Bush Supports Albright’s Goals for Foreign Policy

Former President Bush, endorsing Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s appeal for a bipartisan foreign policy, on Saturday denounced the “stupid feeling in some quarters” that overseas threats to U.S. security ended with the Cold War.

Talking to reporters outside his Houston home, Bush urged Congress to ratify the international treaty outlawing chemical weapons, pay pending U.S. dues to the United Nations and end the decline in State Department budgets, issues on which the Clinton administration faces GOP opposition on Capitol Hill.

“I told Secretary Albright that she would have my enthusiastic support in her appeal for bipartisan foreign policy,” Bush said after he and his wife, Barbara, served a breakfast of bacon and eggs to Albright and her top aides.

He said there is a “stupid feeling in some quarters that we don’t have any more concerns in foreign policy and we don’t have any more threats in the world” following the demise of communism in Europe.

Bush was especially outspoken in his support of the chemical weapons accord, which was one of his major objectives as vice president and president. The pact, which bans the manufacture, stockpiling and use of chemical arms, was signed just before Bush left office in 1993. Bush said the treaty “should be beyond partisanship.”

The pact’s expected easy ratification fell through last fall when President Clinton pulled it off the Senate calendar in the face of almost certain defeat. Bob Dole, then Republican candidate for president, opposed the measure during the campaign, and enough GOP lawmakers supported him to ensure that the treaty would not receive the two-thirds majority required for ratification.

Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is an implacable foe of the treaty. He has hinted that he will block action on it indefinitely.

Asked if he would try to lobby Helms to change his mind, Bush said: “I’m out of the lobbying business.” Helms already knows his position, Bush added.

The treaty has been ratified by enough nations to take effect April 29. If the United States does not ratify it by then, Washington will be denied a seat on the organization established to verify compliance, and U.S. chemical firms will face restrictions on export sales.

Bush also said the United States “has an obligation to pay up” its back dues to the United Nations. The Reagan administration began withholding part of the U.S. assessment to pressure the world body into adopting internal reforms.

Although Bush and Clinton tried to persuade Congress to pay off the debt, the lawmakers have balked at doing so.