‘A Great Time to Be President’--Dukakis : Politics: The loser in the 1988 election challenges President Bush to take advantage of his ‘extraordinary opportunity to provide international leadership.’

“It’s a great time to be President,” said Michael S. Dukakis, who isn’t.

The Massachusetts governor visited his might-have-been home for an East Room reception with President Bush on Monday and afterward said he knows he is missing out on a spate of good news.

“I don’t stay up nights on the subject,” Dukakis said. “I must say that this would be a great time to be President of the United States.”

Dukakis, who has had no such luck with affairs in Massachusetts over the last year, reflected on how events have smiled on his political nemesis.

“We’re living through history here. This is unprecedented. The Cold War has defined everything about our lives about our country, about the world, and all of a sudden, nobody predicted it, it seems to be sliding away.”

The question, Dukakis said, is what Bush can make of the opportunities that have fallen into his lap.

“It seems to me that this is a very good time for the country, providing we take advantage of what is an extraordinary opportunity to provide international leadership. . . . If the Administration does a good job of that, then they’re going to be successful, and if they don’t, then somebody else is going to be President.”

Sporting a cast on his left hand because he broke two fingers on Saturday trying to push a car out of snow, Dukakis made his second trip to the White House since losing to Bush in the November, 1988, presidential election. He is in town to take part in the annual National Governors’ Assn. meeting.

As one with direct experience in the field of changing political fortunes, Dukakis warned Bush not to grow overconfident, especially now that a favorite Republican enemy--communism--appears to be waning as a major issue.

“The Republicans have always had this defense thing and, you know, Bush used it against me and in retrospect, who was the most accurate forecaster? It was the Democratic nominee,” Dukakis said.

“You never know. Things change in this business.”

The successful elections Sunday in Nicaragua, Dukakis said, are an example of the bankruptcy of the Reagan-Bush policy of military aid to the Nicaraguan Contra rebels. It was a diplomatic approach that opened the door to free elections, he said.

“What’s the record? There was no progress toward genuinely open, free, internationally supervised elections until the Contra effort effectively was killed,” Dukakis said. “What does that tell you?”