Where Bush’s Caution Works Well

Soviet President Gorbachev may be playing a game of brinkmanship with Lithuania on its quest for independence. But, in a remarkable display of candor and of the way the world is changing, President Bush sent a signal this week that he wants no such game with Moscow.

Going to the brink of disaster over matters of principle was the fashion in Washington during the 1950s’ era of the Cold War. It was the old game of chicken, in diplomatic dress, and both superpowers played it to the hilt, at least in public.

Either because of or in spite of that, the superpowers avoided plunging the world into another massive war, but brinkmanship produced its tragedies--Korea, Vietnam, the Soviet takeover of Czechoslovakia at gunpoint in 1968, the massacre of Hungarians by Soviet troops when the nation tried to pull free in 1956.

George Bush remembers Hungary. He remembers Washington urging Hungarians to revolt, then standing by helplessly when the Hungarians made their bid for freedom.

Presidents usually find a way to reassure delegations of immigrants and their children that Washington will find a way to make the dreams of their ancestral lands come true, particularly when the aspirations are as simple and American as freedom and independence. Not this time.

On Wednesday, George Bush told a delegation of Lithuanians that he could do no more than he has to support independence for Lithuania. That alone was almost politically heroic. Perhaps even more remarkable, he told them quite openly why: He does not want another Hungary.

“He is very, very worried about what happened in Hungary,” one member of the delegation said later. “He wants to find a way out . . . that will not result in a cataclysm for the Soviet Union and that will not result in a blood bath.”

Bush spoke within hours of Gorbachev’s telling a Moscow audience that breaking up the Soviet Union was unthinkable. “If we begin to divide up, I’ll give it to you bluntly. We’ll end up in such a civil war, in such bloody carnage that we won’t be able to crawl out of it.” It is not clear whether he was putting pressure on Lithuania to moderate its demand or simply predicting the future. But George Bush was absolutely clear in a display of political courage that also serves as a landmark in a fast-changing world.