A Lame Duck Soars High

For a lame duck, George Bush was flying high and fast -- both literally and symbolically. First he logged 8,000 miles from Washington to Somalia, where he greeted 1993 with troops he had dispatched there a month ago to relieve starvation. The President spent New Year's Eve in Mogadishu and journeyed the next day to Baidoa, in the heart of the famine zone. Then, without so much as returning to Washington to change his shirt, he winged north 3,700 miles to snowy Moscow. There, he and Boris Yeltsin were to sign a treaty that should accomplish the truly radical cut in long-range nuclear weapons that had eluded so many previous leaders in the White House and the Kremlin. Bush called it "the most historic arms-control agreement ever made": both sides are to retire about two-thirds of their remaining long-range warheads, the U.S. / retaining 3,500 and the Russians 3,000.

As a kind of prelude, Bush spelled out for the first time where and when the U.S. might finally intervene in the blood-soaked Balkans. Diplomats disclosed a letter to Serbian officials in which Bush warned them not to try anything in Kosovo, a mostly Albanian province that the Serbs may subject to Bosnia-style "ethnic cleansing." If Serbia does cause a conflict there, said Bush, the U.S. is "prepared to employ military force ((presumably bombing)) against the Serbs in Kosovo and in Serbia proper." In all, it was a flurry of foreign policy activity that might be expected from a President preparing for another four years in office rather than one beginning his final three weeks. Bush is obviously moving to nail down his place in history as a foreign policy mover and shaker before handing his job over to Bill Clinton. "There's a lot of unfinished business," the President said at one point during his journey. "I would not be telling you the truth if I didn't say I have some regrets about not finishing the course, finishing the job. But it's been a wonderful ride." (See related story beginning on page 16.)