FACES AND PLACES: I was wrong, I'm sorry, forgive me! (02/20/05)

FACES AND PLACES

by Myron B. Kuropas

I was wrong, I'm sorry, forgive me!

For months now, I've been dreading the appointment of Dr. Condeleezza Rice as the new secretary of state.

I believed that since she was mentored by Brent Scowcroft, a protégé of Henry Kissinger, Dr. Rice had the same realpolitik views regarding spheres of influence in Europe. She speaks Russian, moreover, and, on one public occasion, I'm told, had spoken glowingly of her love for Russian culture. I had even come to believe that she played a role in the framing of President H.W. Bush's disastrous "Chicken Kiev" speech to Ukrainians on the eve of Ukraine's declaration of independence in 1991.

Dr. Rice's February 9 press conference in Brussels dispelled my fears. Specifically asked about the "Chicken Kiev" speech, she reminded everyone that she was back at Stanford University when the speech was drafted. Her comments regarding Ukraine, moreover, were encouraging. "Everybody admires the difficult decision that Ukraine has taken for a democratic future," she said. "Now we have to make certain that the difficult decision that the Ukrainians took is going to be supported by institutions and by prosperity and progress so that the Ukrainian people and their new government can succeed." Wow!

I was wrong about you, Dr. Rice. I'm sorry. Forgive me.

So if Dr. Rice didn't draft the "Chicken Kiev" speech, who did?

The leading candidate for me is Gen. Scowcroft, former national security advisor to President Gerald R. Ford and President H.W. Bush. Given his mode of operation and political propensities, I can think of no one else.

I remember Gen. Scowcroft from the Ford administration. He was forever cautioning the president against meeting with Eastern European ethnic Americans: Croatians (because it might offend Yugoslavia's Tito), Hungarians (because it might offend Janos Kadar), and, of course, Ukrainian Americans. When I was finally able to arrange a visit with Cardinal Josyf Slipyj and the president, it was Gen. Scowcroft who insisted on sitting in the Oval Office along with Bishop Basil Losten, Bishop Ivan Prashko and myself. I'm sure that the good general was fearful lest Cardinal Slipyj say something derogatory about the Soviet Union. Fears were misplaced because the cardinal said nothing about the Soviets other than to call attention to the size of the Oval Office. He compared it to Lavrentii Beria's office which, the cardinal recalled, was much bigger.

Gen. Scowcroft was a protégé of then Secretary of State Kissinger and the politics of realpolitik, best exemplified by the so-called Sonnenfeldt Doctrine. Helmut Sonnenfeldt, then counselor at the State Department and a close associate of Dr. Kissinger, went to Europe during the height of the Cold War in 1976 and, in a secret seminar, explained to American ambassadors in Europe that the United States had reached a quiet, unwritten compromise with the Soviets regarding Europe. Central and Eastern Europe would remain in the Soviet sphere, Western Europe in the American sphere. Neither side would try to influence any changes in the status quo. The seminar was leaked to columnists Evans and Novak, who ran with it.

For many of us at the time, the doctrine was a tacit acceptance of the Brezhnev Doctrine, explained in a Pravda article on September 26, 1968, as follows: "World socialism is indivisible, and its defense is the common cause of all Communists." In fairness, a recent commentary In the National Interest notes that Mr. Sonnenfeldt explained in congressional testimony that what he said at the meeting was different from what was published in the press. He maintained he that his remarks were taken out of context. Mr. Sonnenfeldt claimed that he told Soviet officials that the USSR should find a more natural relationship with its Eastern European neighbors and that perhaps someday the leadership in Moscow would realize that its satellite empire was like a boulder hanging around its neck. Given the "peaceful coexistence" approach of the Kissinger years, this explanation is difficult for me to accept.

In the end, it really doesn't matter what Mr. Sonnenfeldt really said. The truth of the "doctrine" was accepted by Eastern European groups in America who turned their back on President Ford during the 1976 election. As I wrote in a December 1988 "Faces and Places" column in The Ukrainian Weekly,

"It was this 'doctrine' that President Ford was trying to disavow during his second debate with Jimmy Carter when the president declared: 'And the United States does not concede that those countries [Poland and others] are under the domination of the Soviet Union.' The words were taken out of context by the press to suggest an ignorance of the Soviet Union," I continued. "It is one of the ironies of American political history that President Ford, one of the of the original and longtime congressional supporters of the Captive Nations Resolution lost much of the ethnic vote because he was perceived as soft on communism, while Jimmy Carter, who as president was later to declare that Americans 'have an inordinate fear of communism,' won it."

Under President George W. Bush and Dr. Rice, the United States appears to be back on track. Kissingerism died during the Reagan administration. Mr. Scowcroft is still around (he counseled the first President Bush not to capture Saddam Hussein), but his negative comments on the current war in Iraq have marginalized him. Permanently, I hope. The Reagan freedom crusade lives on. America is once again the "shining city on a hill," a beacon of freedom and democracy. Millions of people have been liberated, albeit at great sacrifice of American blood and assets. The momentum, however, is shifting to the good guys.

Ukraine is recovering. There was no civil war. A righteous Ukrainian was inaugurated. President Yushchenko will be meeting with our president in April, and a new era of U.S.-Ukrainian relations will emerge. We are fortunate to be witness to these grand events. It is time to rejoice and to acknowledge God's hand in all of this. Prayer really does fix things.

Myron Kuropas's e-mail address is: [email protected].

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