NATION, Page 16High-Wire ActOn a mission to Poland and Hungary, the President walks a linebetween pushing reform and making too many promisesBy 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
