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[News Releases, 1989-1991]
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[News Releases, 1989-1991]
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Records of the White House Office of Speechwriting (George H. W. Bush Administration)
Tony Snow Subject Files
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Originally Processed With FOIA(s):
FOIA Number:
S
FOIA
MARKER
This is not a textual record. This is used as an
administrative marker by the George Bush Presidential
Library Staff.
Record Group/Collection:
George H.W. Bush Presidential Records
Collection/Office of Origin:
Speechwriting, White House Office of
Series:
Snow, Tony, Files
Subseries:
Subject File, 1988-1993
OA/ID Number:
13897
Folder ID Number:
13897-002
Folder Title:
[News Releases, 1989-1991]
Stack:
Row:
Section:
Shelf:
Position:
G
18
29
2
5
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PAGE 2
3RD STORY of Level 1 printed in FULL format.
Copyright (c) 1989 Newsday, Inc.;
Newsday
March 10, 1989, Friday, MANHATTAN EDITION
SECTION: NEWS; MANHATTAN CLOSEUP; Pg. 23
Other Edition: Brooklyn Pg. 23
LENGTH: 1120 words
HEADLINE: Work Teaches Them the Value of School
BYLINE: Curtis L. Taylor
GED
KEYWORD: NEW YORK CITY; SCHOOL; CURRICULUM; STUDENT
BODY:
Warren Allen, 19, was considered a likely candidate to drop out of
school. He rarely showed up for classes, and when he did, he had trouble
completing the course work. By his own admission, he was not a good student.
"I had trouble understanding the classwork, and when I fell behind, I was
lost," Allen said. "I wanted to do well, but I never felt comfortable, 50 I was
never able to catch up. (APPEARED IN 23 B)
HE attended Eli Whitney Vocational High School in Greenpoint, now named Harry
Van Arsdale High School. ****
But now he's studying for a high school equivalency diploma while doing
carpentry work for the Vineyard Theatre at Union Square.
Based on a recommendation From the counselor at his high school, Allen was
enrolled at the New York City Vocational Training Center, a program that takes
potential high school dropouts and places them in entry-level construction
jobs while they earn money and course credit toward a General Equivalency
Diploma.
Allen said things began to improve for him after he was employed by Dennis
Anthony Brown Contractors Inc. as a carpenter's helper. Allen helped build the
Vineyard Theatre's new Gertrude and Irving Dimson Performing Space at 108 E.
15th St.
"I learned a lot of things while on the job, especially how important it is
to get an education. Construction is hard work, but it can be made easier if you
know your Fractions and how to read well," said Allen, who attends night school
at PS 345 in the East New York section of Brooklyn, where he lives, after work
to prepare for his GED examination.
"Before, 1 didn't see why it was important to know multiplication or how to
divide, 50 I was not motivated to do my homework," he said. "Now, I can't get
enough of studying. I plan to go to college."
Allen is one of the 16 students from the training program who have worked for
Brown Contractors during construction of the 150-seat theater.
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(c) 1989 Newsday, March 10, 1989
The Vineyard Theatre construction site is one of 30 involved in the program
throughout the five boroughs, said Dan Karas, the program's on-site vocational
supervisor. The students learn marketable skills in carpentry, plastering and
electrical installation, building maintenance, painting and upholstering, Karas
said.
In addition to the work they do at the building site, the students receive a
minimum of 80 minutes of academic instruction a day and fours hours of
vocational training, Karas said. Each student has the opportunity to work toward
credits for a diploma.
Karas said that the other students enrolled in the program, like Allen,
demonstrated an inability to profit from the traditional high school
environment. They range in age From 18 to 21 and come to the program
voluntarily.
"They come into the program because they don't have an interest in school,"
said Karas, who was a shop teacher in city schools for 27 years. "While working
on the job, they realized that there is a need for an education."
Karas said that the students benefit from the flexible work environment:
"These kids weren't functioning in regular school, if they went at all, but when
they come to the program, their attendence is almost one hundred percent. They
are 50 eager to learn that in most cases they arrive on the job site before we
do." Barbara Zinn Krieger, executive director of the Vineyard Theatre, said she
got the idea to participate in the program from Vineyard treasurer and board
member Herb Rothman.
"I thought it would be a great match for a nonprofit like us to help the kids
learn a trade and at the same time help myself economically," said Krieger, who
founded the first Vineyard Theatre eight years ago.
The theater expects to save about $ 500,000 on the project. It also has a
65-seat performing space at East 26th Street, Krieger said.
Krieger said she was very pleased with the progress of the new
000-square-foot theater, which 15 scheduled to open in early May. She said the
nonprofit theater was paid for by $ 2.3 million in cash and in-kind donations.
Contractor Dennis Anthony Brown said the program was a perfect marriage
between the private sector and the school system. The students gain a sense of
pride by seeing their work bloom right before their eyes, he said.
Visitors to the theater will be greeted by a spectacular two-story view of
red oak paneling designed to give the feeling of a stage background set, Brown
said. The theater will also house an art gallery, where works from local
community groups will be on display during the day, Krieger said.
"Right from the start, they showed me they wanted to do it right," Krieger
said. "The kids were willing to learn from the experts, and they took pride in
their work. The spirit on the project was incredible. I believe the kids
motivated the professionals.
Krieger believes that giving these students an opportunity is part of the
vision of the Vineyard.
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(c) 1989 Newsday, March 10, 1989
"Helping these students to Find careers for their talents is just as
important as helping the talents of playwrights or composers," she said.
For John Masillo, 22, the program has steered him to a career as an
electrician.
Masillo was hired as an electrician's helper at $ a an hour by one of the
subcontractors working on the Vineyard Theatre.
"I look Forward to getting up early each morning and going to work," said
Masillo, who leaves his house in the Bronx at 5:30 a.m. to arrive at work on
time. "In school 1 never felt like I belonged, because 1 was treated as a kid.
But here, they show me respect and treat me much better than my classmates and
teachers did in school. I feel like 1 am part of a team."
Karas said that many of the training center's graduates become apprentices
and eventually join a trade union or re-enroll in school.
"It's great to see a youngster who probably would have dropped out of
school without an education and joined the ranks of the permanently unemployable
have a chance to succeed in life by learning a trade," Karas said.
Brown said that students are not encouraged only to enter the construction
field.
"We stress to all of the youngsters in the program that it's okay for them to
go back to school full-time," Brown said. "We make it clear that our only wish
is that they be successful in life, whether that be in the construction field or
some other field."
Brown said he had worked with over 50 students during his three years of
participating in the program and had hired more than 10 to work for his company
full-time.
Masillo said, "I wish that all of the kids who are having trouble in school
could join a program like this. Here they can learn a trade or see how important
their education is. There is really no easy way out - in school or on the job,
you have to work hard to learn and get ahead."
GRAPHIC: Newsday Photo by Ozier Muhammad-At the Vineyard Theatre's new
performing space are, from left, student and electrician's helper John Masillo,
contractor Dennis Anthony Brown, theater head Barbara Zinn Krieger, student and
carpenter's helper Warren Allen, painter Edgardo Elias and vocational training
supervisor Dan Karas.
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PAGE 5
12TH STORY of Level 1 printed in FULL format.
Copyright (c) 1989 Business Wire Inc.;
Business Wire
January 19, 1989, Thursday
DISTRIBUTION: City Editors/Education Writers
LENGTH: 351 words
HEADLINE: METRO-ADULT-EDUC; MAEP announces ' ' Comeback Student of the Year''
DATELINE: SAN JOSE, Calif.
BODY:
Twenty Four year old Richard Ruiz, who wants a high school diploma 50 the
Army Reserve will help pay for his college education, has been named the
Metropolitan Adult Education Program's (MAEP) ' ' Comeback Student of the Year.
Ruiz dropped out of high school in 1981 when he was 17. A few months later,
he earned his GED and enrolled in the Center for Employment Training,
graduating as an electronics technician. After joining the Army Reserve in 1982,
Ruiz discovered he could not advance into skilled training or receive college
funding from the Army without a high school diploma. He enrolled at MAEP in 1987
and today is near his goal.
''I need just 10 credits. I'm almost there and I'll be on my way as soon as 1
get it,'' said Ruiz.
He will graduate in June and stay in the Army Reserve, which will help pay
for his college education after he has the diploma in hand. Regarding the
experience of returning to school as an adult, Ruiz said he ' 'learned a lot.
Some is challenging, such as English, and some comes easier to me, such as math,
science and history. It's going to feel good to get my diploma.
Yasmin Sayyed, Ruiz' instructor in MAEP's Computer Assisted High School
Subjects Lab, describes him as a motivated and articulate student.
''Richard serves as a motivator for our students and is good about explaining
to them that sometimes a GED is not enough. He is a real addition to the
class,'' she said.
And the Future?
''I'm looking into the R.O.T.C., said Ruiz. ' ' After a couple of years, 1
can be commissioned as a second Lieutenant in the Reserve and go to school at
the same time. With my additional Reserve pay, and R.O.T.C. money, I'll be able
to pay for college, books and help support myself. I like mechanics and working
on cars and I'd like to major in mechanics in college. My main goal is to open
up my own shop in a small town.
CONTACT: Robert Bestor Associates, 415/538-0628
or
Carol Marble, 408/257-7859
KEYWORD: CALIFORNIA
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15TH STORY of Level 1 printed in FULL format.
Copyright (c) 1989 Business Magazine Corporation;
Business Month
(formerly Dun's Business Month)
January, 1989
SECTION: SPEAKING OUT; Pg. 71
LENGTH: 833 words
HEADLINE: MANY WORKERS CAN'T READ THESE WORDS
BYLINE: JOHN P. POLYCHRON; John P. Polychron is the president and CEO of
Planters LifeSavers Company
BODY:
Beneath factory smokestacks and behind office walls, some American businesses
are putting out a new product: a literate work force.
By conservative estimates, at least 23 million Americans read and write below
the fifth-grade level. About 35 million more read below the high-school level,
which is necessary to perform most jobs. Nearly 13 percent of the American work
force is functionally illiterate - can't read, write or do sufficient math to
function at work or behind a steering wheel.
There has been debate over whether the root of illiteracy lies in poverty,
racism, Faulty teaching methods, homes with "latchkey" children or educational
systems that blindly pass students from grade to grade. But regardless of what
has caused the problem, it is taking a devastating toll in the workplace through
lower efficiency and product quality, and higher manufacturing costs. The U.S.
Department of Labor estimates that illiteracy costs this country about $225
billion a year in lowered productivity, lost tax revenues, welfare and
unemployment payments and other related areas.
And the problem is bound to get worse. The Labor Department predicts that 85
percent of the new workers hired during the 1990s will be women, minorities and
immigrants; the latter two groups traditionally have had the most limited
educational backgrounds in America.
Compounding the situtation is the fact that today's jobs -- even those on the
factory floor --- demand a higher level of literacy than those of, say, 15 years
ago. Robotics, electronics and statistical-control methods, now the norms in
manufacturing, are making the non-reader and the remedial reader as obsolete in
an industrial environment as the horse and buggy. Over the next decade,
researchers estimate, more than half of all new jobs will require skills beyond
the high-school level. Some predict that in the years ahead, even basic service
occupations will require at least an eighth-grade reading level.
The willingness of community and business organizations to tackle illiteracy
together could have a dramatic impact on employment and economic conditions.
Eleven years ago, Planters LifeSavers began offering voluntary basic
education in our nut-professing plant in Suffolk, Virginia. Working with the
city school system and the state department of education, we set up a system --
called the Planters Employee Training Program (PET) -- to offer our 900
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(c) 1989 Business Month, January, 1989
employees instruction in reading, writing, grammar, math and other studies. We
work with employees who simply want to learn to read, as well as with those who
want to earn the equivalent of a high-school diploma.
One full-time and two part-time instructors work in a classroom in our plant,
under the supervision of the city school system. The company pays 65 percent -
about $40,000 a year - of the program's expenses, including the teachers'
salaries; the city school board pays the remaining 35 percent.
The instructors use a variety of tactics to make learning easier for people
who go to class after a hard day's work. For example, memorizing the alphabet
is sometimes done with the help of a reading program featuring rap-style, jazz
or country songs.
Classes are held between 1 p.m. and 6 p.m. to offer employees a chance to
attend class before or after their shift. Each student is required to attend at
least four hours of class each week. Currently, 50 employees are enrolled in
the 36-week program. Since PET was created in 1978, about 150 employees have
improved their basic-skills proficiency, nearly 30 have moved up to eighth-grade
proficiency and three have earned General Educational Development ( GED)
certificates.
Hiring instructors, providing classroom space and paying for educational
materials has not been difficult. The challenge has been to generate -- and
maintain - enrollment in the program. Many people who are illiterate try
desperately to hide the problem from their peers, their supervisors and even
their family members. It takes guts to admit that you can't read.
The program's success stories are endless. A young mother, who was a
dropout herself, enrolled because she couldn't help her children with their
homework and because she wanted to set an example that would encourage them to
finish school. A machine operator, who had left school in the 11th grade and
who had years of service at our company, enrolled to fight the frustration he
felt when better-trained co-workers filled job openings he wanted but didn't
quality for. Another student considered it a triumph when she upgraded her
office skills by Finally learning how to read.
Illiteracy is a huge debit hiding above the bottom line. Corporate America
must make fighting it a priority. We have traditionally viewed government and
educators as being responsible for America's "mental skills," but management
must now acknowledge that without well-equipped manufacturing minds, advanced
technical and marketing minds won't realize their potential.
GRAPHIC: Picture, Polychron: Illiteracy costs $225 billion a year in low output,
lost taxes and unemployment payments, WILLAND DENI MCINTYRE
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36TH STORY of Level 1 printed in FULL format.
Proprietary to the United Press International 1988
August 1, 1988, Monday, BC cycle
SECTION: Regional News
DISTRIBUTION: Indiana
LENGTH: 497 words
DATELINE: BLOOMINGTON, Ind.
KEYWORD: Sed
BODY:
High school dropouts are increasingly turning to the general equivalency
exam when they reach the job market and discover the missing diploma is needed
to get a job, Indiana University officials said.
'More and more employers are requiring that new employees have a high school
diploma or an equivalent,' said Clinton I. Chase, director of Indiana
University's Bureau of Evaluative Studies and Testing (BEST). ''As a
consequence, an increasing number of school dropouts are taking the General
Educational Development ( GED) tests.
One out of every seven high school diplomas issued annually in this country
is based on GED tests, said Douglas R. Whitney, director of the American
Council on Education's GED testing service.
The credentials, which are not actually a diploma but a high school
equivalency certificate, are accepted by more than 90 percent of United States
colleges and universities as satisfactory evidence of a secondary school
diploma, Whitney said.
For those who cannot return as a full-time high school student, the GED
tests and related preparatory work will suffice in terms of showing evidence of
having a high school education. In the six-county area served by IU's Bureau of
Evaluative Studies and Testing, there has been a significant increase in the
number of people taking GED tests over the past two years, Chase said.
BEST serves Monroe, Morgan, Greene, Brown, Lawrence and Owen counties.
Last year, 384 people from the area took the test, a 79 percent increase from
the 215 who took the tests in 1986. During the first six months of 1988, 259
people were tested, bringing the proected figure for the whole year to 518.
With the number of test takers on the rise, there is also a big increase in
the number who fail. Of the people who took the test in 1988, 28 percent failed,
compared to failure rates of 18 and 19 percent respectively in 1987 and 1986.
Edith Richardson, psychometrist and alternate GED examiner, said the people
are failing for a simple reason; they don't study before they take the test.
