TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/072489/07248900.040

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                                                                                NATION, Page 16

High-Wire Act


On a mission to Poland and Hungary, the President walks a line
between pushing reform and making too many promises

By Hugh Sidey


    When General Wojciech Jaruzelski had spoken and returned to
his seat beside George Bush in the Polish Parliament, Bush
reached over and patted the Communist boss's forearm. A little
later, clustered with some newly chartered Polish Little
Leaguers, he scooped up the grinning kids and pulled them close
for the ritual team picture.

    Next day, standing below the soaring Workers Monument in
Gdansk, the President wrapped his arm around Solidarity leader
Lech Walesa and held the portly electrician next to him. At the
Westerplatte Memorial, which marks the site of the first
gunfire of World War II, Bush, draped in a large American flag
by an exuberant Pole, reached into the crowd, picked up a small
boy and hugged him as if he were one of his own eleven
grandchildren.

    In rainy Budapest, beneath the huge statue of Lajos
Kossuth, Hungary's greatest figure of independence, the
President bounded down from the stage after brief remarks,
stripped off his borrowed raincoat and wrapped it around a
soaked, startled and utterly smitten old woman, who had to fend
off other onlookers grabbing for her new prize.

    On his way to speak at the Karl Marx University of Economic
Sciences, Bush invited a couple of students into the
presidential limousine; one of them sported a power yellow tie,
reflecting Alan Greenspan more than Karl Marx. At the end of a
run with dozens of youthful joggers, Bush jovially autographed
a dirty sneaker that a child had thrust into his hand.

    He was Uncle George on a historic dash through Eastern
Europe, trying to reach out and touch everyone, striving to
bring down to personal terms his doctrine of homegrown political
and economic freedoms and what they could mean for the burdened
people of the Soviet bloc. He was consumed with the idea that
the economic summit, held in Paris during the weekend, ought to
give much of its attention to the stirrings in the long-troubled
nations of the old empire.

    What propelled Bush was his belief that history is calling
him and the leaders of Poland and Hungary to forge some kind of
new partnership quickly. But as he listened to the confessionals
of Communists declaring their system a failure and searching for
a peaceful way out, he realized that he had to move gingerly.

    Before he left home, Bush wrote Mikhail Gorbachev that his
trip was not designed to stir up trouble in the Soviets'
backyard. "Winners, losers -- that's not what this is about,"
he insisted on Air Force One, as he sped toward Warsaw.

    The delicate challenge was to encourage the faltering
nations to embrace democratic reforms and move toward a
free-market economy mostly on their own, without provoking
another era of repression from nervous party bosses. Bush
offered only $115 million to Poland, a pittance when measured
against Poland's $39 billion international debt, and $25 million
to Hungary. But part of the President's traveling plan was not
to overpromise and energize the dissidents, who might then make
more demands.

    Some untutored White House aide had predicted a roaring
reception in Poland, much like the one John Kennedy evoked in
Berlin in 1963. A little Kennedy-like rhetoric was even
inserted into Bush's Gdansk speech ("To those who think that
freedom can be forever denied, I say let them look at Poland").
That totally missed the meaning of these dramatic days.
Gorbachev is more of an ally than a threat. On this trip there
was no adversary for Bush to shake his fist at while summoning
hoarse defiance in the streets. The subdued, weary Poles seemed
to understand Pogo's famous observation, "We have met the enemy
and he is us." They were curious about Bush but worried about
the new world he talked of. Capitalism is only dimly perceived
by most people in Eastern Europe.

    In a moment of cold candor, John Sununu, White House chief
of staff, put it accurately, though he later apologized for his
"unfortunate" analogy. Asked about the modest $115 million
package for Poland, he replied, "In a sense we could actually
do too much. You can't create the problem of a young person in
the candy store, where there is so much there that they don't
know which direction to take and don't have the self-discipline
to take the right steps."

