EDITORIAL: A repudiation of Yalta (06/24/01)

EDITORIAL

A repudiation of Yalta

In a groundbreaking speech in Warsaw on June 15, President George W. Bush spoke unequivocally of "an open Europe," and a NATO stretching from the Atlantic to the borders of Russia. He delineated the center of the new Europe as Poland and urged expanding the Atlantic Alliance into the countries of Eastern Europe that are not yet its members. Most emphatically he stated: "it is time to put talk of East and West behind us."

The U.S. president's speech - his most significant to date about the U.S.-Europe relationship - strongly repudiated the decisions of Yalta, the infamous conference in 1945 at which the three remaining world powers, the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union, carved up the world into spheres of influence and thus determined the political order of Europe. As a result of Yalta, Eastern Europe was Sovietized and the Cold War began. All of Ukraine's lands wound up in the Soviet sphere.

"Yalta did not ratify a natural divide, it divided a living civilization. The partition of Europe was not a fact of geography, it was an act of violence. And wise leaders for decades have found the hope of European peace in the hope of greater unity," Mr. Bush argued, adding that, "In the same speech that described an 'iron curtain,' Winston Churchill called for 'a new unity in Europe, from which no nation should be permanently outcast.' "

Today, Mr. Bush underlined, "As we plan to enlarge NATO, no nation should be used as a pawn in the agendas of others. We will not trade away the fate of free European peoples. No more Munichs. No more Yaltas."

It was a truly noteworthy speech - one that went largely unappreciated by the American public. American citizens, it seems, still tend to feel that Europe is a world away. How many of them understood the significant historical references in their president's speech? And, it is regrettable that most commentators chose to focus on Mr. Bush's chummy manner with European leaders, his charm offensive, than on the substance of his remarks.

And substance there was plenty.

In the Polish capital city, President Bush told his listeners: "We can build an open Europe - a Europe without Hitler and Stalin, without Brezhnev and Honecker and Ceaucescu and, yes, without Milosevic." He continued: "Our goal is to erase the false lines that have divided Europe for too long. The future of every European nation must be determined by the progress of internal reform, not the interests of outside powers. Every European nation that struggles toward democracy and free markets and a strong civic culture must be welcomed into Europe's home."

"All of Europe's new democracies, from the Baltic to the Black Sea and all that lie between, should have the same chance for security and freedom - and the same chance to join the institutions of Europe - as Europe's old democracies have," he underscored.

Among those countries Mr. Bush referred specifically to Ukraine: "The Europe we are building must include Ukraine, a nation struggling with the trauma of transition. Some in Kyiv speak of their country's European destiny. If this is their aspiration, we should reward it. We must extend our hand to Ukraine, as Poland has already done with such determination."

The American president expressed thanks to Poland "for acting as a bridge to the new democracies of Europe, and a champion of the interests and security of your neighbors, such as the Baltic states, Ukraine, Slovakia. You are making real the words: 'For your freedom and ours.' "

Indeed, in Warsaw we heard powerful and meaningful words from America's new president. So different from those uttered in Kyiv just a decade earlier by another Bush.

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