' ' The increased number of failures is due to examinees not going to class and
not preparing for the tests, she said. 'They come in cold, hoping they will
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Proprietary to the United Press International, August 1, 1988
pass.
To acquire an Indiana High School Equivalency Certificate, an applicant must
make a minimum standard test score of 35 on each of five tests and there must be
an average standard score of 45 for the five tests. A perfect score ranges from
75 to 80, depending on the test.
GED participants must be at least 18 years old and out of school for one
year, or 17 and have completed a program of study with the Job Corps, or 17 and
a resident of a child-care institution. Applicants who fail to achieve 214
points or more on the five tests may take the test again after 30 days.
The cost of the tests may not exceed $18 total, or $4 for individual tests.
The GED tests measure knowledge and skills for writing, social studies,
science, literature and mathematics.
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vel 1 printed in FULL format.
The Associated Press
AP file were compiled by The Associated Press. These
be republished without the express written consent of The
July 27, 1988, Wednesday, PM cycle
SECTION: Domestic News
LENGTH: 126 words
HEADLINE: Names In The News
DATELINE: NEW YORK
GAD
KEYWORD: Names
BODY:
Walter Anderson let the parade pass him by once, when he dropped out of
high school. Now, as editor of Parade magazine, he has a message for others who
missed the academic boat.
Anderson has signed on as a spokesman for the General Educational Development
program, which allows dropouts to take a test to gain the equivalent of a high
school diploma.
"It was in the Marines that I was able to develop my self-esteem and a sense
of pride," Anderson said at a news conference Tuesday. "After passing the GED
exam, I was able to get into Marine Corps schools and grow with more
confidence."
Other Former dropouts who are GED spokesmen include Rep. James Florio,
D-N.J.; warden Daniel Vasquez of San Quentin Prison; and cookie king Wally
"Famous" Amos.
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1ST STORY of Level 1 printed in FULL format.
Copyright (c) 1990 The Chronicle Publishing Co.
The San Francisco Chronicle
JANUARY 5, 1990, FRIDAY, FINAL EDITION
SECTION: NEWS; A10; PERSONALS
LENGTH: 786 words
HEADLINE: PERSONALS
BYLINE: Leah Garchik
BODY:
VACLAV HAVEL GETS SHARP
-
NO MORE MR. FRUMPY
The first thing the fashion mavens noticed was that upon assuming the
presidency of Czechoslovakia, ^ Vaclav Havel took to wearing a tie. Now comes
word of a Czechoslovakian master plan to gussy up the new leader in an entire
wardrobe of custom-made Western-style suits.
^Viktor Koreis , designer of a modern Western-style parka recently sported by
Havel on casual occasions, told the Los Angeles Times that in the '70s, drab
baggy clothes were considered politically correct by the Communists. ''It was
forbidden to wear jeans to school, to wear T-shirts with any kind of writing and
to have Western labels on the outside of your clothes, in the same way they
prohibited long hair and elaborate makeup as dangerous Western influences which
were bad for socialist morals.'
Havel's oversize sweater and loose gray pants won't be his style for long.
''If these persons are our representatives,' said designer ^Marie-Helene
^Nunezova ? 'we would like them to be on the same level as Western government
leaders, who are always 50 well-dressed. It meant a lot when ^Mikhail ^Gorbachev
and his wife, ^Raisa, were so well-dressed when they appeared in public. There
was no way of telling from their clothes that they were from the East or the
West.'
QUICKIES
* Actress ^Karen Black reveals on Monday's episode of ''The ^Joan Rivers
Show'' that director ^Alfred Hitchcock did not have a belly button. Hitchcock
once showed her his stomach, she said, and told her the belly button had been
cut out in an operation.
* West Germany has volunteered to send money to renovate the grave of
German-born ^Karl Marx, which is in London's Highgate Cemetery.
* The New York Daily News says that ^Wynona Ryder has been dropped from the
cast of ''Godfather 3'' because of an illness and that her replacement is
probably ^Francis ^Ford Coppola 's daughter, ^Sophia, who co-wrote his ''New
York Stories'' segment.
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(c) 1990 The San Francisco Chronicle, JANUARY 5, 1990
THE VOICE OF
THE INTERIOR
Outside magazine sums up the year's best quotes from Secretary of the
Interior ^Manuel Lujan, whom the magazine calls ''one of the dimmer points of
light'' in the Bush administration.
On the Exxon Valdez oil spill: ''If the same experience holds true for Alaska
that held for Yellowstone
...
tourism should increase this year.
On his erroneous assertion that the government gets a cut of public land
mining profits: ' 'We don't get any money? Strike whatever I might have said.
I didn't know what I was talking about.
On his department: 'We have to take care of these things _ MM the land, all
these things.
On ^George Bush : ''He's my boss. I do what he says.'
WHO SAID WHAT
''If Manuel Noriega had a credit card in his wallet during his stay at the
Vatican Embassy, he could have called Rescue Associates Worldwide Rescue
Products Inc., an Ambler, Pa., company that specializes in portable escape
devices.
Press release from the manufacturer of the Exit Traveler, a portable metal
cable attached to a safety harness.
' 'My family are real good people. They don't take anything for granted, so I
try not to take anything for granted. For instance, when things really started
taking off, with 'Family Ties' hitting its stride and 'Back to the Future,'
people that I'd known casually would have no problem asking me for $ 50,000. But
my mother stuttered and stammered over whether I'd autograph a 'Family Ties' mug
for the Ladies Auxiliary tea. I've always been really impressed by that.
^Michael J. Fox, in Parade magazine.
SIDESHOW
SCHOOLGIRL STANDS BY HER MANUEL
^Sarah York, the 12-year-old Michigan schoolgirl who befriended General
^Manuel Noriega and visited him in Panama after he was indicted, says she
doesn't think her pen pal can get a fair trial in the United States.
''In the first place, everyone believes everything that was said against him,
and then on the news today, I heard that they weren't even going to listen to
what he had to say about secrets, about ^George Bush and the CIA.
Sarah also said she is working on a book about her relationship with the
general. ''It's going to be called 'The General I Know: A Kinder, Gentler
Noriega.
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(c) 1990 The San Francisco Chronicle, JANUARY 5, 1990
BREAKING UP
IS HARD TO DO
News item from the Daily Telegraph of London:
' '^Hugo Zamorote, the Argentinian contortionist, was saved from suffocation
when assistants smashed a 20-inch glass bottle into which he had squeezed during
a warmup at Gerry Cottle's Christmas Circus. He entered the bottle successfully,
but was seen to panic.'
To wit:
Hugo, a pro at contortion,
Abandoned all sense of
proportion,
Increasingly mottled,
His face remained bottled
'Til smashing worked better
than torsion.
GRAPHIC: PHOTO (3), (1) Hitchcock, flat belly?, (2) Karl Marx, respect must be
paid, (3) York, loyal
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2ND STORY of Level 1 printed in FULL format.
Copyright (c) 1990 The Times Mirror Company;
Los Angeles Times
January 3, 1990, Wednesday, Home Edition
SECTION: View; Part E; Page 1; Column 1; View Desk
LENGTH: 1323 words
HEADLINE: REFORMING CZECH WARDROBE;
FASHION: YOUNG DESIGNERS ARE EYEING NEW LEADER VACLAV HAVEL, WITH THE IDEA OF
UPGRADING HIS - AND THE NATION'S -- STYLE.
BYLINE: By DAVID D'ARCY, Free-lancer David D'Arcy regularly covers the arts for
National Public Radio.
DATELINE: PRAGUE
BODY:
Czechoslovakia's prominent playwright and Communist Party nemesis Vaclav
Havel is settling into his new role as president of the country in which the
once all-powerful Communists will become only one party among many.
But by some Czech's standards at least, the short, 53-year-old leader's
wardrobe is remarkably unpresidential. Like most of his countrymen, Havel
dresses in what might be described kindly as ordinary clothes: old brown or gray
trousers stamped out of a generic, shapeless East Bloc style, an open-collared
shirt and a black pullover sweater that looks as if he's been wearing it for
years.
As Havel has consolidated the country around him his message has not changed,
but the shy playwright is beginning to give some attention to changing his dress
in a way that might make him look a bit more like a head of state.
This started several weeks ago, when Havel noticed someone in his entourage
wearing a black, Western-style parka. The playwright liked the jacket, tried it
on, and asked how he might get one. The owner gave it to him and Havel has been
wearing it ever since.
In fact, the parka was made by hand, by 24-year-old Viktor Koreis, one of a
small group of fashion design students making Western-looking garments for
Czechoslovaks who don't want to look as if their wardrobes come out of a
mail-order catalogue from the Comecon - the Eastern European trading bloc.
Koreis and other young designers have their eyes on Havel, who's slowly
getting used to appearing on national television wearing a suit and tie. In
the months ahead they plan to supply him with a wardrobe of made-to-measure,
Western-style suits.
Another fashion student, Marie-Helene Nunezova, 25, said the novice designers
are determined that Czechoslovakia's new political leaders will get used to
wearing tailored suits of high quality material, a rare commodity in the Warsaw
Pact.
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(c) 1990 Los Angeles Times, January 3, 1990
"If these persons are our representatives," she said, "we would like to help
them be on the same level as the Western government leaders, who are always 50
well-dressed. It meant a lot," she said, "when Mikhail Gorbachev and his wife
Raisa were 50 well-dressed when they appeared in public. There was no way of
telling from their clothes that they were from the East or the West."
This effort to bring fashion to Czechoslovakia's politicians and, eventually,
to the people, is being largely orchestrated from the High School for Applied
Arts, a university level school for painting, architecture, design and other
artistic media. Like all other university buildings, this one, which overlooks
the Moldau River not far from Prague's historic Charles Bridge, was recently
occupied by students determined to reform their school as well as their
government. A poster showing a 1930s photograph of an elegant man in a tuxedo
talking to two stylish women sets the tone. "Don't be naive, my dear," the
caption reads, "the students aren't finished yet."
The ongoing work of the fashion studio takes place on the second floor. As
Nunezova inspected the first of two large rooms, she apologized for the disarray
of sleeping bags, half-written posters, and an improvised kitchen. "This is
where some of us have been sleeping," she said. "Students have been living here
day and night."
In the next room crowded with mannequins, sketch sheets, and rolls of fabric
- where all the students of the department must share one working electric
sewing machine Nunezova explained why she thinks Czechoslovaks dress the way
they do.
"In general, the people in Czechoslovakia are not dressed the same as people
in the West," she said, "because you can't buy nice clothes in the ordinary
shops since the factories aren't producing such things. The factories here are
making clothes according to old plans, which require them to do stupid things
that nobody wants to buy. The people don't have any other possibility to get
clothes if they can't bring them from the West, buy them for hard currency in
special state shops, or sew the clothes themselves."
By their own efforts, Nunezova and Koreis, who sat hunched over the sewing
machine nearby, are already exceptions to this rule. Both are dressed in what at
first glance looks like everyday casual European clothes - she in a short
denim skirt and a light purple denim jacket with the label Mustang sewn on one
pocket; he in faded blue jeans, a faded black denim jacket and a beige quilted
parka inside which the label Western Wear can be seen. These garments were not
brought back from a trip to the West, however. They are ready-to-wear knockoffs,
hand made by the students themselves.
For years, Nunezova said, Czechoslovaks who wanted to look stylish but lacked
access either to the West or to Western currency simply sewed their own
wardrobes. They used patterns or actual garments they'd take apart and copy. The
careful exactitude of the buttons and stitching of Nunezova's and Koreis'
clothes show just how adept the independent tailors have become.
As a result, Nunezova said, many people in Prague - the capital and probably
the country's most stylish city - are accustomed to having clothes made
privately to their own specifications. Thus while other artists have emigrated
over the last 20 years, the demand for good clothing has supported a small group
of fashion designers and kept them in the country.
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(c) 1990 Los Angeles Times, January 3, 1990
Koreis said there is also a somewhat defiant political aspect to the
students' interest in looking as well-dressed as their Western counterparts. In
the '70s, he explained, the Communists derided fashion as a bourgeois vice. "It
was forbidden to wear jeans to school, to wear T-shirts with any kind of
writing, and to have Western labels on the outside of your clothes, (in) the
same way they prohibited long hair and elaborate makeup as dangerous Western
influences which were bad for socialist morals."
Beyond dressing their leaders, Czechoslovak designers have greater ambitions
-- including the creation of "revolutionary clothes" inspired by the dramatic
political events of the last month, Nunezova said. These designs will probably
incorporate red, white and blue, the colors of the country's flag. "I think they
should follow trends in international fashion," she said, but "also draw on
aspects of our traditional dress, on details from our national costumes."
While Applied Arts students expect strong support from consumers, especially
women, for freeing Czech fashion, they foresee obstacles to production in
Czechoslovakia, where factories have been stamping out the same dresses for 40
years. Factories established according to Communist production structures, the
students say, don't adjust to new demands every six months as styles change.
"In the short term, the supply of cloth is likely to be our biggest problem,"
said Zdenka Bauerova, a seamstress who has taught fashion design at the High
School for Applied Arts since 1970. Bauerova supports the students' efforts to
reform Czech fashion. "We have a lot of people here who are able to create their
own designs without depending on ideas from outside," she explained. "The
problem for us is to get materials of the same quality they have in the West."
All this could change if, as expected, Western European capital starts to
flow into Czechoslovakia. With factory wages far lower than in the West, and a
modern transportation system, Prague is ideally placed to become a production
center for both Eastern and Western European markets. A bonus: the city's
baroque architecture makes an excellent backdrop for fashion photography.
"Our biggest task, now," said the student who made Vaclav Havel's parka,
"is to dress the Czech people like a normal nation, and to catch up with the
Western countries after being cut off from them and living differently for more
than 40 years. We have to work much harder than other countries if we don't want
to look like people from a hundred years before the monkeys."
GRAPHIC: Photo, COLOR, Czech president Vaclav Havel in black pullover sweater
typical of the generic, shapeless East Bloc style. A.F.P.; Photo, Marie-Helene
Nunezova, a design student at Czechoslovakia's High School for Applied Arts.
STEVE LEHMAN
SUBJECT: CZECHOSLOVAKIA CULTURE; CZECHOSLOVAKIA GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS;
CZECHOSLOVAKIA ECONOMY; FASHION; CLOTHING; FASHION DESIGNERS; HAVEL, VACLAV
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DATE: FEBRUARY 7, 1990
CLIENT:
LIBRARY: NEXIS
FILE: CURRNT
YOUR SEARCH REQUEST IS:
CZECHOSLOVAKIA AND DISSIDENTS AND THEATER AND HEADQUARTERS AND DATE IS 11/89
NUMBER OF STORIES FOUND WITH YOUR REQUEST THROUGH:
LEVEL 1....
7
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9
1ST STORY of Level 1 printed in FULL format.
Copyright (c) 1989 The Times Mirror Company;
Los Angeles Times
November 30, 1989, Thursday, Home Edition
SECTION: Part A; Page 14; Column 1; Foreign Desk
LENGTH: 1303 words
HEADLINE: CIVIC FORUM: AN UNCONVENTIONAL - BUT EFFECTIVE -- ENGINE FOR REFORM;
CZECHOSLOVAKIA: THE OPPOSITION GROUP'S OBJECTIVE IS 'NOT TO BE VERY SPECIFIC
ABOUT OUR OBJECTIVES,' ITS LEADERS SAY.
BYLINE: By DAN FISHER, TIMES STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PRAGUE, Czechoslovakia
BODY:
The only requirement for Civic Forum membership, the opposition group's
spokesman, Jiri Dienstbier, said the other day, is a desire to be rid of the
constitutional "leading role" of any political party.