    While Bush made eloquent pleas in his formal addresses
about "the power and potential of this moment," perhaps his most
telling diplomacy was conducted around the dining tables of
Warsaw, Gdansk and Budapest. At U.S. Ambassador John Davis'
residence in Warsaw, Communist leaders sat down with the
Solidarity reformers who just last month startled the world by
winning all but one of the contested seats in the Polish
Parliament. The lunch took on a life of its own.

    When the idea of mixing the political enemies was first
proposed, Jaruzelski turned down the invitation, then changed
his mind, the first hint of Bush's healing touch. "I have lived
perhaps 50 or 80 meters away from here for 16 years, and it is
the first time that I have come to this residence," he said. If
he was startled, the Solidarity members who had been imprisoned
by the Communists were even more amazed as they pulled up chairs
at the same round tables with their former jailers. "Rather
strange," said Janusz Onyszkiewicz, a spokesman for Solidarity,
"if you take into account that a year ago I was in prison." His
wife Joanna, also a Solidarity partisan, admitted to her table
partner that it was "uncomfortable sitting with people you have
been fighting for years."

    Yet Bush pulled it off. In the unseasonal heat, he ordered
coats removed. He jumped from person to person with his
outstretched hand. A thaw of sorts set in. Though Bush had
ruled out toasts, he changed his mind and ruled them in again.
He, Jaruzelski and Bronislaw Geremek, opposition leader in the
Parliament, rose one by one in feeling tribute to the moment.
It was at this lunch that Barbara Bush claims to have discovered
a jocular streak in General Jaruzelski, known to most of the
world as an unsmiling dictator lurking behind dark glasses.
"Very amusing," insisted Barbara. "When George said, `Take off
your coats,' (Jaruzelski) said, `I have to sneak in and take off
my suspenders too.' So then when he had to get up to make his
speech, he said, `Well, I'd better be careful. I've got to
remember I don't have my suspenders on.'"

    In Gdansk the next day, Bush was at the luncheon table
again, this one in the 100-year-old home of Solidarity leader
Lech Walesa. Women from the neighborhood had prepared an
avalanche of Polish dishes, ranging from smoked eel to
schnitzel. Bush looked at the groaning board and commented, "My
mother taught me to eat what's before you. In this house I would
weigh 300 lbs." Framed pictures of Christ were in almost every
room; crucifixes hung over most of the doors. By Polish
standards the house was a mansion; Walesa noted that his work
with Solidarity had some benefits.

    Bush chatted with kids and patted dogs, but there was some
serious talk when he and Walesa strolled alone. Walesa had said
he was not ready to run for President of Poland, but Bush
reportedly reminded him that if successful reform was to occur,
somebody should be ready to lead. Walesa poured out his hopes
for luring $10 billion in investments to Poland, a vague scheme
of venture capital that caught the fancy of the former Texas oil
entrepreneur.

    Wherever Bush went, he heard quiet endorsement for his
restrained attitude toward the Soviet Union. "Gorbachev makes
it possible for us to move ahead," confided one of the
Communists to Bush. "We appreciate your keeping a good
relationship with him." It seemed, as Bush hurried along his
route, that his hosts gained nerve and expressed not only their
conviction that Communism was a botch but also their uncertainty
about how to untangle their political and economic messes. "We
are where you were in 1776," Hungary's party president, Rezso
Nyers, told Bush. "We need a currency that is convertible. The
question is, Can we get it fast enough to keep things moving?
We know that reform means instability in the Soviet Union,
Yugoslavia, Poland and Hungary. At the same time, we know we
need foreign capital. Most basic is, How do we reform the
thinking of our people who for the past 40 years have not been
told how the world works?"

    Before he left Hungary, Bush had a special demonstration of
the new wave. When he arrived to deliver his formal address at
Karl Marx University, it was difficult to find any sign of Marx.
The lone statue at the far end of the huge hall was blocked from
sight by the press stand. "Your people and your leaders --
government and opposition alike -- are not afraid to break with
the past, to act in the spirit of truth," Bush told the
students. "And what better example of this could there be than
one simple fact: Karl Marx University has dropped Das Kapital
from its required reading list." All over the hall George Bush,
a proud product of U.S capitalism, saw the young Hungarians
break into wide smiles and nod in agreement.