European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - May 21, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes columns George will dangerous assumptions about perestroika president Bush is More emphatic than specific in his reiterated prayers for the Success of Gorbachev s parcs Troi Fca. Specificity May not be necessary if one assumes that anything would be better than what the soviet Union was in its first seven decades. But that Assumption May be mistaken. If the soviet Union is going to be More improved in its efficiency than in its intentions put Ting enhanced productivity in the service of old expansionist ends the Assumption is dangerous. The president s thinking was deployed in his Texas am speech declaring containment a Mission accomplished. Now he intimated the task is to tidy up the Loose ends left by the unravelling of totalitarianism. The aim is the integration of the soviet Union into the Community of  the phrase Community of nations May seem harmless if hackneyed. One risks seeming churlish pointing out that it is a Scenti mentalism. And almost an oxymoron. Different nations involve differ ent notions of Justice. A Community consists of people held together by a Broad deep consensus about Justice under a common sovereignty. Hush s Hope soars beyond Community perhaps the world order of the future will truly be a family of  hut the idea of nations comprising a family compounds confusion it is political sentimentality cubed. Families and political institutions arc Polar oppo Sites. Families arc associations of intimacy and affection. Relations Between nations can never be like that. Radically better relations with the so Viet Union should be a snap if the presi Dent is Correct that perestroika is moving the soviet Union toward Damoc Matiza  however Pyrc Stroika is not Glas Nosi. And glasnost is not democracy until in is carried far beyond its current episodes and then institutionalized. Democracy is not a yearning or mood in is a Complex durable system of institutions political beginning with competing parties judicial and journalistic. Now it would be misleading to weigh hush s words More carefully than they wore used. But words arc All we have to William f. Buckley think w ill they do reveal habits of mind and icy can bewitch our intelligence. In Texas. Bush marvelled who would have imagined a soviet Leader who canvasses the sidewalks of Moscow and also Washington  the Rele vant Oxford dictionary definition of canvass is the action of personally soliciting votes before an  Bush s licentious use of the language of democracy is tame compared with that of the Columbia University professor who said the following about Why Reagan and Gorbachev got on so swimmingly. Gorba Chev and Reagan were both country boys from their Midwest regions both Gover nors of sorts and both anti establishment populists determined to restore a mythic Golden age. Both stirred up the bureaucracy against them and elicited fervent support and fervent  rather a lot of Wool is packed into the words of  being the elected serv ant of California s electorate and being the appointed instrument of the politburo Are dissimilar apprenticeships. Strange that the soviet establishment let Loose that  and what was the soviet Golden age another former governor. Jimmy car Ter who was recently revived by Bush As a Counselor has declared that Gorbachev is the most humanitarian of the world s  that is about As Batty As the co Lumbia professor s opinion. But the professor at least docs Point in his Peculiar Way to the supreme question of contemporary politics who is Gorbachev More precisely the question is Given what we know about the socialization education and political of the soviet ruling elite what is it prudent to suspect about the settled Aims of the Man who has emerged As supreme Over that elite it used to be said that the four stages of socialism arc utopian scientific real and curfew. Now we Are told there is a fifth stage hey about the last 70 years we just changed our  it was natural for Reagan the senti mentalist and romantic to think that re lations Between nations could be reduced to sentiments shared by leaders and to if we re Yery Fluiett mw3e heu 60 away few twp assume with inc parochial cosmopolitanism of a Good american that anyone not actually pointing a cocked pistol to your head probably has sentiments pretty much like yours. The Pace and tonality of Bush s response to Gorbachev suggests greater sobriety a Quality not communicated by his language. However As the social ground heaves beneath the government in the capitals of two Burnt out communist revolutions the language that mailers most is body language. It is the stirring of virtually the creation of the body politic in the soviet Union and China. The result May be that fifth stage of socialism. Or the result May be a curfew. Cwashington Post writers group Gorbachev a drugstore Cowboy and More As we live and breathe there it was. Right on the screen 300.000 chinese students begging their govern ment to give them such freedoms As Mikhail Gorba Chev has granted to the people of soviet Russia. To dream at night of waking up in the soviet Empire free at last. There is the problem that if you want to leave the soviet Umpire on the cast you have the ice cold Waters off Siberia and on inc West unless you have a pass hat gels you through checkpoint Charlie you run into the Berlin Wall which is protected by machine guns grenades land mines spotlights sirens and Man eating dogs. When i was first in China word had not yet got around that a human being had landed on the Moon three years before. You can hardly expect the chinese students to know about the decree of april 8, issued Over inc signature of their visiting democratic hero Mikhail Gorbachev. The decree redefines the two Catchall articles of the Constitution under which punishment was meted out to the 12 million russians who got in the Way of Stalin   Andropov Chernenko. The new decree says that any person who Calls for inc overthrow of the soviet system or for its alteration in ways contradicting the . Constitution will be sent to prison for three years. The same punish ment will be used against anyone who manufactures Wilh intent to distribute. Materials arguing for the alteration of the soviet system in such a manner. Moreover anyone who uses technical equipment intended for mass duplication arguing such illegal alterations in the soviet system can get up to seven years. They can Call that the Back to Samizdat Bill. An example of advocating an illegal alteration of the soviet system is Chal in gig the role of the communist party As the leading and guiding Force of soviet Socie  for that you get three to 10 years. And the same decree condemns incitement of ethnic or racial Hostil Ity or  that was there before but the penalty used to be three years and now it is 10 which is another Way of saying no More talk about a measure of Independence for inc soviet republics. And finally the decree specifics up to three years in jail for anyone so wicked Aslo insult or discredit government or Public bodies. If Gorbach Chism of that kind were to be visited on modern China Well thai would certainly Clear Tiana men Square. Gorbachev is something of a modern Miracle worker. Martin Fitzwalter press Secretary to president Bush More thoughtfully characterized him As a drugstore  that is an interesting portraiture though the imagination strains to recall who arc inc legendary drugs orc cowboys Wilh whom to compare Gorbachev but cowboys arc shoot pm up types no doubt Aboul it and the adulation in Beijing by the students came Only a few Days after Gorbachev through his foreign affairs Secretary said that the soviet Union would Slop destroying its ss-23s unless the uni cd states stopped urging the modernization of the Lance missiles. The chinese students could not have known that the differ ence Between what Gorbachev is threatening and what we arc urging is that under the inf treaty the modernization of the Lance missile is perfectly Legal whereas under the same treaty it is not Legal to prolong the life of the ss-23. Nor could the students be expected to know that Gorbachev has not admitted that the radar facility at Krasnoyarsk is in violation of the abm treaty and that he agrees to destroy it Only if the United states agrees to abide by an interpretation of thai treaty which is improvisation. Drugstore cowboys one must suppose walk out into inc Street Hail the mob and loll them to come in for free ice Cream Cones. Thai is How inc Bush administration clearly understands Gorbachev s Lagniappe when he offered to destroy Soo missiles which is to say 2.5 percent of his inventory reducing the threat to Export glasnost an bolshevism to Western Europe and the rest of the world by a Factor of nothing since these missiles have been redundant for years. But the mob hailed the go slurp As evidence of inc sheer. Generosity of Mik Hail Gorbachev. And there came to pass on tuesday May 16, the formal end of the chinese soviet rift. And heard from the lips of the chinese Premier for the first time in Beijing since 1959, the quaint coinage human free  he said that there was no reason Why under socialism you could t also have economic productivity democracy and human rights. But then there was no reason for Mao or for Lenin or for Marx or for original sin. C Universal Presa Syndicate