By that standard, the entire, Communist-dominated Czechoslovak Parliament
became eligible Wednesday, when it voted unanimously to amend this country's
basic law to eliminate the controversial clause that for 41 years has given the
Communists a monopoly on power.
That the vote came only 10 days after Civic Forum declared its existence is
testimony to the effectiveness of what has, virtually overnight, become Eastern
Europe's fastest-growing and most talked about democratic movement.
It's an amorphous movement - - and not only proud of it but determined to stay
that way.
"It's growing spontaneously," said Martin Palous, a political scientist and
Civic Forum adviser during a 90-second "interview" as he raced to meet an
American diplomat. "I can't tell you how its organized, because it's not
organized at all. People are forming local centers, and we're putting pins in a
map."
As much as its leaders joke about their lack of organization, however,
they're planning a national congress, possibly in as soon as two weeks.
They talk about their objective being "not to be very specific about our
objectives" -- it keeps everybody on their toes, particularly the
representatives of the system they're determined to overthrow.
They claim to be political amateurs, but their tactics have so far won
nothing but praise, even from grudging admirers among their Communist Party
adversaries.
"They're using the same strategies against us as we used in 1948," when the
Communists took over Czechoslovakia, a party activist said to a diplomatic
acquaintance the other day.
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(c) 1989 Los Angeles Times, November 30, 1989
Not quite. AS far as anyone knows, Civic Forum hasn't shot anyone yet -
which makes its record all the more impressive.
The group's temporary headquarters at Prague's Magic Lantern Theater
attracts a constant crush of visitors. On Wednesday, scores were watching a live
television broadcast from an extraordinary session of the Czechoslovak
Parliament on one of two outdoor sets.
Others read the latest handbills posted on the theater walls or taped to
the windows of the clothing store and bookstore on either side. "We Need a Merry
Christmas With a New Government," read one.
Another steady stream of visitors lined up for free literature. "Though I'm
Communist, I fully identify with the demands of Civic Forum," said Karel Ksandr,
23, who was one of about 50 people queuing up at mid-afternoon Wednesday. "It
seems that these proclamations truly mirror the ideas of a vast majority of
people around me."
There are no dues for Civic Forum membership, although there are cardboard
boxes for donations.
When he announced its formation at a press conference in his living room
barely 10 days ago, dissident playwright Vaclav Havel said that "perhaps
something like New Forum in East Germany can develop out of this," though he
quickly added that was probably too optimistic. In fact, the Czechoslovak group
has far surpassed its East German counterpart, and Havel's comment today seems
an extraordinary understatement.
While in the broadest sense both Civic Forum and Poland's Solidarity are
social movements, Czechoslovak activists strongly reject comparison with their
counterparts one country to the north.
"Solidarity had to struggle not for 10 days but for 10 years," said
Dienstbier. "And today there are problems whether Solidarity is a trade union or
a political party. This would certainly represent an obstacle to our main
objective, which is to establish a real plurality of forces."
"Civic Forum is a very loose grouping --- a broad forum," said Havel. "It is
not and cannot be a political party."
While it is negotiating with the government over the membership and program
of a new Cabinet to be nominated by next Sunday, Havel has pledged that "in no
case" will representatives of the group be directly represented.
Civic Forum's leaders appear genuinely uninterested in political roles for
themselves. Their concern is to 522 the society energized.
Its members scold people who ask them what to do. "We are not your superior
body," the group said in a statement addressed to burgeoning local Civic Forum
groups Wednesday. "You yourselves know what must be done today and what should
be done tomorrow."
Its own personnel seem to change jobs "from day to day," said a diplomat.
"The only thing that seems to be at the center is Vaclav Havel. And even he
doesn't have any formal role. They call him 'chief.' =
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(c) 1989 Los Angeles Times, November 30, 1989
"There are a few people on top who consult with a body of about 100 other
people. And that's it," said Jan Urban, one of those 100 advisers. "It's a group
of amateurs, most of them dissidents" associated with the Charter 77 human
rights movement here. For example, Urban, a former schoolteacher, was fired for
refusing to sign a condemnation of the original Charter 77 signatories and spent
the next dozen years tending horses, working in a factory and laying bricks.
Then there are the scores of volunteers, like Vladimira Zakova, 28, a Russian
and English translator. "It's just this feeling that we must all do something to
help," she explained Wednesday, during her fifth day on the job. "Earlier, I was
just going to the demonstrations. But then I realized that my knowledge and
abilities could be better used here."
Zakova said she was in the midst of translating an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel
into Czech when the revolution broke out. Because of her activity, "I'm horribly
late" with the job. However, she said, "I think this is more important. F. Scott
Fitzgerald is the only person who would regret this."
Urban describes Civic Forum's decision-making process as = theater
revolution.
People sit in the theater, and they discuss. Then they go
into different rooms and discuss in committees. They they join together again,
discuss some more and issue proclamations."
While they may not be practiced politicians, their political instincts have
been unerring so far.
After the brutal police suppression of a student demonstration on Nov. 17,
they recognized a political turning point and organized their movement before
most of the Communist leadership, unaware, returned to town from weekend homes
in the country.
This week, after leading an enormously successful two-hour nationwide strike
Monday, Civic Forum suddenly called off further demonstrations so as not to risk
dulling its main weapon through overuse.
Meeting with an Italian Communist delegation earlier this week, Havel
stressed that Civic Forum is not anti-Communist but anti-totalitarian. In fact,
he said, the group hopes that reform-minded Communists will "rejuvenate" the
Czechoslovak party.
This weekend, the group is supposed to move into new quarters arranged by
Prague's Communist Party leadership. Civic Forum's members were offered space in
the Palace of Culture - which, ironically, was the site of a major Prague party
meeting last weekend. But they turned it down as too far from the center of the
city.
Despite the speed with which the democratic revolution here has unfolded,
Forum activists figure that much work remains to be done.
"Civic Forum has declared itself a guarantee of holding free elections, and
under no circumstances will it terminate its own activities unless a free
election is held," said Dienstbier.
And what role will it play in those elections?
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(c) 1989 Los Angeles Times, November 30, 1989
An amorphous one, it would appear. "History began to develop very quickly in
... a country that has had 20 years of timelessness," Havel said earlier this
week while apologizing to journalists for not offering specific answers to
questions about the future. "So don't ask more of us than we are capable of
delivering."
SUBJECT: CIVIC FORUM (ORGANIZATION); DISSIDENTS - CZECHOSLOVAKIA;
CZECHOSLOVAKIA -- REVOLTS; CZECHOSLOVAKIA - GOVERNMENT; GOVERNMENT REFORM;
CZECHOSLOVAKIA - POLITICS
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2ND STORY of Level 1 printed in FULL format.
Copyright (c) 1989 Reuters
The Reuter Library Report
November 28, 1989, Tuesday, BC cycle
LENGTH: 506 words
HEADLINE: CIVIC FORUM TRANSFORMS CZECHOSLOVAKIA IN JUST 10 DAYS
BYLINE: By Michael Zantovsky
DATELINE: PRAGUE, Nov 28
KEYWORD: CZECHOSLOVAKIA -FORUM
BODY:
Civic Forum, Czechoslovakia's infant opposition movement, has transformed
the country in just 10 days.
It began life in a small Prague theatre on November 19 in the aftermath of
violent police repression of a peaceful student march two days earlier.
On Tuesday, after a lightning campaign which brought half a million people
onto the streets and shut down the country for two hours on Monday, it forced
the government to accept its demands for a coalition with non-Communists and an
end to the party's guaranteed leading role.
Ten days of the most massive protests in the country's history had already
toppled the party's hardline leaders, ousting more than half of the politburo
including party leader Milos Jakes.
In talks with Prime Minister Ladislav Adamec it has proposed building a
democratic state with political parties competing in free elections and a market
economy with diverse but equal forms of ownership.
The Forum, an umbrella organisation for a number of opposition groups, has
also stressed the need to restore the environment, one of the most devastated in
Europe.
"We cannot hope to do everything at once," sociologist Ivan Gabal said. "We
have specific deadlines for specific goals. We still have a long way to go. It
will be hard."
But aside from basic objectives, the loose coalition of opponents to the
Communist regime has no clear policy although its spokesmen repeatedly say it
does not intend to become a political party.
"We expect a diversification into individual political streams after our
basic demands are met," said Jiri Dienstbier, a former Communist journalist who
turned dissident stoker after the 1968 Soviet-led invasion put an end to
earlier attempts at reform.
Although the Forum has no defined membership or leadership, much of its
authority is concentrated in the person of playwright Vaclav Havel, the best
known opposition figure in the country.
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(c) 1989 Reuters; November 28, 1989
"Long live Havel" has been a battle-cry heard again and again during the
street protests.
In the Forum's provisional headquarters in Prague's "Laterna Magica"
theatre, Havel is closely surrounded by a group of advisers and bodyguards.
The movement has shown impressive organisation, holding regular news
conferences, providing speakers for the largest rallies and printing bulletins
in three languages.
It has set up committees and expert groups to formulate policy.
A fleet of taxis is always ready outside the theatre for the exclusive use
of the Forum.
After the initial euphoria, exhaustion and some dissatisfaction is hitting
activists. Some who were in at the start complain that the Forum has been
increasingly taken over by late arrivals.
"Havel is surrounded by people I have never seen, all these lawyers and
economists,' said Jiri Krizan, one of those who organised a petition for
political reforms signed by more than 40,000 people since July.
"I went into a revolution, this is just another bureaucracy," said Dan
Vetrovsky, one of the leaders of the student strike that has swelled into a
national revolt.
SUBJECT: POLITICS
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6TH STORY of Level 1 printed in FULL format.
Copyright (c) 1989 The New York Times Company;
The New York Times
November 27, 1989, Monday, Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section A; Page 10, Column 1; Foreign Desk
LENGTH: 1311 words
HEADLINE: CLAMOR IN THE EAST: REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK;
If the Party Has Its Back to the Wall, It's a Wall With New Posters on It
BYLINE: By ESTHER B. FEIN, Special to The New York Times
DATELINE: PRAGUE, Nov. 26
BODY:
The underground press is thriving in Prague these days. The rare clandestine
documents of previous generations have given way to a flood of homemade
handbills and posters that adorn the city's walls and windows, subway cars and
stations.
If you want to know what is going on in Prague, you have to read the walls,
and the windows, and the sidewalks, and the railings, and the bumpers of city
buses, all of which are covered with print.
Typed by students on home computers and typewriters, or in some cases hand
painted, this 'subway samizdat'' has been the most effective means of spreading
the word about the opposition movement and of informing the public about coming
events like today's human chain, Saturday's mass at St. Vitus Cathedral and the
weekend change of venue for a daily demonstration.
Even the subway workers have got involved. Today, announcers in the stations
let people know the time and place of the rally where people were to hold hands
and form chains of human solidarity. The announcers, who normally give the
routings of trains, added the information that subway workers would be honoring
the general strike from noon till 2 P.M. on Monday.
'The Only Way to Begin'
''It's a war on walls,' said Jan Urban, one of the leaders of Civic Forum,
the recently formed umbrella opposition group. ''In a system where the state
owns and controls the mass media, this is the only way to begin a campaign
against the regime.
In the last 48 hours, state television has metamorphosed from a tool of the
Government into a vehicle for the opposition. The daily mass rallies are
televised live and uncensored, including calls for an end to the Communist Party
monopoly on political power. The television even broadcast an interview with
Ivan Lendl, the tennis star who defected from Czechoslovakia and now lives in
the United States, saying he would be delighted to return for a visit if true
change took root here.
But the most innovative and provocative program is one shown on a television
set placed in the window at the Magic Lantern Theater, headquarters for
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(c) 1989 The New York Times, November 27, 1989
the Civic Forum, and on one in the window at the Gallerie Manes, an art studio
and another informal gathering place for dissidents.
Both sets offer regular showings of a student-produced video that depicts the
violent breakup by police of a student demonstration on Friday, Nov. 17. The
video also shows the daily rallies in Wenceslas Square that followed that night
of violence. Also included are interviews with opposition leaders and snippets
from the official press that have been exposed as lies.
These new forms of expression, which just two weeks ago would have been cause
for arrest, have become 50 widespread and accepted that a worker who attended
the Prague Communist Party meeting on Saturday said he overheard one member of
the leadership asking another what time today's demonstration was scheduled for.
''I don't know,'' the official was overheard to say. 'Why don't you go
outside and check the wall.
On and Off the Pedestals
One aspect of the protest movement has been the revivial of old and once
banished heroes and the condemnation of those who, it is felt, usurped their
place.
The most prominent of these has been Alexander Dubcek, the Czechoslovak
leader ousted after Warsaw Pact troops invaded the country in 1968 to crush the
reform movement known as Prague Spring that he started. Mr. Dubcek has been a
regular and popular feature at the huge demonstrations, first in Bratislava and
now in Prague.
Foremost of the disgraced is Milos Jakes, one of those who forced Mr. Dubcek
out of office and part of the group that has been running the country ever
since. Mr. Jakes was pushed out of his job as Communist Party leader and off the
party's ruling presidium in a major shake-up on Friday night. That Mustache
Again! Figures from an earlier past have also not escaped the wrath of the
opposition. One-hundred crown notes that bear the picture of Klement Gottwald,
the first Communist Prime Minister and President of Czechoslovakia, have been
spotted all over town with a little addition: Mr. Gottwald has been given a
mustache like Hitler's.
Mr. Gottwald was long dead when Prague Spring was put down. But he was
responsible for Stalinist-style show trials in 1950 as well as other waves of as
repression and executions later in the 1950's.
He was a close ally of Stalin and is remembered here for saying in the
1930's, when he was devoted Communism in a country where that movement was
unpopular, that 'we are going to Moscow to learn how to twist your necks.
The defaced bills have infuriated the leadership, who still consider Mr.
Gottwald a hero, and banks have said they will not accept them for deposit.
Shopkeepers who support the protest movement say they are torn between turning
away the popular symbol of protest or accepting it and losing money.
But that is not the only indignity Mr. Gottwald has suffered. A subway
station named after him in central Prague has been informally renamed by
commuters, who covered the signs showing his name with posters labeling the
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(c) 1989 The New York Times, November 27, 1989
stop ''Hotel Forum,' for a nearby hotel.
And if that were not enough, a farmer from Gottwaldov, a town in central
Moravia, said there was already whispering that the town should change its name,
as places like Stalingrad did in the Soviet Union after the former Soviet leader
became disgraced.
''It's an embarrassing address right now,'' said the farmer, Petr Novak.
'Maybe we could call it 'Dubcekov.
Five Minutes to Midnight
There is a small, poignant sign of the new mood here on the faces of public
clocks in town. Many have been deliberately stopped at 5 minutes before 12, and
there are posters around showing a clock with its hands in the same position.
''It is a symbol that time is up for the Communist Party,' explained Petr
Krechler, a student who has been attending the daily rallies. ''It's time for a
new shift to come on.''
Fellowship in Bloom
Natives of this grand and ancient city say that the ''revolution'' going on
here has brought a more subtle change to Prague. Most people, they say, have
become nicer.
This was a city, many local people say, where cab drivers would bark at
tourists, shopkeepers would ignore customers and even colleagues would walk past
one another on the street without greeting.
'Now it is as if we have all looked at ourselves in the mirror and realized
that the conditions have penetrated our souls and unless we change not only the
Government but ourselves we would be lost as people, said Miroslav Kemr, a
51-year-old engineer. ' ' And what good is a new power structure if the people
have been damaged beyond repair?''
