From Bush, a Measure of Compassion : Policy on South Africa May Pose Greatest Challenge

Sixteen years ago, as a Foreign Service officer assigned to the U.S. mission to the United Nations, I observed at close hand the extraordinary talents of our ambassador at the time, George Bush.

Eight years ago I campaigned at candidate Bush’s side as he grew from a long shot to an almost nominee.

Eight months ago I stood in shared chagrin with the vice president when it looked as if my home state of Iowa had irretrievably undercut his prospects for reaching the office to which he so earnestly aspired.

Now, even after he has won the presidency, friends keep asking me: Who is the real George Bush? What will his agenda be?

The direction of a presidency is impossible to predict with any degree of certainty. But of one thing I am confident: George Bush is sincere in his desire to lead a kinder, gentler nation. Behind the combative campaign is a “healing” candidate. Beneath the patina of leadership noblesse oblige is a reflection of American common sense and common virtue.

Bush is a man of decency, of good humor, of family values. He will lead his country in a manner that will make us proud. The campaign that all America rooted to end was run in a way not only disjunctive of the candidate’s nature but of the real issues of the presidency. Presidents, after all, spend little time on furlough decisions or reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

The real challenges that lie ahead revolve around the need to rein in the Reagan Administration’s fiscal excesses without destabilizing the economy, and the need to build on the more accommodative foreign-policy initiatives of the later Reagan years, especially arms control, without destabilizing international politics.

An agenda for a kinder, gentler nation begins with people. Some politicians do a lot of talking about family values. The Bush family lives them. Expect the new father figure of America to preside over a White House brimming with children and grandchildren--lovely kids, clearly loved.

Expect also a dramatically different brand of leadership.

Stylistically, George Bush is closer to Jack Kennedy than to Ronald Reagan. His leadership is of a low-key, hands-on variety. No one in the past and few in the future are likely to match Reagan’s melodious stump speeches, but Bush can be expected to give more commanding, self-assured press conferences.

Unlike most Presidents, George Bush owes nothing of compromising consequence to any ideological or vested-interest group. Because choices will be made on the basis of quality of character rather than indebtedness owed, his Administration’s appointments can be expectedto be of a high standard--not only at the top but also at the mid-levels where mischief has been so rampant in recent years.

The common sense that Bush talked about during the campaign means a common concern for our common destiny, for leavening the frontier individualism of Reagan with a greater measure of societal compassion. He can be expected to use his high office as a bully pulpit to preach the civic gospel, gently prodding Americans to be guided in their conduct by “the better angels of our nature.”

But, unlike those who label themselves with the “L” word, Bush is no guilt-ridden apologist. He understands that in election after election Democrats promise more jobs to more people, more assistance to more groups.

Ironically, while Republicans in general are poor articulators of these concerns, the creation of 18 million jobs--in an economic environment in which inflation and unemployment came down in tandem--has allowed far more societal resources to be freed for education and has brought unexpected windfalls flowing into the Social Security trust fund. The case for higher taxes and greater protectionism, as provided in Europe and as advanced by the Democratic Party, is not a prescription for economic growth or for greater societal cohesion.

The most gentle agenda may be to be ungentle with Congress in a gentlemanly way. Tax restraint, after all, is gentler to taxpayers than tax increases are. Lower inflation is kinder to the economy than Carter-esque interest rates are.

In foreign policy Bush can be expected to lead a nation confident in its strength but willing to continue negotiations on strategic-arms as well as conventional-force reductions. He can be expected to lead a new era of cooperation rather than confrontation at the United Nations and, if there are Soviet quid pro quos , move back toward greater reliance on the World Court.

In regional disputes, conciliation, if not peace, appears to be breaking out all over. With a little luck, Daniel Ortega will recognize that the people of Nicaragua are as ill served by new-order repression from the left as they were by the old order from the right, making a consensus policy with Congress a viable possibility for the new Administration.

While more distant from our shores, it is South Africa that may spell the greatest philosophical challenge to Administration strategists. Bush understands that economic sanctions seldom work, but he also knows that his party was founded to end apartheid in America. Just as Kennedy was put off initially by the civil-rights movement, yet found no ethical or political alternative but to identify with it, so the same could prove to be the case for George Bush and the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa.

When all is said and done, the dual nature of this campaign--its emphasis on the negative of the moment and the promise of the positive of tomorrow--is unlikely to be repeatable. If Bush is to be true to himself and viable as a candidate in 1992, he has little choice but to advance an array of policies that will allow him to seek reelection wrapped less in the garb of social division and more in the mantle of a kind leader of a strong but gentle country at peace with the world.