European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - August 27, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes Robert Hunter East West relations enter sensitive Pivotal time the anointing of a Solidarity led government in Poland is by no Means the beginning of the end of soviet Power in Eastern Europe indeed a difficult and potentially dangerous period lies ahead. Following a Host of mostly pleasant surprises from soviet Leader Mikhail s. Gorbachev it is tempting to see human Progress As inevitable in rejecting four dec Ades of rigid communist domination of Eastern Europe. Today in addition to Solidarity s new role in governing Poland Hungary is throwing open its Border with Austria and embracing Western economics and the Baltic republics Are being Given enormous latitude for Independent action. If anything is certain however it is that East euro Pean politics will not Lead steadily and unimpeded from a rigid bloc dominated by soviet Security Para Noia and the Primacy of communist regimes to an austrian solution of Neutral states firmly tied to the Western economic system and political practices. For this to happen Gorbachev and his colleagues would have to reject a millennium of russian history and this they will not do. Lech Walesa the Leader of Solidarity and the most potent Challenge to Moscow acknowledged this Point when he declined to assume office As prime min ister. Nor is Solidarity firmly in charge despite Tadusz Mazowicki s accepting the position that his col league Walesa declined. Poland s communist president remains commander in chief of the armed forces government portfolios for defense and Interior police remain in communist hands. And Solidarity has affirmed Poland s loyalty to the Warsaw pact. Most striking As Poland begins what is nevertheless a remarkable Experiment is that there is no basis in East West relations for dealing with this or other emerging Phenomena. At the moment leaders Are talk ing past one another. Gorbachev makes his bid to be a major arbiter of Europe s future both East and West by proclaiming a common european Home while president Bush Calls for a Europe whole and  visions Are not compatible one asserts Moscow s prerogatives in any process of change the other avers that realignment of european Security must be on the basis of Western Victory. There is of course Merit in the Western View. There will be no unification of Europe until the East european states can be stable without the presence of occupying troops foreign or Domestic. The soviet Union s tolerance is the key. At the moment it can accept Western investment in Eastern Europe that cases the Burden on the Kremlin  can even let Solidarity become responsible for trying and Likely failing to sort out the polish Economy. Far less Clear is whether Moscow would permit the expulsion of c9mmunists from government or uncontrolled expressions of a contagion nationalism that inevitably comes with relaxed rules. No one outside the soviet Union can predict the limits of its  important Gorbachev himself probably docs not know them and that fact increases the danger. Western leaders arc sensitive to the risks. During his Andrew j. Glass july visit to Poland and Hungary Bush talked of the future s Promise but was careful not to provoke the russian Bear. Even the limited amount of . Aid that he proposed a Mere $125 million reassured the soviets while it disappointed his hosts. And at the seven nation economic Summit West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl proposed that the european commission in Brussels take charge of coordinating Western economic relations with East Europe. This deft Man Euver permits the United Stales to avoid taking the Lead and provides political cover for West Germany s growing economic involvement with the East. But the commission s new role also under scores the european Community s economic Magnet ism which inevitably spells erosion of soviet influence and thus a Challenge to Moscow. Most significantly it is doubtful that change can be carefully controlled by anyone. A Harbinger has appeared in Budapest where East germans seeking the benefits of life in the Federal Republic have camped inthe West German embassy in a mini re enactment of the 1961 human flood that led to the Berlin Wall. The Bonn government quickly understood the risks for its efforts to reduce barriers Between the two germanic and closed the embassy. Given a Chance people will indeed vote with their feet and the regimes in Czechoslovakia and especially East Germany which Lack Poland s political blend of communists and catholics or Hungary s decade of experimenting with economic Reform May break be cause they will not Bend before new winds blowing elsewhere in the communist world. At the