Innsbruck, July 11, 1989
The Environmental Disaster
A major environmental disaster is beginning to show in the Northern Adriatic Sea. From Venice to Ancona along the well-known beaches of the Emilia Romagna - Milano Maritima, Cervia, Rimini, Riccione and Senigallia - , the sludgy carpet of the so-called “Algae Plague” has been spreading. Authorities have discouraged going into the water, for the sludge is not only unsavory but also detrimental to health. Therewith, life on the Adriatic beaches has come to a virtual standstill, which does enormous economic damage to the entire region. The rank growth of the algae was caused by the industrial waste water in the Po River, which, across the wide Delta of the Po between Venice and Ravenna, flow directly into the Adriatic Sea. Added to it is the high quantity of fertilizers, which also flows as waste water into the sea. If no emergency actions are taken, the Adriatic is in danger of dying off.
Innsbruck, July 12, 1989
President Bush in Budapest
In his speech today at the Karl Marx Business University in Budapest, President Bush gave the Hungarians encouragement. He congratulated the country on its present reform course and offered practical help. He advocated a free market economy and promised Hungary most-favored-nation status. The United States will support Hungary as soon as the prerequisites for private investments are in place. He offered American support in mastering environmental protection. Also, a cultural exchange between the United States and Hungary was suggested. Yet altogether, the American aid Bush had promised was modest and without much commitment.
[On their way to the G-7 summit, which on the occasion of the Bicentennial of the French Revolution in 1989 took place in Paris, President Bush and his staff went first to Warsaw and Budapest to see for themselves how far the reform movements had been spreading. What they saw in Poland and Hungary was much more advanced than they had assumed. But Bush and his team of advisers proceeded cautiously in order not to provoke hard-liners in the Communist regimes to take precipitate actions. The events on Tiananmen Square were a warning. See George Bush and Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed (New York: Vintage Books, 1999, pp. 112-131). Brent Scowcroft was National Security Advisor in the Bush Administration.]
Innsbruck, July 14, 1989
Le bicentenaire
In a gigantic show of superlatives, France is celebrating the “bicentenaire,” the Bicentennial of the French Revolution with a big military parade from the Arc de Triomphe down the Champs-Elysées to the Place de la Concorde. The “bicentenaire” is a triumph for President Francois Mitterand. Besides the heads of state and government of the G-7 summit meeting of the seven leading industrial nations, also 20 heads of state from the francophone African countries participated in the celebrations. Paris has become richer by several more landmarks. Among them are the new Opera House on the Place de la Bastille as well as the glass pyramid, designed by I. Ming Pei, at the entrance to the Louvre. Nearly a million people lined the Champs-Elysées to watch the fantastic parade. The “grand spectacle” lasted until midnight. Unforgettable remains the impression of Jesse Norman with her powerful voice singing the Marseillaise. It was France’s day which the world joined to celebrate.
The storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789 occurred 13 years after the American Declaration of Independence. The American War of Independence from 1776 to 1783 had its influence on the events in Paris. The French Revolution was an event of great impact on world history. It was the turn of an era whose effects have been felt for the past 200 years and are still being felt today. The heads of state and government at the G-7 summit meeting (Canada, the Federal Republic of Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, and the United States) signed today, on the 200th anniversary of the beginning of the French Revolution in Paris, a declaration. They committed themselves once more to uphold human rights. The G-7 summit meeting referred especially to the events in Eastern Europe.
Innsbruck, July 19, 1989
A Europe Whole and Free
As he had shown in last year’s presidential election campaign, George Bush was never much inclined toward great visions of the future. But the recent events in the East Bloc countries also thrust on him visions of a future free Europe. In his speech at Leyden in the Netherlands, he foresaw “a Europe whole and free,” a new world that is near at hand. He predicted: “The Europe behind the wall will join its neighbors to the West, prosperous and free,” (See Herald Tribune, July 18, 1989.)
Note
[Toward the end of the 1980s, two concepts of a future Europe were facing each other: Mikhail Gorbachev stood up for a Bloc-free, largely demilitarized Europe, in which the Communist and democratic countries would live peacefully side by side. As he had emphasized in his address to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg on July 6, 1989, both political systems should have room in a common house of Europe. Contrary to this concept, George Bush insisted on “a Europe whole and free” under the protection of NATO. The dynamic political developments at the end of 1989 and at the beginning of 1991 were unstoppably moving in the direction of the latter solution.]
Lucerne, Switzerland, July 29, 1989
The Old World and the New
A bigger contrast can hardly be imagined than staying overnight in Lucerne before flying and landing in Chicago the next day.
Lucerne, the magnificent old town in Central Switzerland, still rests comfortably in the Middle Ages. One walks in a reflective mood on covered wooden bridges from the 14th and 15th centuries across the Reuss River. The Kapellbrücke (Chapel Bridge) with its historic panel paintings and the massive Wasserturm (Water Tower) are the landmarks of the city. The old Rathaus (City Hall) with its picturesque Renaissance facade looks over the Kornmarkt (grain market), where lively small trade activities have been flourishing from time immemorial. The small excursion boats cruise leisurely on the Vierwaldstätter See (Lake Lucerne). Everything here is measured in small sizes with painstaking exactness. The ambiance is inducing to walking and quiet contemplation. City and landscape form together a magic idyll. In the evening, the illuminated circular old city wall and fortified towers leave the impression of a beautiful fairyland.
Arriving in Chicago, one enters a vibrant city of several million people with its fascinating skyline. Also Chicago has a water tower as a landmark. But the Gothic Revival structure of the Water Tower, which had been spared in the fire of 1871, stands as a unique relic on the Water Tower Place surrounded by skyscrapers. Incessant traffic moves over the drawbridge across the Chicago River. The grain market of Chicago has developed into the largest of its kind in the world. Lake Michigan has its harbor and industrial zone along the South Shore, but it extends to the North into a sheer endless nature scenery. Excursion boats have long been discontinued. Measures appear there oversized. The rhythm of life is already oriented toward the 21st century.
When one experiences Lucerne and Chicago immediately one after the other, the difference between the Old World and the New could not be more striking.