Gephardt Says Bush Fails As A Leader

Democrat Proposes Direct Aid to Soviets

by Tom Kenworthy, Washington Post Staff Writer House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) charged yesterday that the United States is failing to capitlize on the sweeping changes in Eastern Europe because of what he called President Bush's timid, unimaginative leadership and his obsession with public opinion polls and short-term political gain. In one of the sharpest Democratic assaults to date on Bush, Gephardt has called for direct U.S. economic aid to the Soviet Union and accused the president of running a government "of the polls, by the polls, and for the polls."

Dateline? March 6th (7th?) 1990, Page A1.

"[S]tability, democracy, and a market economy in the Soviet Union are in America's strong self interest." Specifically Gephardt proposed sending U.S. food aid to the Soviet Union, waiving a variety of trade restrictions, including those on high-technology, and changing U.S. law to encourage private investment in the U.S.S.R.