In a sign of the new attitude, diners at a hotel restaurant commented to
their young waiter that he seemed very harried. ' ' I ' m very busy, there's too
much noise, and everybody yells, but I don't care,' said Martin Stobra. ''I'm
free.'
Lover Come Back to Me
Since the days of Franz Kafka into the time of Milan Kundera, Prague has been
a literary city. Its best known dissident, Vaclav Havel, is a playwright known
for works of irony. Therefore it was not so strange that a longtime resident
used the imagery of fiction to explain that for the last 40 years, since
Communists came to power here, people have become soured, feeling like a woman
forced to marry the wrong man.
It is like a young woman who is very much in love but she is made to marry
another man,' said the woman. ''But she lives, she has children and she carries
on in a kind of muted way, as if it were a normal life, even though in her
heart, she knows it isn't normal. Then one day she sees her youthful lover on a
bridge and suddenly, she comes alive.
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(c) 1989 The New York Times, November 27, 1989
' ' We are like that woman, and our lover may still be on the other side of the
bridge, but at least he is now visible.'
GRAPHIC: photo of pro-democracy protesters in Prague (Agence France-Presse)
SUBJECT: POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT; DEMONSTRATIONS AND RIOTS; POSTERS
NAME: FEIN, ESTHER B
GEOGRAPHIC: CZECHOSLOVAKIA; PRAGUE ( CZECHOSLOVAKIA)
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PD - I came across this in Havel/ radio
search Thought you might be interested.
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(c) 1990 States News Service, May 24, 1990
elections.
As they walked under lilac trees to the town square -- an empty platform now
that the oversize head of Lenin has been toppled -- Mary asked her 27-year-old
cousin if he was surprised by the demonstrations. He smiled and wrote '68' on a
piece of paper. "Watch this." He turned the slip of paper upside down so it
reads '89.' "We knew something would happen."
He showed photos of his recent wedding -- a mandatory civil ceremony and a
clandestine church mass. His bride, Emilia, wore a heavy winter coat over her
frilly wedding dress as they stood at the church altar. "They didn't ever heat
the church," Bystrik shrugged.
In Bratislava, an industrial town where smokestacks from chemical plants and
baroque church spires reach skyward like fingers from the center of town, Mary's
aunt Ilonka, 68, a Catholic nun since she was a girl, hung posters of Pope "Jan
Pavel" in her window.
Another aunt, Giska, 61, and her husband, Gino, took Mary to the old Moravian
castle of Devin, built on a steep promonotory overlooking the Danube River and
Austria -- a good stone's throw away.
Until November, the couple was never allowed to photograph this scene. AS
they walkedlong the banks of the Danube, Gino, a retired surveyor, stopped
short. "You know, I've never been this close to the river." Until the
revolution, this path, considered dangerously close to the West, was blocked off
by barbed wire.
Later in the evening, the three took a bus across town to Sister Ilonka's.
Ilonka bustled about the basement apartment preparing supper - her quick gait
gave no hint of the 10 years of forced labor she underwent for refusing to
renounce her YOWS during the Stalinist 1950s.
The nuns gathered around the richly laid table and bowed their heads to pray.
One of them looked up, puzzled. "Should we close the windows before we sing?"
Sister Ilonka leaned her head back and laughed. "Leave them open, leave them
open," she said. "The communists are gone."
VOA
red navy bluel
pay by weight
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24TH STORY of Level 1 printed in FULL format.
Copyright (c) 1978 The Washington Post
January 7, 1978, Saturday, Final Edition
SECTION: First Section; A11
LENGTH: 1180 words
HEADLINE: Politics Aside, Mind-Numbing Trip;
Brzezinski's Logistics Makes Him Unpopular With Travelers
BYLINE: By Edward Walsh, Washington Post Staff Writer
DATELINE: BRUSSELS, Jan. 6, 1978
BODY:
The most unpopular American in Europe right now, at least among a small and
bedraggled band of his countrymen 15 Zbigniew Brzezinski.
Brzezinski, the White House national security adviser, was the chief
architect of President Carter's holiday journey overseas. It was Brzezinski,
and Carter himself, who thought it would be good to start the new year with a
mind-numbing journey to seven nations in nine days, hopscotching 18,000 miles
halfway around the globe and back.
Originally, of course, Brzezinski thought it would be even better to travel
25,000 miles, to nine countries in 12 days. But when that itinerary had to be
canceled in November, he settled for something slightly less ambitious.
Brzezinski and the global thinkers of the NSC concern themselves with the
realities of international politics. They do not think about, or have much
experience with, the logistics of moving several hundred people at breakneck
speed around the world. In planning this trip, they seem to have thought of
everything but one important human element - the fatigue factor.
The fatigue factor produced some funny moments: Stanley Cloud of Time
magazine sitting down in his hotel room in Paris to have a cigarette and waking
up several hours later, at 3 in the morning. It also had its not-so-funny
moments. John Osborne of New Republic magazine, who is in his 70s, was
week. hospitalized in Paris. He expects to return to the United States early next
What is important is not that the press is complaining about Brzezinski's
talents as a scheduler - we are always complaining about something but that
the lessons of this journey have not been lost on Carter's White House staff.
Carter is loath to admit any human weakness, but even presidents are not
impervious to fatigue. He had some misteps - - a careless remark in New Delhi
that was recorded and marred the warmth of that particular visit and some
missed opportunities when he seemed just too tired to do better.
"With this kind of schedule, he [Brzezinski] gets what he paid for," one
member of the White House party said in Paris. "He gets the President tired,
talking into a live mike at a photo session. He gets lots of things."
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(c) 1978 The Washington Post, January 7, 1978
One of the President's worst moments came near the end of the trip and should
have been one of the trip and should have been one of his best moments. The
setting was an American cemetery on a bluff above Omaha Beach on the Normandy
coast. It was a moving scene that touched everyone, but Carter's disjointed
remarks hardly lived up to the moment and seemed all the worse when contrasted
with the eloquence of French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing.
Afterward, White House press secretary Jody Powell was furious with
speechwriter James Fallows for not supplying the President with a brief text.
But who knows whether Fallows - a talented writer who produced Carter's widely
praised speech in New Delhi could have by then written much better than the
President spoke.
"You know," one presidential aide confided as the buses pulled away from the
Normandy beaches, "This was an NSC operation from beginning to end. And I
didn't think you are going to see anything like it again."
Powell was angry about the Normandy performance because it was such a missed
opportunity, the ultimate media event on this trip to be beamed back to Carter's
constituents in the United States. Whatever was accomplished in the President's
private meeting with several world leaders, it was television that dominated the
trip as it dominates 50 much around the presidency.
It was planned that way and at every stop Barry Jagoda and Anne Edwards of
networks. the White House television office did their best to accomodate the television
White House officials insisted before and during the trip that important
business was to be conducted at each of the stops. That may be true, but you
could not prove it by most of the American correspondents who accompanied the
president. The most substantive information was provided to "pool reporters"
aboard Air Force One by Brzezinski and Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance, both
of whom insisted on being identified only as "a senior administration official."
Powell was seldom available and had little to say about substance while it
was supposedly going on. His briefing in Paris on the Carter-Giscard meeting,
coming on the eighth day of the journey, was the first general meeting he had
for reporters. And at that, he didn't have much to say.
It is possible, bounding from one country to another with an American
president, to tell something about the shifting currents of wealth in the world.
There was a time when the White House press corps could look forward to
receiving some lavish gifts from foreign governments while overseas with a
president. There are, for example, fond memories among veteran reporters of
expensive the perfumes and liqueurs from the French government. In Paris this time,
wine, a gift of the hotel.
only thing the Americans found in their hotel rooms was a half bottle of red
But the oil-rich Middle East was different. The Shah of Iran not only threw
a lavish New Year's Eve banquet for the press corps, he arranged in advance to
pay the hotel charges of the visiting U.S. contingent. Several reporters
protested and arranged with U.S. Information Service Officials in Tehran to be
billed later. The Saudis tried the same thing, and the clerks at the hotel in
Riyadh were incredulous when most American reporters, credit cards in hand
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(c) 1978 The Washington Post, January 7, 1978
insisted on paying.
We take care of our own: At the Shah's New Year's ave party, a television
camera crew showed up to shoot some film for a feature story. The film included
a scene of a reporter having a grand time dancing with one of the stewardesses
from the press planes. But the scene was spotted by a friend of the reporter's,
a television correspondent, excised and never transmitted home.
The New Year in Tehran was marked by a couple of half-hearted shouts of
"Happy New Year" in the press room. By then, Carter had announced that he would
meet with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and most everybody was too busy to make
much of the coming of 1978. When the clock reached midnight in Washington, it
was marked by an off-key chorus of "Auld Lang Syne," in bright sunlight aboard
the press plane, 37,000 feet over Iran.
It is said that Poland has a national drinking problem and it is no wonder.
Vodka sells for $1 a bottle in Warsaw. One reporter purchased nine bottles, all
of them, he claimed to skeptical colleagues, for friends back in the United
States.
Poland asks provided the finest hotel facilities for the traveling americans.
Warsaw's Intercontinental Hotel is plush even by capitalist standards.
The weather in Warsaw was awful, but the gen. consenus was that smog-infested
Tehran was the city the U.S. contingent was most happy to leave. India provided
the best weather and the best shopping. When the press planes left New Delhi,
they contained thousands of dollars worth of Indian rugs and other items.
GRAPHIC: Picture, President holds forehead during NATO meeting. At left is U.S.
Ambassador to NATO William Tapley Bennett. AP
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DATE: JULY 3, 1990
CLIENT:
LIBRARY: NEXIS
FILE: CURRNT
YOUR SEARCH REQUEST IS:
Kampelman
KAMPELMAN AND CSCE AND DATE AFT 5/12/90
NUMBER OF STORIES FOUND WITH YOUR REQUEST THROUGH:
LEVEL 1
7
Copenlage
CSCE
"Rule of Law"
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2ND STORY of Level 1 printed in FULL format.
Copyright (c) 1990 Reuters
The Reuter Library Report
June 28, 1990, Thursday, BC cycle
LENGTH: 575 words
HEADLINE: LANDMARK DECLARATION ADOPTED ON RIGHTS IN EAST EUROPE
BYLINE: By Tim Pearce
DATELINE: COPENHAGEN, June 28
KEYWORD:
SECURITY
BODY:
A 35-nation human rights conference on Thursday adopted a landmark
declaration aimed at guaranteeing the rule of law, political pluralism and
respect for citizens' rights in the new democracies of East Europe.
Delegates at the session of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in
Europe ( CSCE) overcame last-minute objections to passages dealing with
national minorities' rights and conscientious objectors to produce a broad
consensus document.
A joint news conference called after the declaration was agreed brought
together the heads of the U.S. and Soviet delegations and Jiri Hajek, the
Czechoslovak delegation leader once jailed for his commitment to human rights.
"The whole of Europe is now committed to the path of democracy and the
achievement of a lasting order based on justice, peace, security and
cooperation," said U.S. delegation leader Max Kampelman.
"The Copenhagen document of the CSCE represents the first definitive formal
proclamation of a Europe whole and free," he added.
His Soviet colleague Yuri Reshetov said the meeting "has produced guidelines
which can be called the new European Constitution."
Delegates said the most significant achievement was the first section of the
45-point document, which commits member states to holding free elections,
operating multi-party systems and governing under the rule of law.
"That's the fundamental aspect of the document, and we had no problems with
that," said a British delegate.
More controversial was the passage on the rights of national minorities,
whose new-found freedom to speak out in central and southern Europe has
resurrected centuries-old conflicts.
The CSCE, grouping every European nation except Albania with the U.S. and
Canada, operates by consensus and some delegates said the minorities section was
the weakest of the document.
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(c) 1990 Reuters; June 28, 1990
"But the United Nations has never been able to define minorities
satisfactorily, so it's not surprising WE didn't make much progress here," said
one Western delegate.
French concern over the case of Bretons and Corsicans was met by reducing the
commitment to let minorities use their own language in dealings with officials
and at school.
A counterpoint to the official conference was the presence in Copenhagen of
numerous minority groups, from Kurds to Soviet Jews, gypsies to Macedonians,
voicing grievances and demanding better treatment.
No national minority was named in the final document, but special mention was
made of the problems facing gypsies whose leaders had drawn attention to their
plight as a "non- territorial" minority, lacking a homeland and subject to
widespread discrimination.
A section encouraging states to recognise conscientious objection to military
service as a valid cause and to offer alternatives was watered down in response
to complaints from Greece and other nations which insist on military service.
But if Canadian delegation leader Edward Lee was able to speak in his closing
speech of "a common democratic space being created from Vancouver to
Vladivostok," others were less enthusiastic.
"The wording in the document is very fine, but unfortunately nothing has
changed," said Joyce Simson of the Women's Campaign for Soviet Jewry.
"There are still some 2,000 Soviet Jewish refuseniks and activists waiting
years for exit visas, some of them in the Gulag, while they wait to join their
families abroad," Simson said. "We are asking for positive actions, not words."
SUBJECT:
POLITICS; POPULATION
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1ST STORY of Level 1 printed in FULL format.
Copyright (c) 1990 The Financial Times Limited;
Financial Times
June 29, 1990, Friday
SECTION: SECTION I; European News; Pg. 2
LENGTH: 399 words
HEADLINE: CSCE nations pledged to uphold rule of law
BYLINE: HILARY BARNES, COPENHAGEN
BODY:
THE 35 nations of the East-West Conference on Security and Co-operation in
Europe ( CSCE) yesterday agreed a document pledging them to the rule of law,
political pluralism, free elections by secret ballot and respect for the rights
of national minorities, Hilary Barnes reports from Copenhagen.
All European nations, except Albania, plus the US and Canada, participate in
the CSCE, based on the 1975 Helsinki accords. Mr Max Kampelman, head of the
US delegation, called the result 'an historic new consensus; the whole of Europe
is committed to the path of democracy'.
The Soviet delegate, Mr Yuri Reshetov, said the Copenhagen document was the
starting point for 'a new constitution of Europe'. The next stage in the process
is a summit conference in Paris in December, when it is hoped an agreement on
force reductions in Europe will be signed and the groundwork for a new European
security order laid. A new session of the human rights conference will be held
in Moscow next year.
Progress in obtaining commitments to the rule of law and political pluralism
was held up until last year by objections from the east European countries. But
now, as the Canadian delegate said, there are no longer two Europes:'a common
democratic space is being created from Vancouver to Vladivostok'.
The 35 states declared in the Copenhagen document that 'they recognise that
pluralistic democracy and the rule of law are essential for ensuring respect for
human rights and fundamental freedoms' and that 'development of societies based
on pluralistic democracy and the rule of law are prerequisites for progress in
setting up the lasting order of peace, security, justice and co-operation' in
Europe.
The 19-page final document spells out what is understood by pluralism and the
rule of law. It includes regular and free elections, separation of political
parties from the state, an independent judiciary, rights of free expression,
organisation and assembly.
Delegations had few problems reaching agreement on fundamental freedoms.
Instead, the question of national minorities proved the most contentious issue.
Bulgaria and Greece both appended 'interpretive statements' on the national
minorities issue to the final document. The document spells out the right of
national minorities to use the mother tongue, maintain their own educational and
religious institutions, and establish associations.
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The Associated Press
The materials in the AP file were compiled by The Associated Press. These
materials may not be republished without the express written consent of The
Associated Press.
