Bush In Europe : Bush to Propose Poland Aid Fund : Lands in Warsaw, Expected to Seek $100 Million for Private Sector

President Bush, preparing a package of economic assistance “for the sake of a stable and prosperous Poland,” is expected to propose the creation of a $100-million fund to invigorate the struggling Polish economy’s private sector, White House officials said Sunday night.

The President, who arrived in Warsaw on Sunday evening, greeted a Poland in the midst of political upheaval and struggling to achieve economic reform, and pressed ahead with his call for a Europe that is “whole and free.”

With U.S. support for budding economic and political reform as his central theme, the President is expected in a speech today to the Polish Parliament to unveil a number of steps, including the $100-million fund, to demonstrate Western support for the new signs of openness in Polish life.

Congressional OK Required

White House officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the $100-million fund would need congressional approval. They said Bush would encourage other major industrialized democracies, meeting next weekend in Paris, to offer similar contributions.

In addition, the President is expected to:

-- Encourage the World Bank to move ahead with loans already under consideration and believed to be worth $325 million.

-- Ask other major lenders to consider rescheduling a portion of Poland’s crushing $39-billion foreign debt--65% of which is owed to Western lenders. Under his proposal, about $5 billion in debt payments would be deferred, for an unspecified period.

-- Propose a joint U.S.-Polish effort, worth $15 million, to attack air and water pollution in the Krakow area and establish a cultural and information center.

The President also planned to pledge that he would seek “concerted action” by the West to assist Poland and Hungary, the second stop on his four-nation European tour.

Details Upcoming

White House officials said that although the broad outline of the proposal was prepared in time for today’s speech, specific details are yet to be drawn up for broad international action, and that it is uncertain whether the $100-million fund that Bush plans to unveil will be in the form of loans or grants.

Greeted by Jaruzelski

As Bush stepped from Air Force One at Warsaw’s Okecie Airport on a warm, humid evening, he was greeted by Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, the Communist Party leader. Also in the welcoming party was Andrzej Wielowieyski, deputy Speaker of Poland’s new freely elected Senate and an adviser to Solidarity leader Lech Walesa. It was the first time a Solidarity representative has been included at an official Polish state welcome.

Upbeat as he embarked on his second trip as President to the changing Communist world, Bush referred to the political reforms that have shaken Poland in the past three months, declaring at the welcoming ceremony:

“These are great days for Poland. Solidarity is again legal. The beginnings of a free press now exist. A new Parliament is in place. The Polish Senate has been restored through free and fair elections.

“Poland is making its own history,” he said. “And America, and the whole world, is watching.”

Jaruzelski, whose once-sure shot at the Polish presidency is now up in the air as a result of the political turmoil, told Bush: “You are arriving in a country in which a process of basic change is at work. You are going to see a Poland that is following with determination profound socio-political and economic reforms.”

Describing democratization and reconciliation as an “indispensable promise,” Jaruzelski said that “our Polish transformations are aided by positive trends of detente in the international arena.”

Call for ‘Working Together’

And, he said, Poland subscribed to the idea that “the philosophy of enmity should be replaced by that of rapprochement and working together.”

For Bush, who was accompanied by First Lady Barbara Bush, the two-day visit to Poland offers a sharp contrast to his previous journey here, in September, 1987. At that time, Solidarity was outlawed, and the then-vice president of the United States irked his Polish government hosts with public displays of support for the opposition movement.

But despite the sudden shifts in the political climate here--parliamentary elections produced an overwhelming victory for Solidarity, which took 98 of the 100 seats in the newly constituted Senate--the President is still treading a narrow line. His goal is to avoid pressing the Communist leadership too hard and avoid unleashing pent-up enmity for the government and producing a backlash that would undo recent progress.

“It’s got to be handled in a subtle fashion--the fine line you walk--so that the things you do and say are helpful to the process of greater freedom,” a senior White House official said.

Some senior government analysts have expressed at least limited concern that Bush’s visit could produce the same sort of incendiary impact that Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s journey to Beijing contributed to the now-crushed pro-democracy movement in China. But one White House official said Bush “knows what are the effective, prudent things to do.”

‘You Want to Inspire’

“You don’t want to incite; you want to inspire. That’s the goal. And you want to congratulate a government when it is making positive steps, and show that positive steps will be complemented by positive steps on our part,” said another senior Bush aide.

Bush will meet with Jaruzelski today and with Walesa on Tuesday in the Baltic port city of Gdansk. He address to Parliament is scheduled this afternoon.

Then, after two days in Poland and a visit to Hungary, he will attend the 15th annual economic summit conference in Paris of the world’s leading industrialized democracies, which is expected to work toward an overall approach by the West to help boost the Polish economy.

Linking political and economic reforms, Bush referred to the West’s demands that any economic assistance must be met by reforms in the Polish economy that could risk an increase in unemployment if the inflation rate of nearly 100% is to be curbed.

He said:

“Poland has started along an ascending path of democratic change. This climb is exhilarating, but not always easy, and will require further sacrifices. But, if followed, it will lead to a renaissance for this remarkable nation.”

White House officials maintained that the size of assistance package Bush will offer is less important than the fact that such a package is being offered, as a reaction to the reforms taking place here.

Besides, said one, referring to the large Polish-American community in the United States, “I doubt the Poles in Chicago have an eye for what the aid package will be, but they do have an eye for the fact that the President of the United States” would visit Poland.

Care ‘Not To Over Promise’

Indeed, Bush told reporters aboard Air Force One that he wanted to be careful not “to overpromise, do too little or do too much.”

Suggesting that the real import of the trip was simply in his presence, he said: “Remember Woody Allen--90% of life is just showing up.”

Much as he did during his first overseas trip as President, when he visited China in February, Bush is focusing on the political and economic reforms occurring in the Communist world--in this case, in Poland and Hungary. He is also calling for an end to the ideological, political, and economic barriers that have divided the European Continent for four decades.

“Here in the heart of Europe, the American people have a fervent wish: that Europe be whole and free,” Bush said.

In an interview with four Hungarian reporters before he left the United States, Bush, however, reflected the sensitivity of appearing too demanding.

Not a President’s Role

“It is not an American President’s role to say to those in another county, ‘you have to have your system this way, matching our system, or else we can’t do business with you.’ That is not my role,” he said.

“It would be inappropriate for the President of the United States,” he said, “to try to fine-tune for the people of Hungary how they ought to eat--how the cow ought to eat the cabbage, as we say in the United States.”

Bush’s visit to Hungary will be the first by an American president. His visit to Poland is the third, following one by Richard M. Nixon in 1972 and another by Jimmy Carter in 1977.

It was on Carter’s arrival that a State Department interpreter, in a mistaken translation, said in Polish as he worked through Carter’s speech: “I have come not only to express our own views to the people of Poland but also to learn your opinion and the understanding of your lusts.”