Bush Warns of Peril if U.S. Fails to Heed Global Role

Preparing to turn over the powers of the chief executive, President Bush warned the nation Tuesday against becoming so consumed by internal problems that it neglects the leadership role it must play in affairs around the globe.

In the first of what may be a series of comprehensive policy speeches before he leaves office, Bush expressed concern that the United States might be on the brink of turning inward, seeking to ease its huge global burden so that it can attend to domestic demands.

This kind of shift, he said, could “be disastrous.” For everyone, “the alternative to American leadership is not more security for our country but less. . . . “ he said. “A retreat from American leadership, from American involvement would be a mistake for which future generations, indeed our own children, would pay dearly.”

The warning is telling from a man whose reelection bid was mortally wounded by the perception that he was inordinately engaged in foreign policy and neglected the American economy and domestic affairs. In the speech to an audience at Texas A&M;, he showed no regrets for his active agenda as an international leader. “That is the cause that much of my public life has been dedicated to serving,” he said.

With five weeks left in office, Bush pointed to the march of freedom that occurred during his Administration--both in Europe, where the Berlin Wall has fallen and communism has crumbled, and in the Third World. And as he prepares to end a career of public service that began 50 years ago in the flames of World War II, he urged the nation to support his former rival and successor--President-elect Bill Clinton.

“In 36 days we will have a new President. I am very confident that he will do his level best to serve the cause I have outlined here today,” the President said at the end of his 34-minute address. “He will have my support. I’ll stay out of his way--I really mean that. But it is more important that he have your support.”

The speech was the only major policy address--indeed, the first speech of any substance--he has delivered since his electoral defeat. It was considered a valedictory for the 41st President, whose tight focus on foreign policy was blamed in the end for his defeat by a Democratic opponent who capitalized on the nation’s concerns about the economy.

A similar speech on national security issues, which would be delivered at one of the military academies, is under consideration by the President and his advisers, White House officials have said.

Addressing 7,500 people in the G. Rollie White Coliseum, Bush made his case for a continued predominant role for the United States.

“From some quarters we hear voices sounding the retreat. ‘We’ve carried the burden too long,’ they say. ‘And the disappearance of the Soviet challenge means that America can withdraw from international responsibilities.’ And then others assert that domestic needs preclude an active foreign policy--that we’ve done our part; now it’s someone else’s turn,” the President said.

“We’re warned against entangling ourselves in the troubles that abound in today’s world. To name only a few: clan warfare, mass starvation in Somalia, savage violence in Bosnia, instability in the former Soviet Union, the alarming growth of virulent nationalism,” he said.

But ignoring such crises as that in Somalia, he said, would “scar the soul of our nation,” while the United States would be weakened economically in “a world of escalating instability and hostile nationalism (that would) . . . disrupt global markets.”

Texas A&M;, where Bush will build his presidential library, was chosen for the speech not only because the President’s papers will be stored there, but because its largely conservative student body could be counted on to give him a friendly welcome, a White House official said.

The crowd applauded warmly at the announcement of Bush’s arrival, hissed at a reference that he made to turning the White House over to Clinton and gave him a standing ovation when he said:

“History is summoning us once again to lead. Proud of its past, America must once again look forward. . . . That is the cause that much of my public life has been dedicated to serving.”

But, even as he reminded the nation of its responsibility as a world leader, the President made no specific references to the crises galvanizing world attention: the civil war in former Yugoslavia, the anarchy that has led to mass starvation in Somalia and the instability in Russia.

Rather, Bush used the speech to renew the principles on which the United States’ role in the world is based.

Before the speech, Bush drove past the muddy site, now a horse farm, where the library will be built and met for about an hour with the library trustees.

The university has said that about $2 million has been raised from private sources. About $81 million is needed to build the library and presidential museum and to begin operating the facilities. Bush’s defeat in November has pushed up the original timetable; until then, work was not scheduled to begin until 1997.

It was at Texas A&M; that Bush delivered one of the first major foreign policy speeches of his Administration. In May, 1989, he unveiled a redesigned U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union which recognized that “a new breeze is blowing across the steppes and the cities” of that vast, once-powerful and still-evolving land. He called for the West to move beyond the policy of containment of communism.

That address provided the first Bush Administration view of what was then the East Bloc and offered a framework for future proposals that helped guide U.S. relations with Moscow until the fall of communism a year ago.

And just as that speech provided one bookend to the Administration’s approach to its then most powerful adversary, the speech Tuesday--and developments halfway around the world--offered a closing bookend.