June 5, 1990, Tuesday, PM cycle
SECTION: International News
LENGTH: 452 words
HEADLINE: Human Rights Conference Opens
BYLINE: By ARTHUR MAX, Associated Press Writer
DATELINE: COPENHAGEN, Denmark
KEYWORD: Human Rights
BODY:
A summit of 35 East and West bloc nations will be held in Paris in December
to discuss "the reconciliation of Europe," French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas
said today.
The summit proposal was the first item of business at a human rights meeting
of the 35-nation Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, esablished by
the 1975 Helsinki accords.
A preparatory committee will meet in Vienna July 10 to set the agenda for the
summit, which Dumas suggested for Dec. 19-21.
Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze reported on the results of the
weekend U.S.-Soviet summit in Washington and announced that the Soviet Union
would cut its short-range nuclear arsenal in central Europe by year's end.
U.S. Secretary of State James Baker was to address the meeting Wednesday.
Albania was granted observer status at the four-week human rights talks. The
hard-line Communist country has begun to seek greater contacts following years
of isolation.
Lithuania, which also had sought permission to attend the meeting, "was
politely turned down," said a statement from the Lithuanian World Community.
Max Kampelman, head of the U.S. delegation, said the group would consider
establishing a body to mediate disputes involving ethnic minorities.
"As the East-West conflict reduces in importance and confrontations, we are
seeing some of the old pre-World War II tensions developing again," Kampelman
said in an interview.
"One of the subjects we will discuss is whether the CSCE process can
provide some mediation role here," he said.
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The Associated Press, June 5, 1990
Kampelman, a veteran diplomat and arms negotiator, said one such conflict
could be the alleged discrimination by ethnic Hungarians living in Romania. They
say they are unable to develop their own culture.
"Frankly, there is no other mechanism" to deal with minority questions, he
said. "We're going to see if we can evolve one."
The 15-year-old international organization has no enforcement power, and its
mediation in any dispute could by applied only voluntarily, he said.
Kampelman said he expected the Copenhagen meeting to endorse the principles
of free elections and rule of law, meaning "that those who govern also are
subject to the law and not arbitrariness."
The Conference on Security and Cooperation is comprised of the United States,
Canada and all European countries except Albania, which now wants to join. It
was established by the Helsinki accords, which eased security tensions and set
standards for cooperation and human rights.
The Copenhagen conference was the second of three planned on human rights.
The first, in Paris last June, failed to approve a final document because of
Romanian opposition. The third is scheduled for Moscow next year.
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The Associated Press
The materials in the AP file were compiled by The Associated Press. These
materials may not be republished without the express written consent of The
Associated Press.
June 3, 1990, Sunday, AM cycle
SECTION: International News
LENGTH: 539 words
HEADLINE: 35-Nation Human Rights Conference to Discuss Europe's Future
BYLINE: By ARTHUR MAX, Associated Press Writer
DATELINE: COPENHAGEN, Denmark
KEYWORD: Rights Conference
BODY:
Foreign ministers from 35 nations open an East-West human rights conference
Tuesday, hoping to rewrite the ground rules in Europe to protect ethnic
minorities and guarantee the rule of law.
Backstage, Secretary of State James A. Baker III and Soviet Foreign Minister
Eduard Shevardnadze will press ahead with talks on Germany's future, picking up
the thread from the weekend summit in Washington.
The month-long conference is likely to produce a final document endorsing
principles that just one year ago were out of reach for several nations: free
elections, pluralist politics and freedoms of speech, assembly and religion.
More radical proposals - a committee to mediate ethnic disputes and possibly
a security force are likely to meet resistance.
"It is still too early to say if we can find a consensus. But all governments
now agree to move ahead" toward a human rights declaration, said Per Fergo, head
of the host delegation.
"A part of the discussion about human rights also concerns security and
respect for national minorities," said Max Kampelman, chief of the U.S.
delegation. "We have to handle those problems together," a Danish newspaper
quoted him as saying.
The Copenhagen conference, the second of three, is an outgrowth of the 1975
Helsinki Final Act, which reduced tensions in Europe and set minimum standards
of behavior by states toward their peoples. The final conference in the series
will be in Moscow in 1992.
The 35 signatories of the Helsinki accords form the Conference on Security
and Cooperation in Europe, or CSCE. They are the United States, Canada and all
European states except Albania - and even that bastion of Stalinist isolation
now wants to join.
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The Associated Press, June 3, 1990
The last human rights meeting, held in Paris last June, broke up without
adopting a final document. But this conference is taking place in a new Europe
ripe for agreement.
First on the agenda for a two-day foreign ministers' session is the creation
of a committee to prepare for a CSCE summit later this year. All the CSCE
states except Bulgaria were sending foreign ministers, organizers said.
The CSCE meeting comes at a time when new pillars are being sought to
support a reshaped Europe. Many leaders look to the CSCE as the foundation of
the new structure.
Baker and Shevardnadze have been mandated by their chiefs to continue talks
here on whether a unified Germany can be a member of NATO. Baker also will meet
in the Danish capital with West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher.
At the summit meeting in Washington, which ended Sunday, President Bush and
Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev held extensive but inconclusive talks on the
German question.
Gorbachev, fearful of a powerful Germany fully integrated into the Western
military alliance, said he wants the issue thrashed out in a pan-European
council, possibly evolving from the CSCE.
The United States also has spoken of a wider CSCE monitoring role, but not
as a guarantor of peace.
"I have heard proposals floated for making the CSCE a United Nations of
Europe," said Ambassador Ulrik Haxthausen, the executive secretary of the
conference. "But most countries until now have been against institutionalization
and creating another bureaucracy."
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Copyright (c) 1990 Educational Broadcasting and GWETA;
The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour
May 29, 1990, Tuesday Transcript #3742
LENGTH: 7924 words
HEADLINE: Summit - View From Europe;
Billboard Battle;
Town Crier
BYLINE: In New York: ROBERT MAC NEIL; In Washington: JAMES LEHRER; GUESTS: DAVID
OWEN, Former Foreign Minister, Great Britain; EGON BAHR, Member of Parliament,
West Germany; JEAN FRANCOIS-PONCET, Former Prime Minister, France;
CORRESPONDENTS: CHARLES KRAUSE; FRED DE SAM LAZARO; ESSAYIST: JIM FISHER
BODY:
MR. MAC NEIL: Good evening. Leading the news this Tuesday, Soviet Pres.
Gorbachev began his summit trip with a stop in Canada. He called for Western
help in creating a new critic, Gorbachev critic Boris Yeltsin was elected
president of the Soviet Union's largest republic. We'll have details in our News
Summary in a moment. Jim.
MR. LEHRER: After the News Summary we preview the Bush-Gorbachey summit with
a Charles Krause Backgrounder [FOCUS - SUMMIT - VIEW FROM EUROPE] and three
views from Western Europe. Then from Detroit comes a report on a fight over
billboards [FOCUS - BILLBOARD BATTLE] and we close with our Tuesday night essay
[ESSAY - TOWN CRIER], Jim Fisher's observations about the Amish people.
NEWS SUMMARY
MR. MAC NEIL: Mikhail Gorbachev began his journey to the West today for this
week's summit, his second with Pres. Bush. Gorbachey's first stop was Ottawa,
Canada, where he met privately with Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. The Soviet
leader will stay there overnight, then fly to Washington where the summit begins
on Thursday. While Gorbachev was in Ottawa, his arch rival, Boris Yeltsin, won
the presidency of the Russian Federation, the largest of the Soviet Union's 15
republics. Yeltsin has repeatedly criticized Gorbachev for moving too slowly on
his economic reform plan. He narrowly defeated the candidates supported by
Gorbachev. We have a report narrated by Gaby Rado of Independent Television
News.
MR. GABO: After five days of stalemate and on the third attempt, Yeltsin
finally won the majority he needed to capture the new job of president of the
Russian Federation, the Soviet Union's largest republic. In his speech of
acceptance today, the new president of the Russian Federation called for
reconciliation between the conservative and radical factions in the Soviet
Union. But in an interview shown within the past hour on Soviet TV news, Mr.
Yeltsin set out his demands for the Russian republic's sovereignty in the same
language used by the Baltic republics.
BORIS YELTSIN, President, Russian Federation: [Speaking through Interpreter]
Independence means the priority of Russian laws and of the Russian constitution
over the laws of the Soviet Union. That's the main thing. Sovereignty means an
independent internal and foreign policy, and the right to conclude all
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agreements, including international agreements, with any country in the world.
Sovereignty means that the people of Russia will resolve their own problems.
MR. GABO: Also today the all Soviet parliament rejected a no confidence
motion in the government's economic reform package, agreeing to delay the vote
on the measures themselves by one week. It gave the prime minister, Mr. Rishkov,
who staked his job on the reforms, a little breathing space.
MR. MAC NEIL: Lithuania's envoy in the U.S., Stasys Lazoraitas, today said he
wants Pres. Bush to ask Gorbachev to end sanctions against Lithuania. Lazoraitas
said his republic will run out of gasoline within 30 days if the blockade isn't
lifted. But he said, "If we collapse, we still will not revoke our declaration
of independence." Lithuania's prime minister, Kasimira Prunskiene, today warned
Moscow that the blockade would force Lithuania to shut down its nuclear power
station which supplies energy to a key Soviet military region. Jim.
MR. LEHRER: The presidents of Iraq and Iran may put a formal end to the
Persian Gulf War. A PLO spokesman at the Arab summit in Baghdad said Yasser
Arafat will attempt to set up negotiations when he visits Tehran later this
week. Peace talks have been stalled for almost two years. In Washington, White
House Spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said the United States has given Iran a report
on the fate of four Iranians missing in Lebanon. Pres. Bush had promised to
contact U.S. sources on the matter as a gesture of good will to Iran. Fitzwater
said the report confirms the men are dead. They disappeared in 1982. There was
no indication of how they died.
MR. MAC NEIL: South African Pres. F.W. DeKlerk today postponed plan to visit
the United States. He was expected to meet with Pres. Bush in June a week before
a visit by African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela. Anti-apartheid
leaders in this country opposed DeKlerk's visit, saying it would be a snub to
Mandela. DeKlerk acknowledged the controversy was the reason he delayed the
trip. Back in this country, a group of democratic Senators proposed
restructuring U.S. foreign aid to help American businesses abroad. The proposal
would require countries which receive aid to spend it on projects involving U.S.
companies. Sen. David Boren of Oklahoma told a Capitol Hill news conference many
Western countries already attach such trade conditions to their aid programs.
SEN. DAVID BOREN, [D] Oklahoma: If you don't do it, the American people
aren't going to put up with it. The American people are going to say, enough,
we're tired of giving foreign aid in the way we've given it in the past, we're
tired of seeing it not create jobs here while our competitors are using it to
create jobs in their countries, where they're using it to steal our markets away
from it, we want to change. Here comes an opportunity for us to rebuild part of
our market share. Eastern Europe is going to be rebuilt, it is going to become
an important market, it is an important consumer of capital goods right now.
Here's a chance for the United States to come in and regain some of its economic
role in the world.
MR. MAC NEIL: The proposal would involve 40 percent of U.S. economic aid, but
it would not affect aid to the world's poorest nations.
MR. LEHRER: The U.S. Supreme Court today agreed to hear a case on abortion
counseling. The issue is whether family planning clinics which receive federal
funds can discuss abortion with their clients. Attorney Gen. Dick Thornburgh
today called for an expanded investigation of the Reagan administration's
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Department of Housing & Urban Development. He did so in a letter to the
Independent Counsel assigned to the case. He said recent congressional testimony
opened new areas for investigation. Independent Counsel Arlen Adams said he
would consider the request.
MR. MAC NEIL: The countdown is underway for the launch of the space shuttle
Columbia scheduled shortly after midnight tonight. The cargo bay contains a $150
million observatory called Astro. It is composed of four telescopes that monitor
stellar radiation, which cannot be detected from earth, or by the newly deployed
Hubble Telescope. Astronomers say it will provide unprecedented views of distant
stars and galaxies.
MR. LEHRER: And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to
previews of the Bush-Gorbachey summit, a fight against billboards, and our
Tuesday night essay.
FOCUS - SUMMIT - VIEW FROM EUROPE
MR. MAC NEIL: Our lead focus tonight the upcoming Bush-Gorbachev summit.
Tonight we look at the dramatic changes in Europe and the place they will have
on the summit agenda. In a moment we'll talk with three European statesmen about
the European issues at the summit but first Correspondent Charles Krause has
this backgrounder.
MR. KRAUSE: The world, especially Europe, is a far different place than it
was just six months ago, the last time Presidents Bush and Gorbachev were
together in Malta. That summit has been called the last cold war summit. It was
marred by the weather. But the winter storm and high seas proved to be
prophetic. Since Malta, a tidal wave of change has swept East and South from
Poland. It's a tidal wave that most experts believe has forever changed the face
of Central Europe. In Prague, demonstrations brought freedom, an end to 40 years
of Communist rule in Czechoslovakia. In Romania, near chaos followed by
violence, and a bloody end to the Ceausescu dictatorship. Bulgaria -- Hungary -
Lithuania -- a rush toward reunification in East Germany, ethic violence,
elections, and growing instability within the Soviet Union, itself, change so
profound it's altered the balance of power in Europe. Pres. Bush called events
of the past year the revolution of '89 in his first State of the Union Address
last January. It was, he said, another turning point in history, not unlike the
end of World War II.
PRES. BUSH: [January 31] Many of us in this chamber have lived much of our
lives in a world whose fundamental features were defined in 1945. 1945 provided
the common frame of reference, the compass points of the post war era we've
relied upon to understand ourselves. And that was our world until now. The
events of the year just ended, the revolution of '89, have been a chain
reaction, changes 50 striking that it marks the beginning of a new era in the
world's affairs.
MR. KRAUSE: Perhaps the most momentous changes have occurred in East Germany.
There the fall of Erich Honecker last October set off the chain reaction that's
changed the balance of power in Europe. After Honecker, there were
demonstrations, free elections, finally overwhelming support for reunification.
Now without Communist governments in Poland, Czechoslovakia and East Germany,
the Soviet Union no longer has even one reliable ally beyond its Western border.
Already under pressure, the Russians have begun to withdraw their troops from
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Hungary and Czechoslovakia, the division of Europe into two hostile nuclear
blocks appears to be ending, and Western military analysts no longer view the
Warsaw Pact as a military threat. The cold war, it seems, is over. AS a result,
the United States has been forced to reappraise and to rethink its traditional
role in Western Europe and in NATO. Earlier this month, Pres. Bush called for a
North Atlantic summit to craft a new Western strategy, he said, for new and
changing times.
PRES. BUSH: [May 2] Throughout our history, great upheavals in Europe have
forced the American people to respond, to make deep judgments about the part we
should play in European affairs. And I believe that now we are poised at another
such moment, a critical time in our strategic relationship with our neighbors
across the Atlantic. [EXCERPT FROM HELMUT KOHL, CHANCELLOR, WEST GERMANY, IN
GERMAN]
MR. KRAUSE: At the heart of this new speaking and of much diplomatic is
Germany. Once it's reunited, possibly by the end of this year, it will be the
strongest power in Europe. The United States, the Soviet Union, the British, and
the French, along with the East and West Germans, have all been meeting formally
for the past month to work out the terms of reunification. If successful, the
so-called "two plus four" talks will also bring a formal end to the role the
World War II victors still play in Berlin. Meanwhile, in Vienna, the NATO allies
led by the United States and the Warsaw Pact countries led by the Soviet Union
are engaged in conventional arms negotiation. It's expected that these talks
will eventually lead to massive reductions in the number of weapons and troops
which NATO and the Warsaw Pact still have poised to fight in Europe. If there's
a conventional arms treaty by the end of the year, there will be another summit,
a super summit in Paris. The plan is for Bush and Gorbachev to meet the leaders
of all 32 European nations, East and West, plus Canada to sign a new security
arrangement for Europe. But Max Kampelman, the U.S. ambassador to the CSCE
talks, says Moscow's concern over a reunified Germany is holding up progress in
all these negotiations. The ambassador has recently returned to Washington from
Bonn, where he talked with a Russian general.
