America Abroad

By Strobe Talbott

In the late 1930s, millions of Americans tuned their radio dials one evening a week to the latest adventure of Gang Busters. Each episode opened with a cacophony of sound effects -- marching feet, a burst of machine-gun fire, sirens wailing. The din itself told a story: the mobilization of the forces of good against those of evil; a climactic conflict; finally, the removal of the dead and wounded. Then a stentorian voice blared an all-points bulletin: "Calling the G-men! Calling all Americans to war on the underworld!"

Each installment was a morality play. Villains got what they deserved; violence in the service of the good guys was an arbiter of justice, enforcer of safety and guarantor of a crisp, satisfying, often bloody ending, all within half an hour.

The stories were based on what the narrator, H. Norman Schwarzkopf, called "authentic case histories." He was the real thing himself -- a West Point grad who had been superintendent of the New Jersey state police and an investigator in the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby.

There are echoes of that old show in both the idiom and the cast of the drama dominating the airwaves today. Saddam Hussein made himself Public Enemy No. 1 with his armed robbery of an entire country. As the U.S. rushed to battle stations, an aide to Defense Secretary Dick Cheney exulted, "We're coming on like gangbusters!" And as it turns out, the commander of Operation Desert Shield, General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, is the son of the cop turned radio star.

With every passing week, someone with credentials in international law enforcement joins the chorus calling for a raid to finish off the thief of Baghdad. Last month Richard Perle, a former Pentagon official, wrote in the New York Times that a shield to defend Saudi Arabia is not enough. What's needed, he said, is a "desert sword" -- an offensive operation to decapitate Iraq's leadership and destroy its military capacity. Last week, in a syndicated column, Henry Kissinger said he would be "very uneasy" if the U.S. waited beyond the end of the year to take "military measures." Otherwise, he warned, domestic and international support will begin to unravel. The world, he predicts, would welcome and support a "decisive American move."

Nor is such advice confined to the op-ed pages. General Michael Dugan was fired as Air Force chief of staff three weeks ago because he said publicly what many government officials, by no means all of them in uniform, are still arguing behind closed doors: the only way to dislodge Saddam from Kuwait is to defeat him inside Iraq. Like Kissinger, Dugan and others have more faith in the staying power of the enemy than in that of the U.S.-led alliance -- and more faith in firepower than in politics, economics and diplomacy combined.

So far, however, the gulf crisis has been a standoff not only between Saddam and the legions arrayed against him but also between two sides of the political personality of the President of the U. S.

There is the George Bush who hates more than anything being called a wimp. As an understudy for the post of Commander in Chief, he watched as Ronald Reagan evoked applause on the home front by bombing Tripoli and invading Grenada. Last December Bush tried his own hand at such stuff. He busted a drug lord holed up in Panama. As a result, Manuel Noriega is now awaiting trial in a prison cell in the Miami Metropolitan Correctional Center.

The fancy word for this approach to a mean, messy world is "unilateralism" -- Uncle Sam as global G-man.

But there is another George Bush, one whose favorite word is "prudence." He is less sanguine than Dugan about the efficacy of "surgical" strikes and less confident than Kissinger that the U.S. can both lead a posse and play the Lone Ranger. This Bush is also the Great Schmoozer. He prefers consensus to confrontation. He not only values his relationships with foreign leaders but actually listens to them. Most are counseling patience. An aide says that the President has been especially impressed by the cautions of Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady of the Falklands. She believes the embargo should be given more of a chance.

Since Bush also cherishes his popularity at home, he pays close attention to the polls. A TIME/CNN survey last month found 59% support for the proposition that the U.S. should wait for sanctions to work rather than launch a pre- emptive attack. The White House is picking up the same message in its own soundings of public opinion.

As Week 9 came to a close, war was still a distinct danger -- and a definite option for the U.S. -- but the President who addressed the United Nations Monday was Bush the multilateralist. He seemed to realize that he has earned such widespread praise, both at home and abroad, precisely because he has resisted a very American temptation: instead of coming on like gangbusters, he has shown the restraint necessary to lead an international effort that cuts across both East-West and North-South divides. If sustained, his accomplishment may establish a precedent for collective-security arrangements more enduring than the consequences of Saddam's villainy.