Gore Warns of Nationalism in Ex-Soviet Bloc

Vice President Al Gore, arguing that U.S. interests are still tightly linked to the fate of Europe, urged Americans on Thursday to keep fighting dangerous nationalism and demagogues in the nations once dominated by the Soviet Union.

“To be strong at home, we must engage abroad as well,” Gore said. “The struggle to erase communism’s scars and ensure democracy’s success is not their struggle alone.”

Pinch-hitting for President Clinton, who had rushed to Arkansas on the death of his mother, the vice president delivered what the Clinton Administration billed as a major foreign policy address two days before his boss departs for a NATO summit and a series of meetings with foreign leaders.

In the speech before the Institute of World Affairs in Milwaukee, Gore said that in Clinton’s view, Europe matters as much to Americans as it ever has, though some Americans “would prefer that we stay out of the world’s squabbles.”

Only by helping the fragile democracies of Europe can Americans gain the prosperity and security they need to solve their domestic problems, he asserted.

Gore cited a “dark cloud” on the horizon of Europe’s shift toward democracy.

“It is the threat of fiery nationalism, fueled by economic frustration, fanned by self-serving demagogues,” he said. Unless steps are taken to douse them, “these embers could flare and engulf Europe again.”

Gore tried to show that the interests of Americans are the same as those of European reformers by quoting the motto of 19th-Century Polish revolutionaries: “For your freedom and ours.”

The vice president said Europe “remains our most valuable trade partner. And our military security remains as interwoven with that of Europe as ever in our history.

“When Europe fights, we suffer,” he said, “when Europe is safe and free, we thrive here in the United States.”

Clinton departs Saturday night for a nine-day trip to Europe, his first as President. He will spend two days at a NATO summit in Brussels, reassure leaders of four East European democracies in the Czech capital of Prague and strengthen his ties to Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin on a three-day stop in Moscow. On the return swing, Clinton will meet with leaders of Belarus in Minsk and confer with Syrian President Hafez Assad in Geneva.

The Milwaukee speech provided an opportunity for the White House to assert key themes of Clinton’s first European trip: the Administration’s staunch opposition to the views of Russian rightists, led by Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky; the importance it attaches to its sometimes strained European ties, and its advocacy of its 3-month-old plan for adding members to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

But the speech’s most important audience was its domestic one, and its foremost goal was to reassure Americans of the importance of continued U.S. spending and military commitments in Europe.

Gore said the outcome of last month’s parliamentary elections in Russia--in which Zhirinovsky’s party, to the surprise of Westerners, gained the largest percentage of votes--”gave all of us cause for concern.”

It is “our duty to condemn the voices of racism and intolerant nationalism wherever such voices are heard,” he said.

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But Gore asserted that the elections had a positive outcome, containing “another, larger message--of hope.” They were held in a “free and fair manner,” though only months before, he said, the integrity of the process was in doubt. And with the elections, Russians ratified a democratic constitution and chose the country’s first post-Soviet legislature.

“All of those can help Russian reformers move ahead,” he said.

Listing Clinton’s goals for the trip, Gore said:

First, the President wants to “reinvigorate” NATO with his “Partnership for Peace” plan. The plan aims to gradually add states to the alliance in a way that increases their political and military ties to NATO countries and their stake in free-market democracy.

The President also intends to strengthen his ties to leaders of the new societies in the meetings in Prague and Moscow, Gore said.

In addition, the White House hopes to broaden its contacts with Russian leaders with this trip; Clinton probably will meet with members of every one of the new parties in the Parliament except Zhirinovsky’s Liberal Democratic Party, officials say.

Clinton also will use the trip to push for doing away with nuclear weapons, particularly in Ukraine, Gore said, and to support market reforms in formerly Communist East European countries by encouraging Western Europe to step up trade.

“We must help ensure that economic growth reaches all the way in to the former Communist states,” Gore said.