Unity Barriers Must Fall, Bush Tells Europeans

President Bush, in one of the strongest speeches of his presidency, unveiled a four-point program to remove barriers between East and West Europe before an audience of cheering West Germans and Americans on Wednesday, then flew to London to wind up what has become a triumphal European tour.

Arriving here, Bush was greeted by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, with whom he will hold talks today, and by London newspaper headlines hailing him.

“NATO Euphoric as Bush Plan Restores Unity,” declared the Independent. “Arms Talks Hopes Rise as NATO Compromises on Short-Range Forces,” said the Financial Times.

The President’s seven-day trip appears to have restored the political initiative to NATO and established Bush as the undisputed leader of the Western Alliance. And the success has imbued him with a self-confidence that was clearly on display as he spoke earlier Wednesday to a crowd of several thousand in the town of Mainz, in the heavily militarized south-central section of West Germany.

Bush was repeatedly interrupted by applause as he called for arms reduction measures; free elections and political pluralism in East Europe; the tearing down of the Berlin Wall and other physical barriers that divide Europe, and a program to solve environmental problems, with the United States and the other NATO countries working in concert with East European countries.

For the first time since World War II gave way to the Cold War and the division of Europe, he said, a realistic prospect now exists for a continent that would be “whole and free.”

“As President,” Bush declared, “I will do all I can to help open the closed societies of the East. We seek self-determination for all of Germany and all of Eastern Europe. And we will not relax and we must not waver.

“The world has waited long enough.”

The speech was perhaps the most forceful, emotional and eloquent of Bush’s presidency and earned the President a sustained, standing ovation.

“We came in on an encouraging note,” Bush told reporters later, as he flew to London. “The Germans, at least the ones I talked to, were very upbeat,” he said.

Over the past four days, Bush’s campaign for arms reduction and a barrier-free Europe have attracted broad support and enabled him for the first time to seize from Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev the spotlight on the international stage of diplomacy.

In his speech, Bush again challenged Gorbachev to accelerate the timetable for reaching agreement on a treaty that would drastically reduce military forces and arms in Europe.

“There is no reason why the five-to-six-year timetable as suggested by Moscow is necessary,” Bush declared. “I propose a much more ambitious schedule. We should aim to reach an agreement within six months to a year,” and “accomplish reductions by 1992, or 1993 at the latest.”

Despite Bush’s insistence on that rapid timetable, however, other U.S. officials and allied leaders have stressed that the NATO arms reduction proposal is complicated and that meeting his deadline will be extremely difficult. Prime Minister Thatcher, for example, labeled the schedule “very optimistic” at her press conference after the end of the NATO summit.

Also, although the President is basking now in his moment of triumph, Gorbachev remains enormously popular throughout Europe. And Bush aides worry that the Soviet leader, a bold master of public relations, may be capable of regaining the initiative fairly soon.

Meanwhile, some of Bush’s European allies continue to face political difficulties at home related, in part, to the way Gorbachev has played on Europe’s ambivalent attitude toward the United States.

Bush went out of his way Wednesday to bolster one of those beleaguered allies, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, whose conservative Christian Democratic Party has trailed the opposition Social Democrats in several polls.

Speaking in Kohl’s hometown of Mainz, Bush praised the German leader for his role in the summit and said the chancellor “has been trying to convince me that when I came to this state and to Mainz, I would be coming to heaven. And having gotten here, I think he may just about be right.”

The crowd roared its approval and Kohl beamed.

For all of the plaudits Bush has received for his campaign of disarmament and a barrier-free Europe, other events of the day demonstrated again the continued West German anxiety about the NATO conventional and nuclear forces that make Germany’s Rhineland one of the most heavily armed areas in the world.

At a city hall ceremony in Mainz, Lord Mayor Herman-Hartmut Weyel praised the United States, which has 12,000 troops stationed there, for providing “a protective shield and guarantee for our liberty.” But he urged Bush to free Mainz of “the enormous burden of military installations” and to make short-range nuclear missiles part of NATO arms reduction proposals.

“We in Mainz know that there is no escape for us if these weapons are ever used,” Weyel said. And he pointed out that the Mainz City Council had adopted a resolution addressed to the President expressing the same sentiments about the military presence.

He asked that Bush accept the resolution as an expression of hope by the people of Mainz that he will go down in history as “the President of disarmament and peace.” Bush, in his speech, said that as the current trends toward democracy and freedom in Eastern Europe rise, “so should our expectations.”

He called on Western democracies to “lend counsel and support to those brave men and women who are trying to form the first truly representative political parties in the East, to advance freedom and democracy, to part the Iron Curtain.”

In fact, he said, the curtain already has begun to part. “The frontier of barbed wire and mine fields between Hungary and Austria is being removed, foot by foot, mile by mile. Just as the barriers are coming down in Hungary, so must they fall through all of Eastern Europe.”

Then, in a line that drew thunderous applause, Bush declared: “Let Berlin be next! Let Berlin be next.”

Urging cooperative efforts to solve environmental problems, Bush said, “Since much remains to be done in both East and West, we ask Eastern Europe to join us in this common struggle.”

Western nations, Bush said, could help the East and could “offer technical training, assistance in drafting laws and regulations, and new technologies for tackling these problems.”

“I invite the environmentalists and engineers of the East to visit the West, to share knowledge so we can succeed in this great cause.”

Times staff writer David Lauter also contributed to this story.

FOR A EUROPE ‘WHOLE AND FREE’

President Bush’s proposal for the unification of Europe, which he says would lead to a continent “whole and free,” outlined during a speech in Mainz, West Germany:

Arms Reduction Measures--Bush challenged the Soviet to accelerate the five-to-six year timetable for agreeing on drastic cuts in military manpower and arms in Europe, saying accord could be reached by 1993.

Free Elections in Eastern Europe--Bush called on Western democracies to support “those brave men and women who are trying to form the first truly representative political parties in the East.”

Berlin Wall and Other Physical Barriers--Seeking to “part the Iron Curtain,” the President said, “Just as the barriers are coming down in Hungary, so must they fall through all of Eastern Europe,” then added, “Let Berlin be next!”

An Environmental Program--Bush urged cooperative efforts to solve environmental problems, with the U.S. and the NATO countries offering help and working in concert with East European nations.