ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, April 25, 1996 TAG: 9604250077
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LEXINGTON
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER
THE COLD WAR outcome has left the United States in a comfortable position, the former president says.
Former President George Bush took the podium in Virginia Military Institute's Cameron Hall a liberated man Wednesday night.
"I stand before you tonight a very happy man," he said, his voice hoarse from a cold. "I'm unemployed."
Though he's out of politics and said he "doesn't miss it one damn bit," Bush was not short on rhetoric about the direction the United States should take in the world after the Cold War.
"I'm a decidedly optimist about our future. We've succeeded in making our world a safer place to live."
Bush said the nation has only begun to reap the benefits of its vigilance during the Cold War. And those that say the world is a grim place should "count your blessings, roll up your sleeves and do something about it. Don't sit bitching on the floor.
"The United States must continue to stay engaged in the world, to lead, just exactly as we did during the Cold War."
That means continuing to develop relations with China, where Bush said people have more civil rights now than when he was a diplomat there in the 1970s.
"If you want to see change, you don't take a culture that is literally thousands of years old and keep slapping it in the face until they do everything the way we think they ought to do it," he said.
Bush was introduced as "the last commander in chief to serve in the armed forces," but was reluctant to be too critical of President Clinton's use of the military.
Clinton handled "reasonably well" China's recent veiled threat of invading Taiwan, in Bush's assessment, though he questioned whether sending a second aircraft carrier group to the area was necessary.
As for Bosnia, Bush's main concern was that the military's mission there is still unclear. He said he supported the troops on their mission, but remarked that "we're the United States and ... we don't put our troops under United Nations command."
Bush, who was at VMI as part of the H.B. Johnson Jr. Distinguished Lecture Series, joked often during the speech, usually at his own expense. He said he was suffering an identity crisis lately. His wife's hairdresser, Eddie, remarked to Barbara Bush that he couldn't believe he was cutting the hair of the mother of the governor of Texas, Bush related. Bush's son, George Bush Jr., was elected in 1994.
The cadets, who greeted Bush with loud hoots, were allowed to ask questions after the 45-minute speech, but were given no promises.
"If I want to answer your questions I will, if I don't, I'll dodge them," Bush said.
One question that remained unasked and unanswered was Bush's position on the sex discrimination suit filed against VMI by the U.S. Justice Department.
"We wouldn't think [Bush] would discuss the case. It's a very touchy subject," said Lt. Col. Mike Strickler, VMI's spokesman.
Bush was president when the Justice Department filed the suit against VMI in 1990 on behalf of a Northern Virginia high school girl.
Six years of legal and political battles have followed, resulted in the Virginia Women's Institute for Leadership at Mary Baldwin College.
The U.S. Supreme Court heard the case in January and is expected to rule this summer.
Staff writer Jennifer Miller contributed to this story.
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Former President Bush shakes hands with a cadet inby CNBthe Virginia Women's Institute for Leadership in Lexington. color.