Bush’s Visit to Poland

The speech by President Bush before the newly elected Polish Parliament was both encouraging and practical (Part I, July 11). It set the tone for our potential involvement in the development of other Eastern Bloc nations seeking an independent direction from that of the Soviets. As the President noted, these are indeed exciting times, but not without peril.

Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev seem to be accommodating the need for new strategies in the face of economic pressures. The road to general disarmament is slowly being paved. It might be interesting for both NATO and the Warsaw Pact members to consider evolving from instruments of military balance to ones of economic stability.

As the arduous process of diminishing both conventional and nuclear forces continues, it seems that the NATO countries and the Warsaw Pact might utilize their manpower, their machinery, and their vast facilities to support the concepts of Gorbachev’s initiatives and our own aspirations for a peaceful and prosperous Europe. The process of Marxist determinism emerging into systems based on free enterprise will be tough enough on all of us. What is to say that once Hungary and Yugoslavia are independent entities that they will not rekindle historic rivalries and start their own little war?

For all their abrasive effect, NATO and the Warsaw Pact gave two large areas of the world a certain, if not altogether desirable, stability. Disarm? Certainly. Pull out? Maybe not altogether. Let us redeploy our huge military investment into a force for economic growth while building bridges of trust and preventing ancient intolerance from impairing our efforts.

IVAN LADIZINSKY

Marina del Rey