Shultz Is Critical of President Clinton’s Policy on Bosnia War : Simi Valley: The former secretary of state, speaking at Reagan government center, calls the Administration inept in handling the turmoil.

Former Secretary of State George P. Shultz blasted President Clinton’s policy in Bosnia on Monday at a conference at the Ronald Reagan Center for Public Affairs.

“Neville Chamberlain step aside, we have a new nominee for No. 1 diplomat,” Shultz said, referring to the former British prime minister’s appeasement of Adolf Hitler following Germany’s invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1938.

Shultz’s off-the-cuff remark came at the end of a passionate response he was giving to a question on U. S. involvement in Bosnia. He called the Clinton Administration inept in its attempts to resolve the religious war in Bosnia, now nearing the end of its third year.

“We haven’t seen anything like this since Hitler’s day,” he said. “I have a sense of shame that we haven’t done anything effective.”

Shultz was the keynote speaker at the conference, titled “The Perils of Democracy.” Billed as an event as much for political novices as for academics, it was the first major event staged by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library’s new director, Richard Norton Smith.

Two hundred people paid the $20 fee for admission and lunch, and about 20 college students from around Southern California were invited to a private luncheon with Shultz and featured speaker Andrezj Olechowski, Poland’s minister of foreign affairs. A library spokeswoman said Reagan did not attend because of a scheduling conflict.

*

Since the library and the Ronald Reagan Center for Public Affairs housed there opened in November, 1991, the facility has struggled to decide what national role it should play. Smith, a historian and past director of the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library who took over the director’s job in December, has said he would like to make the center less of a think tank and more accessible to the public.

“Hopefully, today demonstrates the validity of that goal,” Smith said, “that you can have an intellectually substantive discussion that is not exclusively the province of academics.”

Smith called the conference a success.

“No glitches,” he said. “Only good things, happy people and the lively clash of ideas.”

But there was little clashing as both featured speakers embraced the Reagan legacy. A question-and-answer period following the lectures yielded few questions; many audience members seemed more interested in getting snapshots of themselves with Shultz.

Smith introduced Shultz as the architect of the Reagan doctrine and a key component in the fall of communism in Eastern Europe.

Shultz began his speech by taking lighthearted exception to the conference title.

“I’m a little bit more optimistic than that title suggests,” he said.

His speech ran the gamut from a discussion of Reagan Administration policies in Chile, South Korea and the Philippines to suggestions on how the present Administration should encourage change in China.

“I can think of a lot more effective ways to go about it than what’s happening now,” Shultz said. “I like the way Ronald Reagan did it.”

Olechowski spoke about the fall of communism in Poland and his country’s struggle to move to democracy. He read from the speech Reagan gave the day the Solidarity movement won power in Poland, and told the audience that it encouraged him to look to the United States for inspiration and assistance.

“I want you to deliver on Ronald Reagan’s promise that we stand as one,” he said.

*

Olechowski made several references to Poland’s attempts to join NATO, and said he hoped that the United States would push for its inclusion.

The audience included local business people, financial supporters of the library and local educators. Simi Valley Unified School District Supt. Mary Beth Wolford attended and brought Sequoia Junior High history teacher Beth Cohen with her.

Cohen said she planned to work Monday’s conference into her lesson plan for her eighth-grade class. She had already informed her students about the speakers and their roles in history.

“This is a wonderful opportunity,” she said. “For them to know about the accessibility of our leaders is really wonderful.”

The library is planning another conference May 17 entitled “Do Conservatives Have a Sense of Humor?” Former Vice President Dan Quayle is expected, as well as author P. J. O’Rourke. That conference is also open to the public.