THE Bush Administration’s charm offensive in Europe continued at the weekend with a playful contribution from a most unlikely source — Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary.

The New Rumsfeld, as he portrayed himself, was unveiled at the annual Munich Conference on Security Policy, with some familiar humour, a few carefully chosen conciliatory remarks and a fair amount of uncharacteristic discretion.

But behind the warm words there was no evidence that the Defence Secretary was outlining any change in the central foreign policy approach of the re-elected Bush team.

And in a reminder of his lightning-rod status in Europe, Mr Rumsfeld very nearly didn’t make it to Europe at all. A human-rights group had attempted to have a German court charge him with violations of law over the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and in Iraq. Only after officials from Berlin had reassured their US counterparts that there would be no attempt to arrest him did Mr Rumsfeld’s brief visit go ahead.

Yet his public performance was all smiles. He began by recalling a conversation he had before he headed to Europe last week. Someone had commented that his trip promised to be an interesting one given all that the Defence Secretary had said in recent years.

His reply, he told the audience, was: “Oh, that was Old Rumsfeld.” The self-deprecating remark alluded to his famous dismissal of France and Germany two years ago as “Old Europe” during the transatlantic struggle over Iraq.

New Rumsfeld was expansive and generous to his German hosts, as well as to a predominantly European audience that tends to regard him with a mixture of contempt, fear and hatred.

He noted that over the past year America and Europe had co-operated enthusiastically and effectively across the world — in Afghanistan, in efforts to provide relief after the Indian Ocean tsunami, and even in Iraq. He said that only with transatlantic unity could the US achieve its foreign policy goals.

Perhaps more importantly, he went out of his way to avoid the kind of casual inflammatory remarks he has often seemed to enjoy making in the last four years. He declined to comment on the continuing differences with Europe over Iran’s nuclear programme, and studiously avoided answering a question from a British participant about the US view of the proposed EU constitution, saying it was up to Europeans to decide.

“We have a saying in Chicago,” he said. “‘Some of my friends are for it, and some of my friends are against it. And I’m for my friends.’”

His diplomatic performance was part of an effort across all fronts by the US Administration to open a new chapter in relations with Europe after the strains of the first Bush term. It followed last week’s successful tour by Condoleezza Rice, her first as Secretary of State, and came just a few days before President Bush himself arrives for active fence-mending with Europe.

But even as he proffered a rhetorical olive branch to former critics, Mr Rumsfeld reiterated his support for an unchanged US foreign policy.

He insisted the US ambition of bringing democracy to Iraq was working and had been the right response to the challenge posed by Saddam Hussein. And he again emphasised his distaste for the multilateral constraints of foreign policy when he restated his belief that the US should construct coalitions of the willing for its policy aims, rather than be tied down by institutional alliances.

The Europeans themselves, though, displayed confusion and uncertainty over their own approach to international alliances. In remarks that were read to the conference in his absence because of flu, Gerhard Schröder, the German Chancellor, suggested that Europe no longer considered Nato the main location for discussion of transatlantic issues. He called for the appointment of a panel of experts to find a new framework for ties between the US and Europe.

But German diplomats spent most of Saturday trying to undo what looked like another clumsy piece of diplomacy, saying that the Chancellor had not meant to bury Nato, but was intending to invigorate it.

The other principal focus of interest at the Munich conference was on Senator Hillary Clinton, who continued her steady march from former First Lady to global political figure in her own right. In her first big international appearance since last year’s presidential election, she burnished her credentials as a potential candidate with a carefully crafted speech that emphasised her own belief in the importance of international co-operation but also reflected a strong commitment to defending US national security when necessary.

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