nato Summit in May Bush proclaimed the goal of ending the division of Europe and ackn9wl edged tacitly that military Power is of declining Utility in determining relative influence on the  in Poland and Hungary he also demonstrated that the United states will not bankroll change in Eastern Europe indeed that it will not tax itself to pay for the new Era s foreign policy. There is Merit in expecting the West europeans to play a major role in helping to reshape the Conti nent s politics. But the 12 states of the european Community economically uniting but politically disparate will be no match in bargaining with the soviet Union Over the Fate of Eastern Europe without the Active and imaginative engagement of . Power and influence. In the Wake of Solidarity s political breakthrough the Bush administration must begin crafting some use Ful designs of its own and it must commit the re sources to make them effective. Robert Hulor i Ductoc of europen us i us a Tot a  and  Stroin in wll Englon. Standards falling in even Best . Schools.  _ _. I. I _. In .1 it  Natlin Mann t Hir lorm flaw int should Hilvy been Curc we were Young our Heads were in the stars and we sought to take the measure of the Moon. As budding scientists we already had a Good fix on the Moon s size. But my graduate Tutor sought an even better one. So night after night. Brad Smith and i trudged up the Hill to the Yale Observatory rolled Back the dome and peered at the heavens. Smith had fashioned an electro mechanical device which bearing a superficial resemblance to a lie Detector machine rapidly spun Rolls of graph paper across a sensitive set of Needles. The aim was to track the faint Light of a single Star gathered through the Tele scope Lens until the dark Side of the Moon suddenly erased it from View. While one Needle traced the Light source the other one syncopated to a steady beat from Wev a time signal broadcast by the National Bureau of standards. Until then lunar occultation As Astron omers Call them had been measured mainly by Eye and stopwatches. Smith s Auto mated system provided the kind of pin Point accuracy Nasa engineers needed when they sent their lunar orbiters hurtling toward the Moon a decade later. Today Bradford a. Smith my men Tor and Astral guide during those bitterly cold Crystal Clear nights in new Haven 35 years ago is one of the world s fore most astronomers. As chief of the photo interpretation team for the 4.4-billion Milc 12-year trek of voyager 2, he and his co workers have vastly enriched Man kind s knowledge of previously alien worlds. Most recently they capped that remarkable space Odyssey when their spacecraft streaked across the orbit of the planet Neptune sending Back yet an other set of pictures that greatly enhanced our insight into the universe. In the 1940s, american scientists bounced a radar signal off the lunar sur face. By 1959, a soviet space vehicle Lunik i sent Back pictures of the Moon s hidden Side. Now the scientists and engineers at Nasa s Jet propulsion Laboratory in Pas Adena calif., Are harvesting the work of a lifetime by having communicated with an intelligent robot at the farthest reaches of the solar system. They Are people who beginning during the presidency of Richard Nixon designed tools capable of plucking signals weaker than i billionth of i Millionth of a Watt from the vastness of deep space and Ren Dering the results into meaningful data. To succeed such an Effort takes an order of skill that one fears is All too rapidly being drained from our society. We need but to contrast the voyager 2 Saga with the bureaucratic negligence that underwrote the 1986 challenger disaster. Consider too the Trident 11 missile which at $26.5 million a copy is meant to serve As America s Premier nuclear Retalia tory shield in the 1990s, after two submarine launched misfiring the Navy found the big rocket had a fundamental design Fla tha have cured on the drawing Board or at least in the lab Well before production began. Correcting that mistake could Cost taxpayers More than the entire voyager program. Repeated studies show that the vast majority of Young people today Ere As ignorant about Basic sciences As they arc of the classics of literature. College teachers say they spend far too much time teaching students what they should have teamed m High  the Early 1950s, when i was at new York s Bronx High school of science everyone who completed four years there knew quite a lot of biology chemistry physics and math. In that decade no one could obtain a Yale degree without being fluent in at least one foreign language., since the years when Brad Smith taught at Yale experts testify standards even in our finest schools have fallen. Precipitously. So if Gold will rust what will Iron do,." new Vontin