down with DOCTRINES up with a TREATY : Finding the Proper Terms for a World Reborn : Summit: George Bush could do what Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt failed to do--lay the foundations for a peaceful, prosperous world.

Poor George Bush. By temperament and training, he may be the best-qualified man in America to administer the foreign policy and the alliances we inherited from the 1940s, but history has given him an infinitely more difficult assignment. The world is being remade and, like Presidents Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman, Bush is doomed to work under the spotlight of history.

Will he throw away a historic opportunity for lasting peace--like Wilson at Versailles? Will he concede too much--like Roosevelt at Yalta? Or will he achieve the elusive goal that U.S. diplomacy has sought through a century of revolution and war, to create the foundations for a peaceful and prosperous world?

These questions haunt the meeting between Bush and Mikhail S. Gorbachev. Disagreements between the United States and the Soviet Union blocked a peace treaty to end World War II and, since the ‘40s, U.S.-Soviet negotiations have been maddeningly difficult, frustratingly slow. Bush’s predecessors won praise for even limited agreements with a recalcitrant Soviet Union, but historians will inevitably ask whether Bush, in the face of unprecedented opportunities, rose to the occasion with requisite wisdom and enough of “the vision thing.”

He will need plenty of both. The face of Europe changes day by day, and no one knows what it will look like in 10 years’ time. Independence movements within the Soviet Union, the push for German reunification and the host of territorial claims and counterclaims that have kept Eastern Europe in turmoil for centuries threaten to plunge the world into a new generation of conflict. The Hungarians think about their “lost territories” to the east and south of their current boundaries; the Turks and Bulgarians nurse their ancient mutual grudge; the Albanians and Yugoslavs quarrel over Kossovo even while Yugoslavia’s nationalities revive ancestral feuds; Romania wants the return of territories taken by Josef Stalin in World War II.

Security and territorial questions are bad enough; economic issues are even more grave. Despite all the encouraging talk from the West, there is no guarantee that market economies will send fleets of Volvos humming through dingy East European streets. Eastern Europe was poor before Stalin; it may not grow rich after Gorbachev. Historically, Eastern Europe has been the Continent’s Latin America--a region where economic potential was stunted by political and cultural obstacles. Worse, no country anywhere in the world has yet made a successful transition from communist to capitalist economy. Yugoslavia, where reform started earliest, is in deep trouble and the other reforming economies--the Soviet Union, Hungary and Poland--have problems of their own.

The combination of economic trouble and political chaos should give us all pause. Eastern Europe may want to join the West, but the region could end up like the Middle East--a hotbed of chauvinism and a breeding ground for war. It’s been that way since the Goths fought the Romans; a Nazi occupation followed by a generation of communist repression may not have laid the groundwork for peaceful cooperation among these long-suffering peoples.

This prospect is one problem confronting Bush, but it is far from the only one he faces. The economic problems of the United States, almost forgotten in the spate of news from Europe, are still with us: trade and budget deficits in excess of $100 billion a year; the value of the dollar still depends on the attitudes of West German and Japanese investors.

In 1945, the United States was a creditor nation; its economic supremacy could not be doubted. A war-ravaged world looked to America for its daily bread. Our economy, our technology and our political system enjoyed a global prestige we can no longer command. Bush has a weaker hand than his predecessors; we must all hope his skill as a player can make up for the deficiencies in the deal.

The most immediate difficulty facing Bush--an unprecedented problem for recent times--is how to keep the United States in the game. The great movements in Europe today--the consolidation of the Common Market, the reconciliation of the Germanys and the liberation of the East--are all out of our control. In the chaos of his collapsing empire, Gorbachev is closer than any of his predecessors to the dearest goal of postwar Soviet diplomacy: cutting a deal with Western Europe that excludes the United States. As many Europeans--especially the Germans--fear the Soviets less, they feel less need for the Atlantic connection.

The history of this century teaches that the New World cannot afford to be isolated; Europe and America need one another. As the old Cold War rationale for the Atlantic Alliance fades, Bush must do more than rethink relations with the Soviets, he must find a new framework for U.S. relations with Europe as a whole.

To make this work, he must find strategic partners in Europe who are willing to work with the United States toward a common vision of the future. This probably means Paris. Britain is too poor and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher has allowed herself to become too isolated to be of much use; the West Germans are preoccupied with their own concerns. Of all major European powers, France is most likely to see things our way. The French distrust Soviet intentions as much as we do, but they are as cautious as we are--perhaps more so--about the prospects of a strong, united Germany at the center of Europe. Like us, the French would like to see a rapidly growing world economy and a reduction in German and Japanese trade surpluses.

Both Paris and Washington seem to understand the importance of cooperation. While relations between French and U.S. leaders have sometimes been chilly, Presidents Francois Mitterrand and Bush have cemented a warm personal relationship based on mutual respect. Reportedly, Bush believes Mitterrand is the most farsighted and realistic of West European leaders and like most Europeans--Thatcher excepted--Mitterrand greatly prefers Bush to his predecessor.

Bush must regain diplomatic initiative with bold and imaginative strokes. It isn’t easy to get out in front of Gorbachev, one of history’s great scene-stealers, but Bush has one possibility. He can, in consultation with U.S. allies, call for a general peace conference to deal with the questions left over from World War II and new questions that rise from the ruins of Stalin’s empire. A peace conference would have an even broader mandate than the Helsinki II gathering Gorbachev proposed Thursday, and would touch on some subjects--such as the infamous Hitler-Stalin agreements--that Gorbachev might prefer to avoid.

Peace conferences, or “conferences of nations,” are the way the modern West has tied up the loose ends of one war and tried to avoid the next. While conventional negotiators focus on one specific issue, a peace conference works on all outstanding problems, always keeping one eye the new world order being created.

A peace conference could find the appropriate framework for German reunification and take up the broader issue of Eastern Europe. In the current climate it will be possible to extend and strengthen the Helsinki Accords, perhaps including the right of appeal to international bodies in the case of violations of human rights. The French-backed concept of a European Development Bank with international--including U.S. and Japanese--participation could take firmer shape; the various East-West negotiations for arms reductions may make faster progress if part of a much broader process.

Bush has the opportunity to succeed where Wilson and Roosevelt failed, but the window for peace may never open this wide again in our lifetimes. The hatreds of World War II have subsided; the bitterness of the Cold War is fading; every major power has more to hope for than fear from a general settlement in Europe. Gorbachev has indicated that the Soviets are ready to come to the table; bold leadership now from Bush will do more than assure his place in history. In the long term it can place the peace of Europe--and the world--on a firm foundation. In the short term it will put the United States back where it belongs: at the center of international affairs and in the forefront of the struggle for peace.