1988: A LOOK BACK

U.S. presidential campaign

The presidential campaign in the U.S. was marred from the standpoint of the Ukrainian community when two Ukrainians, Ignatius Billinsky and Bohdan Fedorak, were forced to resign along with five other ethnic leaders from the Bush campaign's Coalition of American Nationalities after a Washington Jewish Week story levelled charges of "anti-Semitism" against them. George Bush's rival for the office of president, Democrat Michael Dukakis, repeated those charges in an address before the B'nai B'rith in Washington.

The Bush camp reacted by dismissing Jerome Brentar, a Croatian American, and by insisting on the resignations of the others named, although the Bush campaign said the charges were "unsubstantiated." Why were Messrs. Billinsky and Fedorak accused of anti-Semitism? Because Mr. Billinsky apparently told New York Jewish Week that the John Demjanjuk trial was politically motivated; while Mr. Fedorak spoke out against collaboration between the Office of Special Investigations and Soviet authorities, and criticized the deportation of suspected Nazi war criminals to the USSR.

Ukrainians for Bush reacted by seeking a meeting with campaign manager James Baker III, but the closest they got was a meeting with Mark Holman, ethnic director for the campaign.

The Weekly spoke out against the summary dismissals and forced resignations in two editorials, and this elicited a response from Rich Bond, deputy campaign manager for Bush-Quayle '88 - not, however, from Mr. Bush, to whom The Weekly had addressed several pertinent questions. The campaign's response chose to ignore those questions and focused instead on "motherhood and apple pie issues" that no Ukrainian could not support.

Matters were made worse when neither presidential candidate appeared at the Ukrainian American community's principal celebration of the Ukrainian nation's Christian Millennium.

How will the Bush administration treat Ukrainians and other ethnics? We'll see...

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, December 25, 1988, No. 52, Vol. LVI

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