-US summit, indeed the whole visit, has an agenda crammed with the usual minutiae of trade rows and a whole range of mutual international concerns. But the subtext is about one thing, as the careful choreography of the trip makes clear: the place of William Jefferson Clinton in history.
The visit is his last scheduled trip to Europe before the end of the Clinton presidency, the last big opportunity to fashion him as global statesman, architect of the 21st century, robust peacemaker of the Balkans, articulator of the philosophy of the Third Way, social democracy's response to the challenge of globalisation.
Hence the visits to high-tech research facilities yesterday, hence the debates today on the information age, and the brainstorming about the "new economics", the key but "unprepared" and unstructured debate of the summit. Or so they say. Then on Friday there's the Charlemagne Prize for his contribution to European unity. Mr Berger reminded his audience of its illustrious previous winners - Churchill, Havel, Kohl (the Americans are not as aware of the man's tarnished image as we are) and Blair.
On Saturday he will be surrounded by leaders from four continents at a conference on the Third Way - Schroder from Germany, Cardoso from Brazil, Barak from Israel, willing bit players in the Clinton Show.
But Clinton's imminent departure will also cast a shadow over many of the routine issues of the summit today.
The handling of the high-profile trade disputes over hormones in beef, biotechnological farm products and bananas are all complicated by the election process and the charged atmosphere in Congress, which has just raised the ante with $250 million in new punitive tariffs on EU products. Chiquita, the US banana giant, is a major campaign contributor.
The EU has added its tuppence worth with a renewed insistence that US tax subsidies to exporters through so-called "foreign sales corporations", worth up to $4 billion a year, must be ended. With the WTO on the EU side on this argument, and the US adamant that it will press ahead, diplomats expect little out of today's meeting beyond a restatement of commitment to talk and niceties about the sevenfold expansion in EU-US trade since 1994 to $1 billion a day.
The most that can be expected on biotechnology is the establishment of a transatlantic consultative forum of "wise men" to consider ways forward. The EU's Trade Commissioner, Mr Pascal Lamy, has been calling for an immediate relaunch of the Seattle world trade round ahead of the US elections, arguing against the tide of opinion that the process can only become more difficult the more it is delayed.
Although no deal on the issue has been pre-cooked for today's meeting, the US and EU success in agreeing terms for China's entry to the WTO may give a spur to the process. Negotiators argue that a broad agenda for talks may be easier to agree ahead of actual accession by the Chinese and the hope is that Mr Clinton may also think a resumption of Seattle a suitable parting gesture.
A statement confirming agreement between the US and EU on data protection is expected. Although the EU has been concerned about the absence of US federal legislation on the issue, an agreement based on the concept of "safe harbours", or zones where protection is high, appears to have met concerns.
Mr Clinton is expected to reassure the EU that the development of the European Security and Defence Policy is not seen as a threat to NATO but to insist that the European non-EU NATO members must be fully integrated into new structures.
AFP adds:
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Mr Clinton will hold a summit in Berlin tomorrow to discuss the aftermath of Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon and the Palestinian peace process, officials said yesterday.
Mr Barak had originally been scheduled to meet Mr Clinton in Washington on May 23rd, but he cancelled the meeting after an upsurge of violence in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.