European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 1, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Sunday september 1, 1991 the stars and stripes a Page 13 commentary Anthony Lewis failed coup in t reason for . To be smug in a week in the twinkling of an Eye history has been unravelled and a great country transformed. We celebrate democracy a Victory Over an embedded Tyran any. But what has happened is not a reason for americans to be smug not if we think about How faithful we have been lately to our own values. Law was a major theme in the resistance to the coup. The russians who stood bravely against it called it a anti constitutional a and that became a crucial concept. After the coup failed the plotters were charged with criminal offences and All who worked with them made subject to investigation. To pay such respect to constitutionalism and Law is remarkable in a country where those ideas have been a bitter joke for More than 70 years it is a dramatic demonstration of the longing for rules that bind the Gover a nors As Well As the governed. The United states has a written Constitution that for 200 years has been enforced by judges. It guards our guardians. So we believe and boast. But have we faithfully respected that tradition hardly. Just a few years ago men close to the president conspired to violate Laws passed by Congress. It would be hard to think of anything More plainly  Oliver North made it Clear that he would not let the Constitution stand in the Way of what he deemed the National interest. In a constitutional state the Law should surely have called those men to account. The president should have had to answer to an impeachment inquiry. But right Wing voices have mocked the attempt to bring the conspirators to Justice. George Bush has evaded any meaningful inquiry into his role. And the Public has hardly seemed to care. Another important element in the soviet events has been the demand for dispersion of authority. After the tragic experience of the Leninist system people understood that centralization of Power opened the Way to  and the other framers of the . Constitution knew that Long ago. That is Why they created a system of divided Powers. But in recent years their system has been distorted by the unrelenting grab for More and More presidential Power. How far the tendency has gone was Clear in the run up to the persian Gulf War. The White House claimed that the president could go to War without approval by Congress. Secretary of defense Dick Cheney a Veteran of Congress and an ordinarily sensible Man endorsed that anti constitutional claim of Power. An important Factor in the Quick collapse of the soviet coup was the Public a Access to information to it Boris Yeltsin a Defiance and others. The makers of the coup moved at once to suppress All but official newspapers and broadcasts. But glasnost had gone too far. The news got out. People tuned in to foreign broadcasts. Afterwards government and the Public moved to seize the files of the Kab. They understood As had the victors Over communism in Eastern Europe that secrecy is the Handmaiden of tyranny. Americans should hardly need lessons in the importance of free speech and open government. We have the first amendment. But we also have a recent tradition 6 presidential demands for More and More secrecy. The soviet drama finally made a Point about what we Call conservatism and liberalism in politics. Liberals tend to be optimists about the potential of human beings and the benefits of Reform. Conservatives historically Are pessimists. Their scepticism was perfectly reflected in the Wall Street journals first editorial on the coup which said it might be a a Potemkin coup intended to get the West to Shower a restored Gorbachev with  the second soviet revolution has been a Triumph of liberalism of Faith in human beings and the possibility of change for the better. The plotters of the coup were men of the hard right who wanted to prevent change. Against the Odds they and then their whole system were overthrown. It is a somewhat ironic Point Given the state of american politics. A a Liberal was a bad word in the last presidential Campaign and the winning candidate trashed those who defend our civil liberties. Might we care More about Liberal values As we see soviet citizens cherish them c the now York times Mike . History values make coup unlikely americans could sit Back and watch a coup unfold in the other superpower confident that it  happen Here. Or could it on this fundamental question a whether a handful of conspirators could seize the . Government and take Over a historians Are surprisingly Uncertain and divided. Some Point to 200 years of experience in which Power routinely changed hands in times Tough and Placid As evidence that american Fidelity to constitutional order is so great that no ideologically driven conspirator could Ever find enough people in High places to go along. Others Are not so sanguine. These Are tranquil Days in America but there have been times when mobs roamed the streets and the durability of democracy was worried about. One National division was so great it took a civil War to put the country together again. Home grown fascists had millions of followers during the depression. A president feared to go anywhere in Public except to military bases during the Vietnam frenzy and crowds called him a murderer. Four presidents were killed and six other assassination attempts failed but none of those events resulted from seize the government conspiracies. Such conspiracy is not in the american character said Joan Hoff a historian at Indiana University. A what we have that the soviets have never developed a she said reflecting on the failed Putsch in the soviet Union a is the institutionalized succession of Power. We Are totally imbued in  but if the White House had been occupied by someone indifferent to the depressions suffering if no Franklin Roosevelt came along a to create a sense that something was being done a a demagogue could have seized Power in Ameri Ca historian Howard Zinn said. Zinn author of a people s history of the United states is not so convinced that it could not happen under the right circumstances. �?o1 would like to think that the american people Are so resistant so imbued with democratic ideas that the country could not be taken Over by some military or political clique Quot Zinn said. A but i done to think that a so. A i done to think it is improbable Given the volatility of Public opinion and the Power of important people to con or use the Media in the Way the administration used the Media during the Gulf War to move Public opinion from opposition to k5 percent support of military action in a number of Days. Quot coups Are not simply done by Force Force is used against those who wont be persuaded but for the most part it is persuasion. Hitler did no to take Over by Force. Basically he persuaded the German people he was the Best thing in the world for them. 1 think the american people Are As vulnerable As anybody else to  on the other hand Zinn is convinced that in America a As in Boris Yeltsin a Russia a a coup  last Long before Public revulsion undid it. C the associated press