TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/072489/07248900.039

Text File | 1990-09-18 | 5.9 KB | 106 lines

NATION, Page 19

From Patrons to Partners

Bush's trip shows a changing role for the superpowers in Europe


    George Bush's march across the Continent last week threw into
sharp relief two major and intersecting historic trends. His foray
into Poland and Hungary highlighted how Eastern Europe, at least
in part, is tumbling toward greater independence from its Soviet
overlords. His attendance at the Paris summit of industrialized
nations at week's end illustrated, less intentionally, how Western
Europe similarly continues to become more independent of the U.S.
And Bush's skimpy aid offerings in Warsaw and Budapest showed that
as the waning of the cold war hastens these shifts in Europe's
tectonic plates, the U.S. is likely to find it both necessary and
wise to let its allies take the lead in managing Western responses
to changes in Eastern Europe.

    The most important aspect of Bush's visit was its symbolism.
"The Iron Curtain has begun to part," the President declared in an
eloquent speech at the Karl Marx University in Budapest. In front
of Gdansk's Lenin shipyard, he told cheering Poles, "America stands
with you." While offering lavish praise for the courage shown by
Poland and Hungary, he avoided baiting the Soviet Union, a sensible
strategy for dealing with a bear that for the moment seems
unusually amiable.

    He was less lavish, however, with his finances. In Poland he
pledged $100 million in economic aid and an added $15 million for
controlling pollution in Cracow; he also pledged support for a move
to reschedule some of the nation's foreign debt. In Hungary he
offered $25 million in economic aid, $5 million for an
environmental center, a $1.5 million a year Peace Corps project to
help teach English, and the end of trade restrictions.

    Such gifts seemed rather paltry, less than Lyndon Johnson might
have dropped on some backwater congressional district during a
quickie campaign stop. The $115 million offered to Poland, for
example, would barely dent a decimal point in that nation's $39
billion foreign debt. Some of his European hosts were disappointed.
Solidarity leader Lech Walesa pressed the case for $10 billion in
assistance, and Communist Party leader Wojciech Jaruzelski asked
for at least $3 billion in aid and a major rescheduling of Poland's
debt. Hungarian banker and businessman Sandor Demjan, in a gesture
that was at once magnanimous and a bit slighting (as well as rather
amazing), told the New York Times that he would match the $25
million in direct U.S. economic aid. The $145 million in Bush's
gift bag for easing Poland and Hungary away from Communism was
dwarfed last week by the $70 billion the Air Force requested for
the Stealth bomber program and by the $43 billion for the Third
World that Japan offered at the Paris summit.

    American officials, however, argue that massive handouts would
be unproductive. During the past two decades, the regimes in Poland
and Hungary entrenched themselves by using foreign loans to
subsidize cheap consumer goods rather than upgrade industries. "The
last thing the West should do is to forgive us our debts," says a
senior Hungarian diplomat. "It would just relieve the pressure for
reforms, so it would be money down the drain again."

    Still, some analysts saw the meager sums as a symbol of the
relative decline of America's economic clout. A top Administration
official traveling with Bush conceded, "Sure, we could do a lot
more to encourage economic reform in Eastern Europe. But we don't
have the money. We are broke." Says Michael Mandelbaum, a Soviet
scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations: "The foreign policy
fruits of Reaganomics are that we are the world's largest debtor
nation and have a budget deficit that constrains what we can
spend."

    When Bush arrived at the Paris economic summit, he asked
America's industrial allies to make similar contributions to Poland
and Hungary. The group agreed to hold a meeting in a few weeks to
discuss both financial aid and support for reforms in the two
countries, underscoring that the European Community is increasingly
more able and eager to help guide potential changes in the
Communist bloc. "Leadership in Europe on these questions belongs
to the E.C., both by right and by their record of success," said
investment banker Robert Hormats, a former top State Department
official.

    Bush's plan to send in Peace Corps volunteers to teach English
in Hungary served as a nice counterpoint to the dropping of
Russian-language requirements in that nation's schools. But the
second language there has traditionally been German. The historic
role of Germany, however, is a troublesome obstacle to what Bush
referred to as "making Europe whole again." Poles in particular
have suffered from German expansionism, stretching from the
Teutonic Knights of the 13th century to Hitler's invasion 50 years
ago. To the extent that the E.C. becomes more unified, fears of a
resurgent Germany are likely to recede. A strong E.C. could also
serve as the core of a more self-sufficient Europe.

    The decline of Moscow's influence over Eastern Europe is the
direct consequence of its postwar failures. The economic system the
Kremlin imposed has been a disaster, and its oppressive political
embrace has engendered seething resentments.

    The decline of Washington's influence over Western Europe, on
the other hand, has been the gradual and inevitable result of its
great postwar success. America's involvement in Europe was a
welcome response to Soviet aggressiveness, not the cause of it. By
helping rebuild its allies, the U.S. proved the strengths of its
economic and political systems. Learning to deal with the robust
partners that resulted has been a fitful process but a healthy one.
The result is that now, as the cold war thaws, the U.S. can feel
comfortable sharing with its allies the responsibilities, and
financial burdens, of building a new European order.