Partners: John Murtha and G.H.W Bush
Longtime lawmaker John Murtha was an important foreign policy figure in Washington. The Johnstown congressman, who died 12 years ago at the age of 77, was a force to be reckoned with, even by presidents.
A Democrat who at one time or another represented Fayette and portions of Washington County, Murtha was a master of bipartisanship. Republican George Herbert Walker Bush – the first President Bush – praised Murtha for his role in steering the resolution through Congress that condemned Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s invasion and annexation of Kuwait.
The resolution authorized the U.S.-led military action against Saddam known as Operation Desert Storm.
In January 1991, Bush wrote privately to Murtha that the resolution’s “passage could not have been achieved absent your active commitment and leadership.” Then and later, Murtha was chairman of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee.
(Bush’s thank-you can be found among the Murtha papers at the University of Pittsburgh archives.)
“We can all be proud that during these difficult times our democratic traditions allowed us to debate the issues in a meaningful, non-partisan fashion,” Bush said.
“Again, Jack, thank you….”
The first Gulf War ended on Feb. 28, 1991, following just 100 hours of ground combat. Earlier in the first Bush presidency, the Berlin Wall fell, signaling the end of the Soviet empire in central and eastern Europe.
The events that led to an end to the Cold War with Soviet Russia were dicey ones for the United States and President George H.W. Bush, and the president was keen to have Murtha on his side. A member of the loyal opposition, Murtha cared more for his country than his party. His conduct stands in sharp contrast to today’s mindless Capitol Hill partisans, including District 14’s Republican congressman, Guy Reschenthaler.
Showering Joe Biden with abuse even as the president steers the nation through a dangerous passage occasioned by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Reschenthaler is so unlike Murtha as to make your head spin.
Back to 1989-90 and the crisis that closed the book on the Soviet Union. Bush’s cautious approach during this turbulent period served the country and the world well. The president felt a misstep here or there by the U.S. could trigger a Soviet backlash that would unravel the unraveling. He worried especially that a cornered Soviet leadership would lash out against East Germany and the nations of eastern Europe struggling to assert their nationhood, after decades as Soviet client states.
Bush was fearful, lest the baby democracies of eastern Europe be strangled in their cradles.
Following the collapse of the Berlin Wall on Nov. 9, 1989, President Bush messaged his Soviet counterpart, Mikhail Gorbachev, that the U.S. had “no intention of seeking unilateral advantage from the current process of change in [East Germany] and in the Warsaw Pact countries.”
As his biographer Jon Meacham puts it, “everything in [Bush] was about bringing stability, or at least a semblance of stability” to an inherently unstable, and dangerous, situation. The president refused to gloat when it appeared that the West had won the Cold War.
Of course, it was good for everyone that Gorbachev was in charge on the other side. In fact, it was the Soviet leader who kicked the whole thing off. Two years earlier, Gorbachev had declared that it was time for a new “long-term, big-time politics.”
“No one will be able to subordinate others,” he wrote. “Let everyone make his own choice, and let us all respect that choice.”
Bush and Gorbachev talked things over in December 1989 at a Summit conference in Malta. During a joint press conference, Bush said that “we stand on the threshold of a brand-new era of U.S.-Soviet relations, and it is within our grasp to contribute … to overcoming the divisions in Europe and ending the military confrontation there.”
Gorbachev, who eventually weathered a coup attempt, commented that it was important to remain cautious. “I use the favorite word of President Bush,” he said.
Soon after conferring with NATO leaders and returning to the White House, Bush wrote Murtha on the results of the Malta conference and about future prospects.
“From the beginning of my administration,” he said, “our aim has been to move ‘beyond containment’ [of Soviet ambitions] toward a Europe ‘whole and fee.’ Our meetings in Malta and with the Allies in Brussels brings us closer to realizing those goals.”
Today, Bush’s words to Murtha are a fading reminder of a more hopeful era.
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown. He can be reached at dick.l.robbins@gmail.com.