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Daily Nebraskan
Wednesday, January 13, 1982
'Editorial.
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President should set private example for public
Last week as President Reagan prepared to board a
helicopter headed for Camp David, Md.,a bevy of report
ers surrounded him. Someone threw the president a quest
ion about one of many groups hurt by his budget cuts and
the crippled economy.
Reagan's response was an easy, short answer for a seri
ous question. Then, with a wave of his hand and a flash of
that disarming Hollywood smile, he climbed into the roar
ing helicopter.
This short episode on the nightly news presented a
deep irony. Here was the president commenting on a
group's struggle to survive and at the same time departing
for a weekend at a private retreat. Obviously, Reagan's life
is far removed from the everyday hardships of lower
income and middle-income Americans.
But no one is begrudging the president his time away
from the enormous pressures of his job. After all, who
would want to see the President of the United States be
come a victim of burnout? Rather, it is the symbolism and
political effect on Reagan's actions that conic into
Missed the plane
but hit the books
It was an elk that got me. this time.
One would think that I would have learned by now to
keep my eye on the main chance, but I still get distracted
much too easily. Some things seem destined to remain the
same.
Iast week, I was making a reckless dash along a snow
covered Interstate 70 in Colorado in an effort to catch a
Rob MacTier
4:30 flight out of the Avon airport. This being the second
semester of my senior year, it was my last chance to
return to school on time, for once in my life. 1 skidded
into Avon at 4:20 and stopped a policeman to ask for
directions to the airport. He spied an elk on a nearby
hillside and, foolishly, I took a few minutes to gaze at it
before gunning my car to the airport.
I could see the plane engines warming up as I turned
the final corner, but I checked my watch and still seemed
to have plenty of time. It did not dawn on me that the
watch had stopped and was giving the same time that it
had five minutes earlier.
Feeling confident, I was sauntering into the terminal
when, to my dismay, 1 saw the propellers of Rocky
Mountain Airways Flight No. 417 burst into full power.
The plane took off. With it went my last chance of ever
returning to college by the set deadline. If only I had
dived through the terminal doors and thrown myself in
front of the plane, I'm sure I could have gotten on board.
Instead, I had slacked up in the last, vital minutes. I had
blown my race to the plane in the sprint.
Continued on Page 5
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question.
Because he is a ceremonial as well as a political and
governmental leader, the president must be surrounded by
some of the finer things in life. The office just wouldn't
carry the same weight if the president lived in a run down
tenement on the wrong side of the Capitol or even in a
split-level home in suburban Washington.
But it must be hard for a laid-off autoworker in Detroit
to hear the president ask for belt-tightening and then sec
him live in the style he has known since he became a
movie star.
Whether paid for by the government or by rich friends,
Nancy Reagan's china and decoration of the White House
must seem frivolous matters to a welfare mother. But
Nancy's projects arc only two concrete examples of a
whole attitude in the Reagan White House and admini
stration. In their free time, the Reagan's seem to lead the lives
of jet-setters.
How can Reagan begin to counter charges that he
favors the rich over the poor when he doesn't make any
cutbacks in his own lifestyle? His budget squeezes those
of modest income while hardly touching those of means.
His policies have helped to worsen an already sick
economy and have put thousands more out of work.
Granted, the symbolic gestures that Jimmy Carter used
while in office didn't always woik. The fireside chats and
the cardigan sweaters drew ridicule rather than strong
support. But Carter did exchange his limousine for a more
modest car, and he turned down the thermostat in the
White House.
Now, according to a Newsweek magazine cover story,
Nancy turns the heat up to well over 80 degrees while
viewing movies.
Reagan made a symbolic gesture for the Polish people
by setting a lighted candle in a White House window. It
would seem that Americans are just as deserving of such a
gesture.
It might make it easier for them to accept Reagan's
ccononuc philosophy and actions.
3
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espouse noteworthy as protest
In the Polish town where my ancestors lived for
hundreds of years, the records at city hall are only partial
ly in Polish. The older ones are in the Cyrillic script of the
Russian language - a reminder that for a longer time than
parts of Poland have been "Polish," they were Russian.
This is the vivid reality of the situation - then and to
day. Poland is the Russian sphere of influence. From 1772
until 1918, the eastern third of the countrv was admini-
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' Richard Cohen
stered by Russia. In this century alone, Poland has only
been truly independent from the end of the First World
War to the beginning of the Secind. Then Russia and Ger
many carved it up - again.
Now it sits, as it has always done, between Germany
and Russia. For the historical moment, Germany is not
the threat. Russia is. The world recognizes that the Soviet
Union can do pretty much what it wants with Poland.
There are wonderful diplomatic terms for this - sphere of
influence is one - but the plain fact is that Soviet tanks
could roll into Poland and neither Germany nor all of
Europe nor the United States of America could - or
would - do a damn thing about it.
It is for this reason, that the Germans and the other
European powers love the status quo and do not appreci
ate American moralizing on the subject of Poland. Things,
after all, could be a lot worse. Whatever you might think
about the Russian role in Poland, it is not Russian tanks in
the streets of Warsaw. And it is not Russian soldiers on
patrol and it is not, as far as we know, Russian policemen
who are making arrests in Poland and throwing dissidents
into jail. The Poles have managed to do this all by themselves.
So there is justification for the view that what is
happening in Poland is an internal matter. And there is
justification for arguing that the American response to
events in Poland, the boycotts and the strong words, are
examples of too little and too late. No boycott of
computer parts is going to force the Soviets or the P!es
to reverse what they have done. Lifting the American
landing rights of the Polish airlines, LOT, is not going to
bring the martial law government to its knees.
In fact, there is an air of futility to the whole exercise.
These sanctions, these punishments, should have been
announced beforehand. The American government should
have made it clear to the Soviets what price they would
have to pay if the clock was turned back in Poland. The
American government, in fact, could simply have
recognized the Soviet sphere of influence and then,
logically, held the Soviet Union accountable for whatever
happened in Poland.
So it is understandable that the Europeans see us as
hopeless amateurs. We have bungled the matter. We did
plan well and we did not execute well and we do not
understand cardinal rules of real politics. We do not
understand what it is like to live on a small continent,
crowded with many countries, all of them somewhat
edgy, all of them punchy after years and years of war
and all of them fighting those wars over and over again in
their memories. The big Atlantic Ocean enables us to be
hopeless romantics.
But even if Europe has conceded its history and its
wisdom and even if all the arguments about spheres of in
fluence are acknowledged, there still has to be a place in
this world for moral outrage. No one is saying that Poland
is worth triggering World War III or scuttling detente or
even breaking off the dialogue about arms reduction. But
it is certainly worth a protest, a scream, a yell.
Acknowledging Russian hegemony is not the same as
acknowledging Russia's moral righteousness. Resigning
yourself to the events in Poland is not the same as accept
ing them. Refusing to bring the world to the brink of war
over Poland is not the same as turning your back on the
Polish people and pretending that what has most certainly
happened, has not happened.
Ronald Reagan may not have been artful in the way he
has handled this crisis. And his knowledge of diplomatic
history, of the commas and the dots in the agreements
from Versailles to Yalta, may be superficial. But at least
he does not have the weary cynicism of the Germans and
some other Europeans. Maybe he could have done tilings
better.
Bui at least he did something.
(c) 1982, The Washington Post Company