Bush Reaffirms Support for East Bloc Reforms

An upbeat President Bush, en route from Budapest to Paris, said Thursday that his just-concluded visit to Poland and Hungary should have dispelled any doubts about U.S. support for reforms not only in Eastern Europe but also in the Soviet Union.

Abandoning the cautious approach that he had once sounded about Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s reforms, Bush said he would tell his partners at the weekend economic summit conference here “that there is dynamic change taking place in Eastern Europe.”

Bush responded to a report that the Soviets could not meet an accelerated Western timetable for conventional arms reductions by saying that he does not believe the statement reflects Gorbachev’s own views.

Arriving here, the President joined 32 other visiting national leaders as the French capital excitedly launched into the celebrations of the bicentennial of the storming of the Bastille and the start of the French Revolution.

The President spent much of Thursday playing a supporting role, alongside French President Francois Mitterrand and countless fluttering tricolors. But he is likely to take center stage as the leaders of the seven major industrial democracies begin their 15th annual economic summit conference with ceremonial events this evening.

With no overriding economic issue looming, the potentially sweeping political and economic reforms that formed the focus of the President’s visit to Poland and Hungary are likely to dominate the summit’s initial deliberations.

Bush, speaking with reporters in a lengthy interview aboard Air Force One as it flew west over Central Europe, said that if Gorbachev had any doubts about the Administration’s support for the reforms the Kremlin leadership is spearheading, “those doubts have been dispelled.”

And as a result of his four days in Eastern Europe, the President said, “those doubts will be dispelled by his (Gorbachev’s) friends in Poland and Hungary because I made very clear to them that, you know, we’re not there . . . to poke a stick in the eye of Mr. Gorbachev.”

Encouraging Role

“Just the opposite--to encourage the very kind of reforms that he is championing, and more reforms,” Bush said.

A senior White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that in his meetings with senior Communist officials in Warsaw and Budapest, Bush was told, in effect, “We’re glad you are getting along with Gorbachev.”

And the official said that the President’s remarks aboard his aircraft signaled to his Eastern European hosts that he intended to support Gorbachev in his campaigns of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring).

Another senior official said that Polish and Hungarian leaders told Bush they considered Gorbachev an ally in their own reform campaigns--a reflection of the tensions in the Soviet Bloc, where the leaders of other nations, most notably East Germany, are clearly skeptical of the Gorbachev program.

Indeed, some in Poland and Hungary are concerned that hard-line opponents in the Soviet Communist Party might eventually block the Soviet president’s program and thus overturn reform efforts in Eastern Europe.

“These two countries find themselves . . . between the two superpowers, and the United States doesn’t want to do anything which would, in fact, lead to instabilities either in those countries or for the Soviet Union to feel threatened by what is going on,” said Brent Scowcroft, the President’s national security adviser.

With Gorbachev scoring points throughout Western Europe with successful trips to France and West Germany in recent weeks, Scowcroft’s remarks reflected White House sensitivity on two counts: the need to avoid appearing to be in a global popularity contest with Gorbachev and, perhaps more important, the need to reassure the Soviets that the President’s encouragement of reform in Eastern Europe should not be read as showing Western designs on the region.

On arms control issues, Bush said, “Gorbachev knows that we’re serious.”

In an interview with the Washington Post, Soviet Lt. Gen. Victor Starodubov, chief of the disarmament branch of the Communist Party’s policy-making Central Committee, said the Soviets would be unable to meet a timetable urged by Bush in which sizable cuts in aircraft, tanks and other conventional weapons would be achieved by 1993.

“The idea that some Soviet spokesman yesterday says they can’t meet these timetables--I don’t want to believe that that’s Mr. Gorbachev speaking. And I’m not going to believe it until I hear from him or until I hear authoritatively that that’s who it is,” Bush said.

A senior White House official said the Administration did not consider the general to be a particularly authoritative source. However, the official would not rule out the possibility that the Soviets would consider the problems in cutting 325,000 troops from their military force or trimming their arsenal in other ways such a complex undertaking that the Bush timetable could not be met.

This source also said that a senior Polish official indicated to Bush that there was no great desire among his governmental colleagues for the removal of Soviet troops from Poland--if such a step was part of an overall Soviet demobilization--because such a reduction could eventually lead to a reunified Germany. The joining of East and West Germany remains a constant concern in Poland, where the Nazi invasion began World War II on Sept. 1, 1939.

Reflecting a pervasive mood of optimism in the aftermath of the politically sensitive Eastern European segment of Bush’s fourth foreign trip as President, the official said: “I really am not flacking it. But I think we have done better than we even expected, because, after all, we have been walking through a lot of eggshells.”

‘Emotion of It All’

In his airborne interview, Bush said that in his meetings with Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, the Polish leader, and Solidarity leader Lech Walesa, he was struck by “the emotion of it all and the frankness” with which they conversed.

“It wasn’t your traditional ‘I’ll read my cards and you read your cards’ kind of diplomacy,” he said. “It was very special in that regard. There’s an intensity to it, a fervor to it that moved me very much.”

Asked whether he sensed a mood of resignation in Jaruzelski, who is now apparently unsure of whether he should seek the position of elected Polish president, Bush said: “I didn’t sense a dejection on his part; I sensed somewhat of an upbeat feeling that, yes, that these changes were possible now. And I certainly sense that in Hungary.”

He said he had expected that his visit to Poland and Hungary would be watched by those in other Eastern European nations and would possibly encourage them to follow similar paths of reform.

But he emphasized that it is not the role of the United States “to keep the change alive.” That is the role of the Poles and Hungarians, he said, adding: “It would be rather arrogant to suggest that it’s the United States that has the sole responsibility.”

To that end, he said he would tell his summit partners that the United States is committed to fostering change in Eastern Europe “in a prudent way.”

On the subject of the Middle East, Bush said that the United States will not change its policy on elections for Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories despite moves in Israel to modify a peace initiative.

“The U.S. policy is set,” Bush told reporters in commenting for the first time on Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s decision to accept the demands of right-wing rivals in his Likud Party limiting Israel’s latest peace proposal.

“They’ve got great difficulties inside of Israel,” he said. “I understand that. I understand the political pressures, but I can’t be varying U.S. policy every day to accommodate political change. I’m not going to do that.”