MAX KAMPELMAN, U.S. Negotiator: What I got out of the conversation is that
the Soviets are looking for increased leverage to allay their concerns about
German reunification. They may be looking for more money. As you know, the West
Germans have agreed to support Soviet troops in East Germany for the next five
years, hundreds of millions of dollars, they may be looking for more money. They
may be looking for some kind of controls and leverage over the size of a German
army. Whatever they' looking for, I believe they' been holding back a bit on
the conventional to get that leverage.
MR. KRAUSE: Do you think that their concerns, or the leverages you put it
that they're attempting perhaps to gain with regard to Germany is unreasonable?
AMB. KAMPELMAN: No, I don't really think it's unreasonable and we should be
patient with them about this in my opinion. Given their history and their
experiences, they are concerned about a strong Germany, understandable. Steps
ought to be taken to provide them with the appropriate assurances.
MR. KRAUSE: In fact, Kampelman says the Russians aren't the only Europeans
concerned about Germany.
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AMB. KAMPELMAN: A united Germany will be a strong Germany. It'll be the
strongest economic power on the continent, with a potential, if an irresponsible
leadership should evolve and if democracy goes by the board, with a potential of
becoming the strongest military power as well, and that's why so many countries
in Europe with that latent fear want the United States presence to continue as a
stabilizing force. That's why so many of our allies want NATO to continue as a
stabilizing force. But the fact that some have that worry doesn't mean it's a
prevailing view. I don't think it is.
MR. KRAUSE: Just six months ago, when Pres. Bush and Mr. Gorbachev met in
Europe, the most critical issues were arms control and third world regional
conflicts like Nicaragua. Now as the presidents prepare to meet this week, the
White House is saying they'll spend much of their time discussing Germany and
the Soviet Union, itself. Berlin, Prague, Lithuania, at the Washington Summit,
the extraordinary events of the past six months in Europe are expected to
dominate the super power agenda.
MR. MAC NEIL: Earlier today we looked at these summit issues from three
European perspectives. First I talked to Egon Bahr, who was a longtime adviser
to West German Chancellor Villy Brunt and was considered an architect of the
Brunt policy of opening relations with East Germany and Eastern Europe. He's a
social democratic member of the West German bundesdag and chairman of the Arms
Control & Disarmament Subcommittee, and David Owen, foreign secretary of Great
Britain from 1977 to '79 under the last Labor Government. He's now the leader in
the House of Commons of the Social Democratic Party. Later we were joined by
Jean Francois- Poncet, who served as foreign minister of France from 1978 to
'81. He's now a Christian Democratic member of the French Senate. Dr. Owen, from
a European perspective, what is at stake in this summit?
DAVID OWEN, Former Foreign Minister, Great Britain: A great deal and I think
the fundamental one is the relations between Mikhail Gorbachev and Pres. Bush
personally, in particular as it relates to the Federal Republic of Germany and a
united Germany. If out of this summit comes an acceptance from Mr. Gorbachev
that it is inevitable a united Germany will be a member of NATO, I think that
would be a very formidable achievement, more important probably now than a
strategic arms reduction treaty.
MR. MAC NEIL: Yes. Mr. Bahr, what do you think is at stake?
EGON BAHR, Member of Parliament, West Germany: I think in the first point I
agree with David Owen, the personal relationship between the two men. The second
point, I do not think that the Soviet Union will accept a permanent NATO
membership of a United Germany. I think they can't and they can rely upon their
original rights which can only be negotiated away with their consent.
MR. MAC NEIL: Dr. Owen, do you think the Soviet acceptance is a fundamental
without which nothing Pres. Bush should not go ahead on other agreements?
DR. OWEN: If it's impossible to get Mikhail Gorbachev to accept that, the
right of self-determination of the peoples of Germany, both East and West, yes,
I do not think he should go ahead on anything and I personally would not even
sign a START Treaty. I think this is an absolutely fundamental question. Mr.
Gorbachev has questioned this right of self-determination in Lithuania. The West
can't make a fundamental issue of that sadly, but we certainly can and must make
a fundamental question of the right of self- determination of the united
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THE REUTER TRANSCRIPT REPORT
(REFILED TO CORRECT WORD IN 4TH CNN QUESTION: FALLING STED
APPALLING)
CNN INTERVIEW
Airs: Nov. 15 at 8 p.m.
Guest: President George Bush
EMBARGOED UNTIL 7 P.M. EST
The editor of the report is Robert Doherty. Steve
Ginsburg, Tim Ahmann, Peter Ramjug and Paul Schomer also are
available to help you. If you have questions, please call 202-
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call 202-898-8355; outside D.C., call 1-800-537-9755.
This transcript is provided by News Transcripts, Inc. If
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NOTE: ANY USAGE MUST BE CREDITED TO CNN.
Q: Mr. President, thank you for joining us. You're
about to embark on a trip that's going to take you first to a
Europe that's switched from confrontation to cooperation, and
then on to a Persian Gulf that may be just on the brink of war.
Let me start with the Persian Gulf, sir. In August,
the world was alarmed by Iraq's attack against Kuwait, but come
November, the worry seems to be about a U.S. offensive in this
area.
What has happened to change this focus from Saddam
Hussein's aggression to George Bush's war?
PRESIDENT BUSH: I don't think it's changed that much.
I think the world is still united against Saddam Hussein's naked
aggression. I think the world is still universally behind the
United Nations ten resolutions, and so I don't think there has
been that big a change, and, frankly, I was very pleased
yesterday when I heard the--saw the support that I think exists
in the Congress for this.
We're bound to have some confrontation and some
debate, but, believe me, the world is still united against this
brutal aggression. They want the hostages freed, they want to.
have stability in the Gulf, and security there. They don't like
the thought of a mad dictator possibly controlling the economic
well-being of every country in the world.
So, please understand--the world is still united
against this man's aggression.
Q: But the question, though, that seems to be
prevalent today is, is George Bush ready to take aggressive
action, and has that shifted the emphasis--has it in fact cast
more of an onus upon you to avoid war?
PRESIDENT BUSH: I don't feel any onus. What I want
to do is have a peaceful resolution to this question, and I have
said from the very beginning that no options are ruled out, nor
have I made any determination to use military force, and I
repeated that to the members of Congress. But I am absolutely
convinced that having the forces in place, should a military
option be required, is prudent policy.
Q: Mr. President--
PRESIDENT BUSH: And let me remind the listeners, the
viewers, that it isn't the United States alone. There are some
25 countries in the Gulf.
True, we have the bulk of the forces, the bulk of the
naval power. But there are some 25 countries at sea and on the
ground, in the area, supporting this, to say nothing of those
that for various reasons aren't supporting us with troops and
ships but are strongly behind what we are trying to do.
It is indeed Saddam Hussein alone against the world.
Q: We have seen FALLING numbers, support for this
operation and support for your handling of it, go in CNN-Time
polls, for example, from 83 percent the week after the invasion,
down to 53 percent or so now. How do you explain that?
PRESIDENT BUSH: Time. And I think there's a certain
frustration. I don't live by polls. I'm certainly not going to
shape the policies of the United States government by polls.
Q: But it is instructive--
PRESIDENT BUSH: I think the American people continue
to support it strongly, and I'm confident that they will
continue to support what I have to do in order to fulfill our
objectives.
Q: Even if it means war?
PRESIDENT BUSH: I think the American people will
support their president, and I think they know I'm prudent, and
I think they know that I'm exploring every opportunity to see
these U.N. resolutions fulfilled in a peaceful manner.
But I am confident that the American people will
support me as I fulfill my obligations as president of this
country.
Q: And yet, Mr. President, there are a lot of
American people. You travelled around campaigning. You saw the
signs that said, no war for oil.
There are a lot of people who think that's what this
is about. And if I may, your secretary of state the other day
put it into one four-letter word: jobs.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, listen, I think people are
concerned about this. I think the whole--I think the sign that
says, no jobs--no war for the oil companies, missed the whole--
missed the beat.
But there is an enormous economic equation here. Look
what's happening in our own country right now. There's a
slowdown, an economic slowdown. And it's a disproportionate
increase in the price of oil that stems from what Saddam Hussein
has done.
It's the fear, because of what he's done. And it does
mean jobs.
My argument with the person that holds up a simplistic
sign is, they missed the point. It's aggression. It is the
safety of human life. It is the concern over a U.S. embassy,
where the man's trying to starve it out. It is a world order
that is threatened. It is the national security of many
countries.
You know who's hurt the worst by this oil question?
And job question? It's the third world countries. It's the
have-nots that are being driven to their knees by these prices
because of what Saddam Hussein has done.
So you have all kinds of ingredients. And jobs, I'd
say, comes under the heading of the economic security of the
world. And it's a very important part of this. And so is
aggression. And so is staking our prisoners in contravention of
all international law against possible targets. I mean, it's
not one piece of the puzzle. It's all the puzzle together.
Q: Why do you think the public has had difficulty
figuring out what it is that you're talking about?
PRESIDENT BUSH: I'm not sure they have. The
figures--you quote one set of figures, and as a guy who doesn't
like to rely too heavily on polls, I could quote others that
showed 61 percent supporting this, with half of that against.
But let me say this, Charles: if I haven't done as clear a job
as I might on explaining this, then I've got to do better in
that regard, because I know in my heart of hearts that what we
are doing is right, I know that what the United Nations has done
is correct, I know that we have got to stand up against
aggression, an aggression that goes rewarded today means
instability and horror tomorrow, and I've got to tell you--I
have on my mind every night I go to--go to sleep, these
hostages.
Barbara and I--you know--our family, we still--still
say our prayers at night, and we say them for these hostages and
the people in our embassy, as well as for our kids that are
halfway around the world. And I guess I'd have to accept some
of the responsibility, if it's not as clear to others in this
country as it is to me, but I'm going to do my level best to see
that it is clear, because we're dealing with naked aggression,
we're dealing with brutality, unprecedented in recent times, and
we're dealing with a threat to the national security of this
country and other countries. It's that clear to me, and I've got
to do better, if you think there's misunderstanding.
And let me just say I'm very grateful for this
opportunity to have a chance, in this conversational way, to
discuss this. I think it's very important.
Q: Well, in a conversational way, I'd like to ask
you, despite widespread appeals from Republicans such as Senator
Lugar, Senator Wallop, Democrats such as Senator Mitchell and
Speaker Foley, for some sort of congressional authorization,
should you decide to go on the offensive, militarily, you've
refused to commit that.
Some have said that a declaration of
war, for example, would really be a declaration of purpose and
resolve. Why are you so opposed to that?
PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, I'm not so opposed to Congress
doing whatever it wants to do, and I have talked to Dick Lugar
today--I thought I might get this conversational question--and I
get the feeling--you'd better ask him--but I get the feeling he
is strong in support of what I'm doing and what our policy is,
and I think his position is let's get the Congress in and have
them vote to support the president. I know that's the way Bob
Dole felt about it. I haven't talked to Malcolm Wallop. The
leadership decided that they did not want to have a special
session. But I think they also know something else, that we
have had more meaningful consultations on this question than--
than any other such period in history have-these consultations
have taken place. And I will continue to consult. I want
Congress on board. But I'd leave it right there because who
knows what's going to happen? We are not in a situation of what
I would call hostility at this point, and therefore, I don't
think we need a declaration of war in advance of a hypothetical
situation.
Q: But if it is no longer hypothetical, I think that
may be the point--if it is no longer hypothetical, would you go
to Congress and say the time for waiting for the sanctions has
passed--and we'll return to the issue of sanctions in a moment--
but the time for waiting--
PRESIDENT BUSH: The question is too hypothetical. I
can't put--I can't answer a hypothesis like that. But I'll
guarantee you, I was very grateful when Congress got up in both
Houses and strongly supported the actions that I've taken up
till whenever the resolutions were passed. That was very good.
I want Congress to be a partner.
Q: But from a distance?
PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, not from a distance. I don't--
I don't--what do you mean by from a distance?
Q: Well, I guess--
PRESIDENT BUSH: I've consulted more than any other
president in history.
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Q: I understand.
PRESIDENT BUSH: And you can't have 435 commanders in
chief, and you can't have a hundred commanders in chief. I've
read the Constitution. They have the right to declare war and I
have the right, as commander in chief, to fulfill my
responsibilities, and I'm--I'm going to safeguard those
executive powers and they have every right in the world to
safeguard the powers of the Congress. And I will be very
respectful of that. I was a former member of Congress. I don't
feel in any mode of confrontation with Congress on this.
Individual congressmen may look at this differently than I do,
and some are willing to tell me what not to do, but a little bit
fuzzy and unclear on what to do. But that's not their job. My
job is to make tough decisions, and to hold this coalition
together, and to drive forward to see that this aggression is
not rewarded.
And I'm grateful for the support from both Democrats
and Republicans.
Q: Let me ask you about a tough decision that you
clearly made about a week ago, and that's when the debate seemed
to shift, when you shifted from essentially a defensive posture
with 200,000 troops, or so, in Saudi Arabia and the Persian
Gulf, to 400,000 and an offensive posture.
There are many individuals who say, wait a minute,
your policy was working, you had an unprecedented global
coalition. The sanctions, by your own definition, were working,
even if not perfectly. Saddam Hussein's advance had certainly
been stopped in its tracks.
Why did you make this major shift which created this
furor?
PRESIDENT BUSH: His advance had been stopped in the
shift in terms of our ability to defend Saudi Arabia. He has
moved a substantial amount of force into Kuwait since the
original decision was made, and I am going to preserve all
options, and if an option is out there it'd better be credible,
and one way to have a credible option is to have enough force
there to fulfill one's responsibilities if one has to exercise
that option. And that is what was behind my decision to move
this amount of force, and I think it was the right decision, and
I'm told that the morale of these troops is high, and that they
are well-trained and well-motivated.
And then there's another reason. I am sending a
signal, a clear, clarion signal to Saddam Hussein--we are deadly
serious about seeing you get out of Kuwait and about those
hostages, Americans and others being freed, and about the
sanctity of our embassy being respected, and about the stability
of the world economic system. Make no mistake about it.
And if you want some evidence, here's more evidence
for you, and that message I hope will get out loud and clear to
him when he sees another hundred-and-some thousand of the best
equipped, best trained, best motivated forces in the world up
against him.
Q: But that's raising the ante, that's making this a
very high stakes poker game, I suppose.
PRESIDENT BUSH: The stakes have been high all along,
Charles.
Q: Are you a poker player?
PRESIDENT BUSH: Because I am not going to compromise
one single iota with the principles I've outlined for you, nor
are our allies going to compromise one single iota. And Saddam
Hussein can do all the publicity he wants about cruelly
releasing one hostage or another, and all that does is make
those of us that are standing together on this question around
the world, are the alliance--
Q: But are they in fact standing together?
PRESIDENT BUSH: --so this--we are going to stay
together, and we are going to fulfill our objective.
Q: Are you concerned that that coalition is weakening
in any way, shape or form?
PRESIDENT BUSH: No; no, I'm not.
Q: How long do you give Saddam--how long do you give
Saddam Hussein?
PRESIDENT BUSH: I don't put it in terms of time.
