Bush Tells of ‘Message of Hope’ : ‘Historic’ Chance to End Cold War, Unite Europe Seen

President Bush returned home from Europe today, declaring that “the world has waited long enough” for the Cold War to end and that change in the Soviet Union provides a historic opportunity to integrate East and West.

Bush, flanked by his wife, Barbara, and Chief of Staff John H. Sununu, sounded triumphant in remarks at Pease Air Force Base to a crowd of several thousand, some waving welcome-home banners.

Afterward the President left for his vacation home in nearby Kennebunkport, Me., where he was to spend the weekend.

‘Great Opportunity’

Bush said that he returned from a weeklong trip to Rome, Brussels, Bonn and London with “a message of hope” for the American people and that the allies had “a great and historic opportunity” to shape changes transforming Europe.

“We must get to work now to end the Cold War. The world has waited long enough. And if we succeed, the world of our children, the world of the 21st Century, will be all the better,” he said.

He said his message in Europe was that the Cold War began with the division of Europe “and it must end with a reconciliation with shared values, where East meets West in a commonwealth of free nations.”

When Bush embarked on his trip to Europe and a NATO summit in Brussels earlier this week, he was under fire at home and abroad for responding too cautiously to change in the Soviet Union and for letting the NATO alliance drift apart.

Rift Closed

Coming home, he is widely credited with closing a rift within the 40-year-old alliance by arranging a compromise on West Germany’s insistence for speedy superpower talks on reducing or eliminating short-range nuclear missiles in Europe.

He took the initiative by proposing cuts in NATO and Warsaw Pact conventional forces. In defusing the crisis, NATO leaders ultimately agreed to pursue an early accord on conventional arms reductions before opening talks on reducing short-range missiles.

“With our agreement in NATO and our short-range nuclear forces in Europe, we demonstrated--as an alliance--that we can manage change while remaining true to the strategy of deterrence which has kept the peace,” Bush said.

“In short, this NATO summit in Brussels shows that we are ready to help shape a new world. In this period of historic change, the NATO alliance has never been more united, never been stronger.”