Bush Promises Czechs Trade Break : Playwright-President Havel Gets White House Welcome

President Bush welcomed Czechoslovak President Vaclav Havel to the White House today, promising trade rewards for Prague’s moves toward democracy and assuring him “the United States will be part of your nation’s rebirth.”

Bush cautioned, however, that troops of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization “will continue to play a vital role in assuring stability and security in Europe,” and that “America will continue to play its part, including a strong military presence for our security and for Europe’s.”

Some Czechoslovak leaders have called for eventual dissolution of NATO, along with the Warsaw Pact, to which Czechoslovakia belongs.

However, a U.S. official who briefed reporters on the talks said Havel agreed that NATO troops were needed until European nations can provide their own security.

The official, who spoke anonymously, said Havel believes that “until new security structures emerge . . . the requirement for NATO and the continued U.S. presence would endure.”

Havel, a former dissident playwright who spent five years in prison, was the first of Eastern Europe’s new reform leaders to visit the White House.

After their meeting, Bush hailed him as “one of the heroes of the revolution of ‘89,” a year that saw the old hard-line Communist government peacefully replaced by the reformers who put Havel into the presidency.

“Your life is a tribute to the difference one man can make,” Bush told him in a departure speech.

Bush announced his intention to waive the so-called Jackson-Vanik restrictions on trade relations with Communist governments as U.S. and Czechoslovak representatives begin negotiations on a new trade agreement with a goal of giving Prague most-favored-nation status as a preferred trading partner.

Granting Czechoslovakia such status--extending to it the same low tariffs available to the nation’s best trading partners--is contingent on the Czechoslovak Parliament passing a law ending the former Communist government’s restrictive emigration policies.

Congress then would would be asked to grant most-favored-nation status.

Bush said he would also send Peace Corps volunteers to Czechoslovakia by the end of summer.

Havel, in brief remarks, said his talks with Bush had been “very important negotiations,” and that he was happy to have “the opportunity to be here to explain what happened in Czechoslovakia.”

Discussing his visit in a television interview before the White House meeting, Havel said:

“Above all, I want to inform the Americans about what happened in our country, what are the international consequences of it, what is our foreign policy, what it will be. And I want to lay foundations for a real, authentic friendship between our two nations.”

“We are also interested in trade relations,” he said on NBC’s “Today” show.

After his television appearance, Havel went to Georgetown University, where he spent nearly an hour answering questions from students through an interpreter. He drew laughter at one point when he said, “There no longer are any dissidents (in Czechoslovakia). If there are, they are in government or other high positions.”