Q: But many say that instead of building a foundation
as Secretary of State Baker has said for the possibility of a
military option, the foundation could have been built, perhaps
should have been built for a prolonged, patient waiting-out of
Saddam Hussein, to let the sanctions slowly strangle him. Why
not?
PRESIDENT BUSH: Because I think holding public
opinion forever in any country is very difficult to do.
Q: So you think the clock is ticking domestically as
well as internationally?
PRESIDENT BUSH: In any country I think there is a
ticking of the clock, but the alliance is strong, the alliance
is unwavering, and I don't think this matter is going to go on
forever. As far as I'm concerned, it's not.
Q: When--can you give--
PRESIDENT BUSH: Can't help you with a time frame, no,
because I can't--if you said to me how effective are the
sanctions, I'd say, Frank, I don't know the answer to that
question.
Q: But there are--
PRESIDENT BUSH: I know they've had some bite, we get
different reports from countries near to Iraq, but I can't give
you and the American people a total assessment of that question,
and if I could, I could give you a better answer to this
question you ask.
Q: A moment ago, you said there can be no compromise
on the principles that you've laid out, but many Middle East
observers say if Saddam is to do--Saddam Hussein is to do a 180
and reverse himself and withdraw, and you yourself said that's
possible, he's done that in the past with the Iran-Iraq War, for
example, that he will need to find some face-saving formula to
do that.
Short of a full withdrawal at this time, what kinds of
signals could he send, or what would you look for to indicate
that possibly he is moving to defuse this crisis?
PRESIDENT BUSH: When you rape, pillage and plunder a
neighbor, should you then ask the world, hey, give me a little
face, give me a little face-saving so I can do what I should
have done months ago? Should we be saying to him we're going to
reward your aggression by peeling off some part of somebody
else's country?
Should we say the brutality to these hostages and the
way you've treated these embassies should be rewarded in some
way, so you, sir, can have some face, so you can brutalize
somebody else tomorrow, so we set a precedent that would be
unacceptable for the rest of the world?
The answer is no, there isn't going to be a compromise
with this kind of naked aggression that is driving the Third
World to its knees because of the economic aspects. It's having
an adverse effect on all economies and it has shown a brutality
towards innocent civilians unprecedented.
Q: You painted such a picture of Saddam Hussein and
you talked about instability in the future. Is there any way
that anyone should think that you could tolerate an Iraq after
this crisis with a Saddam Hussein still in power?
PRESIDENT BUSH: I think what you have to have after
the crisis and after the withdrawal that is unconditional and
after the restoration of the legitimate rulers to their proper
place in Kuwait, there would have to be some international
guarantees, because what's happened--the world is now focused on
the fact much more clearly--I know I have--that the man has used
chemical weapons against his own people, that he has a nuclear
capability that he's trying frantically to build. And having
demonstrated this recklessness, I don't think the rest of the
world would say this is good enough, just what they call the
status quo ante, going back to where things were before the
invasion.
So I think you'd see an understandable cry in the
reinvigorated United Nations, under the peacekeeping function,
to have some guarantees.
Q: So you can't then tolerate a post-crisis Iraq that
has either chemical or nuclear weapons?
PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, I think all that would
obviously be a subject for the United Nations.
Q: Why don't you draw the line at that?
PRESIDENT BUSH: Draw the line at what?
Q: At no chemical weapons, no weapons of mass
capability in Iraq's hands.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, I'd be all for that, but I
can't draw--I'm not trying to elevate the demands at this
particular time. What I'm telling you is the countries that
I've talked to are so concerned over what he's done and what
he's trying to do that you'd have to have some international
safeguards.
Q: How close is he to a serviceable nuclear weapon?
PRESIDENT BUSH: I can't give you an honest answer, a
direct answer to that, because I'm not sure I know. But I do
know that he's trying hard to get an atomic weapon.
Q: Is that reason enough to fear and to take him out?
PRESIDENT BUSH: It's reason enough to have
safeguards, and it's reason enough to have full implementation
of the United Nations resolutions.
Q: Before we shift gears--I do want to get on to some
domestic questions--I want to raise one other thing in this
context here. You know the anguish that this nation went
through over Vietnam. That specter has been raised again in
connection with the Persian Gulf, and there's a sense that the
United States, the people of this country, are not prepared for
another Vietnam.
PRESIDENT BUSH: I agree with that.
Q: Do you see yourself on the brink of creating
another situation like that?
PRESIDENT BUSH: No, I don't see a parallel. Let me
tell you why. In Vietnam the Soviets and the Chinese were on
opposite sides; you had a state of almost enmity between the
superpowers. And today, thank God, we have a much more bright
and hopeful future. China and the Soviet Union have joined in
the United Nations in the total condemnation. In Vietnam you
had a very different supply situation; in Vietnam you had a very
different topography situation--the land was very different in
terms of the cover and the hiding--
Q: But I was thinking, sir,--
PRESIDENT BUSH: May I finish, please?
Q: Sure, go ahead.
PRESIDENT BUSH: --hiding the weapons. So there is no
parallel. What people, when they say we worry about a Vietnam,
is they don't want to put this nation through a long drawn-out
inconclusive experience that had military action that just ended
up with kind of a totally unsatisfactory answer. And that's
right, because--
Q: And it cost tens of thousands of lives.
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PRESIDENT BUSH: --I will not, as commander-in-chief,
ever put somebody into a military situation that we do not win--
ever. And there's not going to be any long drawn-out agony of
Vietnam. So I reject the parallel. But I can understand why
people say that. Because they're thinking, we don't want to
have a drawn out Viet Nam. But they aren't looking at the facts
today.
Iraq today is economically isolated. They are
boycotted by the entire world. That's bound to have some
effect. I'm telling you--I don't know how much effect. But
that's entirely different than Viet Nam. The parallels aren't
there. People ought to look at it in terms of reality, not in
terms of some understandable fear.
Q: Do you feel that you understand Saddam Hussein and
how he's thinking?
PRESIDENT BUSH: No. I'm not one of these
psychoanalysts. But I understand unacceptable behavior. I
understand international outlawism when I see it. And so does
the rest of the world, and they've condemned it. But I don't
understand him well enough to know what he's going to do. I've
read all these stories about him, but the unpredictability, the
brutality, the closeness in which he holds things and doesn't
hear any advice from anybody else. But I've seen him to a 180
degree turn. I saw him do that in his war with Iran and let's
hope he does the same thing here. Because it would be in his
interest to hurry up and get out of Kuwait.
Q: This is the break we promised.
(A short break was taken)
Q: Mr. President, I hope this is not quite a 180 in
the sense that you just described, but I want to come back to
the economy and this country, and the United States, which is
wholly related to the issues as you pointed out, but even before
Iraq this was a country that was jittery about where its economy
was going, that many said was already in recession.
You haven't acknowledged that. Why not just
acknowledge it and say here's the way out?
PRESIDENT BUSH: Because recession--there's a
technical description of a recession, and you have two
consecutive quarters of negative growth--
Q: Yes, but there's a psychological description.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Psychologically--
Q: A lot of people think we're already there.
PRESIDENT BUSH: There are, and some, I think in some
regions you can make the case that technicalities or not there's
some recession; in some areas it's doing quite well. I am
concerned about it. You say before--before Iraq. Let me point
out that the third quarter this year was more vigorous than--
than had been anticipated, and that was, you know, after Iraq
had started.
I do think that the Iraq situation, with this
speculative effect on the price of oil, has--has complicated
and--and worsened our own economy and the economies of our
neighbors, and the economies of the rest of the world.
So, I think there--I think they are related, and I
think--I am worried about the economic slowdown, and I'm worried
about a continuation in the Gulf of this kind of--kind of a
standoff right now, you might say, adversely affecting our
economy further, and the economy of the other countries further.
Q: How long and how bad a slowdown do you think?
PRESIDENT BUSH: I've been talking recently to our
economists and to--to some of the agency people, and today to
some outstanding businessmen from different businesses, the
financial institution, real estate--whatever--and they vary on
this. I'm not an economist, but most seem to feel that if we
have a recession that meets these technical terms, that it will
not be deep, and that we'll come out of it relatively soon--six
months at most.
And I'd like to think that is true. The oil question
that comes from Saddam Hussein's taking over of Kuwait is a big
question mark here. That is the major question mark in terms of
the depth of the--of the slowdown or recession.
Q: Anything more you can do about the jitters that
America has? It's the economy, it's the real-estate markets,
it's the debt, it's the Persian Gulf.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, sometimes you pay for excesses.
Q: Some look to--
PRESIDENT BUSH: Sometimes you have to pay for
excesses, and we had a kind of a go-go lending policies in some
of our financial institutions, and one of the business leaders
today made that point to me. He said it doesn't hurt to shake
things out. He made very clear he didn't mean in terms of human
life, in terms of the working men and women in this country,
wondering about their job. But in terms of the excesses.
We got into a lending psychology in some parts of the
private sector, that there's no tomorrow--
Q: Well, what do you mean--I'm not sure I
understand--
PRESIDENT BUSH: --and loans were made then--loans
were made then that wouldn't be made now.
Q:
--what you mean, pay for those excesses. What do
you mean--
PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, paying by this economic slow
down, where people are not as willing to make loans now as they
were in the past.
Q: The Reagan administration was part of the
(inaudible)
PRESIDENT BUSH: I don't think we're trying to assign
blame to President Reagan or George Bush on this. I think we're
looking at the global economy and the effects of lending
practices or the effects of international events, over which a
president has no particular control at the moment. And I would
go back to the price of oil, for example. I think that this is
caused by Saddam Hussein's taking over Kuwait, and by the
speculative worries about what that means in the future, more so
than the fact that there's a shortage of oil today. There
isn't. But people are worried about it. And when you have
people, that gets reflected in the price structure.
I'd like to be a little reassuring on this economy. I
am concerned about the slow down. I worry about anybody that
wants a job and doesn't have one. But I am not a gloom and doom
person on where the American economy will be before long. And
yet I don't want to mislead you, because I am concerned that
we're in a down turn here.
Q: Let me ask you something about the nature of your
presidency. About a year ago you said you hadn't really been
tested. In fact, those of us who travel the thousands of miles
with you seem to think that the first year of this presidency,
you had a lot of fun being president, if you will. You seemed to
be enjoying it. Have you now been tested? Is it less fun?
PRESIDENT BUSH: Yes. It's not less fun--I enjoy it. I
still go to work early. I still am enthusiastic. But I would
have to concede that there have been some tough problems out
there, one of them related to getting the budget deficit under
control. Clearly, the slowness of this economy presents not
only the president, but all the American people with a problem,
and I think Panama presented me with tough decisions, and I
think the Middle East presents me with those decisions. But I
haven't lost my zest or enthusiasm for this job. And I don't
feel embattled, and I don't feel beat on. And I feel very
fortunate to be president at this fascinating time.
You see, we got to sit here and talk about the
problem. You're not interested in all the banks that were not
robbed today; you've got to talk about the crisis, about the
problem. Look at the fascinating changes for the good that have
taken place around the world; look at democracy on the move in
our hemisphere; look at what's happened in Eastern Europe. I
mean, it's an exciting time to be alive and to be president of
the United States. So I don't let myself get so dragged down by
the problems that I lose sight of the big picture. And yet I
think, if you said have you been tested by fire, I'd say it's
been pretty hot out there, and, yes, I think I'm being tested
that way.
Q: And more testing to come.
PRESIDENT BUSH: And maybe more testing to come. But
that's what I get paid for. I'm elected president. I'm
supposed to make tough decisions and take the heat and do what
Harry--I know that you guys are going to kill me for sounding so
simplistic. Harry Truman was right: the buck stops on the
president's desk--he has to make the decision. A senator can
get up and give a great big speech, talking about the inspiring
presidency of George Bush in flames on the sands--he doesn't
have to do anything about it, he doesn't have to make the call.
But I don't ask for understanding about this; I just get it in
perspective. That's what I'm supposed to do, and hopefully I'll
make the right call.
So I really still have the zest and the enthusiasm. I
get tired sometimes, because once in awhile you get longer hours
on that, sometimes things don't go exactly the way I want,
whether it's an election of somebody I feel fervently about or
whether it's the economy. But overall there's so much good
about this country and so much excitement that I feel privileged
to be president at this time.
Q: Mr. President, we're privileged to have shared
this moment with you. On that bipartisan, from Democrat Harry
Truman to Republican George Bush, thank you very much--I'm sure
on Frank's behalf as well. Thank you for being with us.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, thank you both, gentlemen.
END OF CNN BUSH INTERVIEW
The Reuter Transcript Report
Bush/CNN-EMBARGOED (second and final add)
Nov. 15, 1990
REUTER
Reut17:34 11-15
a0872reutt
r W.. BC-TEXT-CNN/BUSH-1STADD 11-15 1861
BC-TEXT-CNN/BUSH-1STADD
THE REUTER TRANSCRIPT REPORT
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3RD STORY of Level 1 printed in FULL format.
Copyright (c) 1991 The Times Mirror Company;
Los Angeles Times
March 11, 1991, Monday, Home Edition
SECTION: Metro; Part B; Page 5; Column 5; Op-Ed Desk
LENGTH: 797 words
HEADLINE: COLUMN RIGHT;
so, WHAT EXACTLY DID WE WIN?;
A STRENGTHENED SHIITE MOVEMENT IS NOW A CONCERN.
BYLINE: By TOM BETHELL, Tom Bethell is a media fellow at the Hoover Institution.
BODY:
"War survives on Earth simply because so many people enjoy it," H.L. Mencken
wrote. "To at least nine people out of 10, it is the supreme circus of circuses,
the show beyond compare."
Mencken would have found little reason to revise this opinion in recent
weeks. There can be little doubt that the war against Iraq -- brought into our
living rooms by television, and yet conducted at a safe distance from the home
front -- was enjoyed by most Americans.
Since the war's abrupt end there has been talk of parades and a general
triumphalism. Our easy victory has been widely construed as a vindication of
President Bush's decision to launch Desert Storm. Another interpretation has
been overlooked: that Iraq never did constitute much of a threat to world peace
in the first place. In which case the war was unnecessary.
We hear repeatedly that we beat the fourth-largest army in the world. But
this does not mean fourth-best (that might be the German army, for example, or
the British). The draftees of the tyrannical Saddam Hussein turned out to be
reluctant warriors who had to be prodded from behind with bayonets and who later
kissed the feet of advancing GIs. The surrender of a platoon of Iraqis to
journalists illustrates the point.
There can be no doubt that the Iraqi threat was grossly exaggerated -- not by
naysayers or isolationists but by the U.S. government. "American casualties were
less than 5% of the lowest prewar Pentagon estimates," Time magazine reported.
"U.S. forces had prepared 10,000 beds aboard ships and in three field hospitals
to receive the wounded; only a tiny fraction were filled." Twenty-thousand body
bags had been ordered; a few more than 100 Americans were killed in combat. The
war may have been the most one-sided in history.
How and why Saddam Hussein was magnified into a threat to world peace is a
topic for historians. But it's worth noting that immediately after Iraq invaded
Kuwait, Bush's initial response was calm. Asked at a White House press
conference on Aug. 2 if the United States would intervene militarily, Bush said
he was "not contemplating such action." Only after he flew to Colorado later
that day and spoke to Britain's Margaret Thatcher did he change his mind.
What precisely did we win as a result of this war? In his speech before
Congress, President Bush said that this was a victory for "unprecedented
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international cooperation and diplomacy," which is a very odd formulation. The
war was a defeat for diplomacy, almost by definition, and cooperation itself
cannot be a reason to send half a million troops around the globe.
"By God," Bush had said earlier, "we've kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and
for all." Surely this is an insubstantial gain, a transient sensation of
collective uplift. And the easy victory could lure us into further pointless
conflicts.
Bush also said that this was a victory for "what is right." There may be some
truth to this, but remember that, to Bush, that refers to the right of sovereign
states to be free from the external interference of other states. It is the
infringed prerogatives of governments, rather than the abrogated rights of
individuals, that arouse him to a fine pitch of moral indignation. In sharp
contrast to his concern for the emir of Kuwait, recall his coolness to the
students in Tian An Men Square. Bush's reaction suggested that he regretted the
tragedy but that the patience of his friend Deng Xiaoping had been sorely tried.
A few days after the war ended, a most unexpected benefit of victory was
disclosed. Now we would enjoy more influence in the councils of OPEC, and
"American officials" were said to be discussing how they might use it. Lo and
behold, we might be able to persuade Saudi Arabia to cut back production if the
price of crude oil sinks too low. There's a nice irony here because it was
concern about low oil prices that inspired Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait in
the first place.
The crushing of Saddam Hussein could certainly deliver the Iraqi people from
tyranny. Bush commendably insisted that they are not our enemy, and that they
(or those who survived) could derive benefits from the war. But even on this
score we hear peculiar second thoughts. The Administration is now said to be
worrying that Hussein might be replaced by Shiite fundamentalists. They in turn
might form an alliance with Iran and so destabilize the region. This is exactly
why we came to Saddam Hussein's rescue in the 1980s. We feared that Iranian
fundamentalists, if unresisted, would destabilize the region.
Does this mean that we will now be tempted to throw our support behind Saddam
Hussein, lest the dreaded Islamic fanatics finally come to power and destabilize
all before them? It sounds absurd, but don't rule it out for that reason.
TYPE: Opinion
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14TH STORY of Level 1 printed in FULL format.
Copyright (c) 1991 The Times Mirror Company;
Los Angeles Times
March 10, 1991, Sunday, Home Edition
SECTION: Opinion; Part M; Page 1; Column 4; Opinion Desk
LENGTH: 1363 words
HEADLINE: THE NEW CAMPAIGNS;
POLITICS;
IF POLITICS WERE WAGED LIKE WAR
BYLINE: By William Schneider, William Schneider is a contributing editor to
Opinion.
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
BODY:
"War is nothing but politics by other means," Karl von Clausewitz wrote in
1833. To which Americans say, "Bullhackey!" Americans resoundingly reject the
notion that war is politics. That was the lesson of Vietnam. It's also the
lesson of the Persian Gulf.
The Persian Gulf proved to Americans that, if we just let the military fight
the war, they can get the job done. Last week, Lt. Gen. Thomas W. Kelly,
director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, expressed his appreciation
to the President for not trying to micro-manage the war. President George Bush
echoed these sentiments in his speech to Congress on Wednesday night, when he
said, "We cannot lead a new world abroad if, at home, it's politics-as-usual on
American defense and diplomacy."
Vietnam was a political war. Politicians placed strict limits on what could
and could not be done. The Gulf War was a military war. The military was given a
mandate to win a total victory as quickly and efficiently as possible. They did.
"By God," Bush said on March 1, "we've kicked the Vietnam War syndrome once
and for all." Sure enough, the Gulf War ended with Marine helicopters landing on
the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait -- a dramatic contrast with the image
from 1975, of U.S. helicopters evacuating the U.S. Embassy in Saigon.
The American view of war is shaped by two deeply rooted characteristics of
American culture moralism and pragmatism. Our religious tradition, basically
Protestant and pietistic, creates a powerful strain of moralism in our public
life. That's why Americans distrust politics. Politics is the art of the
possible. Morality is the art of the right. There had to be a moral
justification for this war, and Bush provided one. We weren't fighting for oil.
We were fighting for principles -- freedom, self-determination and a new world
order.
Month after month last fall, Bush was asked to explain why we were in the
Persian Gulf. He never came up with a coherent explanation. Every time he was
asked, he just added another reason to the laundry list. But Americans sensed
that, for Bush, the explanation was not intellectual. It was moral. We were in
the Gulf to defend values, not interests.
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Those values were on full display Wednesday, when Bush recalled the scene of
Iraqi troops surrendering to U.S. soldiers, who reassured them, "It's OK. You're
all right now. You'll be all right."
"That scene says a lot about America, a lot about who we are," the President
said, his voice breaking. "Americans are a caring people. We are a good people,
a generous people. Let us always be caring and good and generous in all we do."
And suddenly, we remembered what we liked about Bush. It is not his vision. It
is his strength of character.
American culture is also pragmatic. If you need to solve a problem, whatever
works is right. Just get the job done. And don't let politics get in the way.
War is a strategic and technological exercise best left to the professionals who
know how to get the job done.
"Violence is necessary," H. Rap Brown once said. "It is as American as cherry
pie." He was right. We tolerate more violence than any other civilized society.
More crime, organized and disorganized. More guns. More capital punishment. A
violent history of race relations and labor relations. More violence in our
entertainment. Why? Because violence gets the job done. Ask Dirty Harry.
Bush accepted what Pentagon planners called "the doctrine of invincible
force" in the Gulf. First, we staged an overwhelming show of strength to
persuade the enemy to capitulate. When that didn't work, we went after the enemy
with everything we had. "This will not be a protracted, drawn-out war," the
President promised last November. The war lasted 42 days, including 100 hours of
ground fighting; 90 Americans were killed. The Vietnam War lasted 10 years;
47,358 Americans were killed.
Bush was George of Arabia as he stood before Congress last week. In fact,
during the 25 months of Bush's presidency, the United States has won not one
war, but two. We won the Cold War in 1989 without firing a shot.
Just in time to spoil the celebration, Bush's fellow Republicans decided it
was time to politicize the war. They wore big yellow buttons during Bush's
speech that said, "I voted with the President." The National Republican
Senatorial Committee sent a mailing that referred to "appeasement-before-country
liberals." Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.), said, "I think we're going to be hearing in
the next few days and weeks from the Democrats that the President has not made
his domestic agenda clear. I'd just like to remind you that that's exactly what
they were saying about the President's policy in the Gulf."
Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), the House minority whip, chimed in: "If General
Schwarzkopf had to report to the Democratic Congress, we'd still be unloading
the first five tanks and debating over which way they should point."
Gramm and Gingrich are realignment junkies. They are frustrated over the fact
that popular support for Republican Presidents has never translated into
Republican control of Congress. Right now, Bush has a record-high approval
rating 90%. Republicans have reached parity with the Democrats in the polls.
But what's the rush? The 1992 election is 20 months away. There'll be plenty
of opportunity to see taped replays of speeches by Democrats opposing the war.
Rest assured, Republicans will runs ads showing Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq
Aziz thanking members of Congress for voting against the war. Lots of ads.
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Right now, such recriminations are not only distasteful; they could create a
backlash against the GOP. What the voters liked best about the war was that
politics was kept out of it. Americans want to celebrate the mood of national
unity and confidence. They don't want to trivialize the war by making it
partisan.
Last week, Sen. Albert Gore Jr. (D-Tenn.) denounced Republicans for
"poisoning our national politics and dishonoring a debate in this chamber that
was in our finest traditions."
The Democrats want to join in the victory celebration -- and apply the new
spirit of public purpose to the domestic agenda. They sense the public's growing
frustration over the gap between foreign and domestic policy. Rep. Robert E.
Wise Jr. (D-W.Va.) declared the Gulf War "sets a new standard for people to
judge government by." He explained that in the Middle East, "Government set a
goal, mobilized half-a-million people and moved more materiel than at any time
since World War II. Why can't you do the same thing in education, in
infrastructure, in health care?"
The answer is: politics. There was great irony in the fact that, the very day
we won the war, the Senate Ethics Committee, after 14 months of deliberation,
announced it could find no evidence of wrongdoing in the behavior of four out of
the "Keating Five" senators. A joke made the rounds of Washington: "The good
news is, we've got Saddam Hussein and we're going to try him for war crimes. The
bad news is, he's going to be tried by the Senate Ethics Committee."
According to the Gallup poll, 85% of Americans express confidence in the
mílitary. Only 30% express confidence in Congress. The war didn't increase
confidence in the political process. It generated confidence in how much we
could achieve outside the political process. All voters have to do is compare
the experience of winning the war with the experience of passing a budget last
October.
The budget fight turned so many voters off that a remarkable thing happened
in the Nov. 6 election: House incumbents of both political parties lost support.
The election was a warning: Voters are sick of politics-as-usual. The Gulf War
only reinforces those sentiments.
As a result, next year is likely to be a good year for outsiders to run for
office. Both parties will be scouring the ranks of returning veterans to find
"war heroes" to nominate. It should be noted that almost one of four U.S.
Presidents has been a general -- 41 Presidents, 10 generals. Democrats take
note: The only public figure whose popularity matches that of Bush is Gen. H.
Norman Schwarzkopf.DR, RANDY LYHUS / For The Times
TYPE: Opinion
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16TH STORY of Level 1 printed in FULL format.
Copyright (c) 1991 The New York Times Company
The New York Times
March 10, 1991, Sunday, Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section 4; Page 1; Column 1; Week In Review Desk
LENGTH: 1271 words
HEADLINE: Back to Reality;
U.S. Sets a Cautious Course on Mideast Peace
BYLINE: By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
BODY:
JUST as President Bush was about to go to Capitol Hill for his address to
Congress on the war last week, his advisers rushed up with a change for the
speech. It was only seven words, but for them it was the definition of the
postwar Middle East, the heralded "new world order."
In the original text, Mr. Bush cautioned that "even the new world order
cannot guarantee an era of perpetual peace." Some advisers felt that sounded too
pessimistic. So Mr. Bush added: "But enduring peace must be our mission."
As the United States begins the work of postwar diplomacy, the change in
tone seemed to make at least three things clear: The Administration is still
sorting out its approach to the long-intractable problems of the Middle East. It
is adjusting the vision that was needed to bring the country into war to suit
the realities of the region. And, at least for now, the President's plans seem
to be more modest than might have been suggested by his expansive wartime talk
of lasting peace rising from the flames in the Persian Gulf.
"It's very high tone and kind of limited," a senior official said,
explaining that Mr. Bush was not aiming for "some vision of universal peace with
democracy everywhere."
Just as the President's determination to stop Iraq's expansion reflected his
fear of being another Neville Chamberlain, he is now rejecting the mantle of
Woodrow Wilson. Indeed, Mr. Bush said last Wednesday night in Congress that his
war against Iraq "was not waged as a 'war to end all wars.' =
"What it means is really not a lot more than, 'You can't invade your
neighbor,' = an official said. "We're not going to intervene everywhere, force
the Arabs to recognize Israel and the Israelis to deal with the Palestinians.
Progress of democracy, yes, but in an incremental way, a la Eastern Europe."
This not to say that Mr. Bush is abandoning his promise that "no one will
work harder for a stable peace in the region than we will." He may be trying to
diminish expectations, but he is on record as saying that the best prospects in
decades for a broader peace now exist. What it does suggest is that the effort
will be conducted in classic George Bush fashion striking for the center, and
not committing to anything until the odds of failure are reduced as much as
possible. That is the reason Mr. Bush sent Secretary of State James A. Baker
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3d to the Middle East last week and it is the style in which he conducted the
war, making sure the coalition backed each step and that every weapon was cocked
before fighting started.
American officials are keeping much of what they intend for the Middle East
secret, but it is possible to discern some of what they are most eager to
accomplish and what they believe is feasible.
At the top of Washington's priorities is Saddam Hussein. Mr. Bush insists he
is not trying to overthrow Mr. Hussein, but seems prepared to use force again to
keep the pressure on. Administration officials said the Pentagon mapped possible
air strikes on Friday after intercepting an Iraqi order to use poison gas
against rebels in Iraq. "We can't live with him, period," an official said,
adding that the only question was how long he could stay in power.
More easily solved is the domestic and international political imperative of
bringing home American troops. "There have been two equally important parts to
the equation of Bush's credibility," a senior official said. "One is that he
said we would come to the aid of the Saudis and Kuwaitis. We did. The other is
that he said we would get out quickly. We will."
This conflicts with the desire to end the Arab-Israeli race to acquire the
biggest and most modern armies; if American troops are withdrawn, that makes it
militarily dangerous and politically impossible to seek to disarm friendly
countries. The United States argues that the war proved that territory and large
armies cannot guarantee security, but officials acknowledge that the Middle East
will not reduce its armies until it sees progress toward an Arab-Israeli peace.
So Washington suggests reducing the spread of ballistic missiles, and
chemical and biological weapons. This is a smaller problem that can be addressed
outside the region with the few countries, including the United States, France,
Germany, Britain, the Soviet Union and China, that have such weapons.
Similarly, the United States seems to be trying not to approach the
Arab-Israeli and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts head-on. Although Mr. Bush said
he was fighting Iraq to enforce the principles of national sovereignty, the rule
of law and peaceful coexistence, that does not mean the Administration is ready
to enforce them across the region.
The Administration is counting on its Arab allies, especially Saudi Arabia,
to repay the United States for its military aid by taking steps toward settling
the Arab-Israeli disputes. But Administration officials say there will be no
call for a large international conference on the Palestinian question. "We're
not going to try to settle the question of who will represent the Palestinians
and we're not going to push the Arabs to recognize Israel," an official said.
Although Mr. Bush has suggested that Israel contemplate territorial concessions,
officials said he will not apply heavy pressure to do so.
Instead, the Administration will encourage smaller steps: notification of
each other by the Middle Eastern countries before conducting military maneuvers;
an exchange of Arab and Israeli prisoners; an easing of Israeli travel
restrictions in the occupied territories; water-sharing agreements between
Israel and Jordan, and Israel and Syria; a re-evaluation by Arab states of their
financial support for the Palestine Liberation Organization, and a lowering of
voices on all sides.
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These are Mr. Baker's "confidence-building" measures. At the same time, the
end of the war raises anew an apparent conflict between the American policy of
promoting democracy and the restoration of the Emir of Kuwait. But
Administration officials say there will be no push for rapid democratization in
the area. Instead, Mr. Baker is offering "suggestions" for reducing the gap
between rich and poor, hoping economic stability will lead to eventual reform.
In a region where the most organized political opposition is either
fundamentalist Muslim or radical Palestinian, it is not clear to the
Administration that speedy elections are in its best interests.
As it strives, again, for small steps in inter-Arab relations, the
Administration has been encouraged by evident improvement in Saudi Arabia's
relationships with Syria and Egypt, which symbolize divisions between rich and
poor. "The Saudi-Egypt relationship at this point is very, very good," a senior
official said. "The whole Camp David aspect is probably behind them."
Mr. Bush may have one major advantage as he confronts these issues. "He is
the first popular President ever to tackle the Middle East," said William
Quandt, who worked on the National Security Council under President Jimmy
Carter. "Lyndon Johnson was tied down with Vietnam and finally threw in the
towel. Nixon had Watergate. Carter's fortunes were going downhill before Camp
David. Reagan didn't bother."
But Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was Mr. Carter's national security adviser,
said Mr. Bush will have to risk his political fortunes in peace as he did in
war. "American leverage in the Middle East requires the President to put himself
on the line," he said. "I don't know if the Administration is ready to bite the
bullet, but if they don't, the question arises: What did the war accomplish?"
GRAPHIC: Photo: Going home: Marines from the Third Battalion, Third Marine
Regiment, waiting last week behind barbed wire at a Saudi air base to board a
plane to the United States. (Reuters)
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