The United States is a key player on the world arena. Studying the role of Washington in the global politics we should shift the attention to the factors that affect foreign policy of American presidents. One of the factors that influences on the interior and exterior politics of the United States is a set of stereotypical views that can be distinguished in the speeches delivered by American leaders.

The topicality of the article is the analysis of the foreign policy course in the Eastern Europe conducted by the 41^st president of the USA G. H. W. Bush. We also studied political speeches delivered by the president and related to independent Ukraine.

Review of the studies related to the topic of the article

Numerous studies of American, Russian and Ukrainian scholars reflect different approaches to assessment of relations between the United States and Ukraine. They widely range from military plans of Pentagon to foresee dangers of the former Soviet Union to critical assessment of American-Ukrainian relations in terms of democratic development. The approaches are represented by works of D. Kramer [1], Th. Langston [2], B. Fischer [3], S. Call [4]. Among approaches some are evident ideologically-oriented works of Russian scholars such as S. N. Konopatov [5], V. O.rukavishnikov [6], A. Utkin [7; 8], I. Panarin [9] who accuse America in its aggressive foreign policy course. Moderate approach is represented by studies of E. Ivanyan [10], I. Kharchenko [11], T. Shakleyina [12], Y. Shcherbak [13] who analyze American policy from historic, pragmatic, leadership points of view.

Despite numerous researches of different aspects related to the political sphere of the United States, the correlation between speeches of American leaders and the foreign policy course of Washington is still out of scholars' attention. Trying to correlate public discourse of American leaders with their foreign policy steps in Eastern Europe we see the task in studying American Ukrainian relations in the 90^th of the 20^th century.

The purpose of the article is to highlight the development of relations between independent Ukraine and the United States in the light of stereotypes preserved from “cold war" period of time.

The goal of the article presupposes the following tasks:

To analyze foreign policy course of the USA during presidency of G. H. W. Bush;

To describe American and Ukrainian relationships from 1990 up to 1991;

To distinguish political stereotypes that affected the development of the above mentioned relationships;

To study the speeches delivered by G. H. W. Bush dedicated to independent Ukraine.

People hold stereotypes, generalized beliefs and expectations about social groups and their members. Stereotypes, which may be negative or positive, are the outgrowth of human tendency to categorize and organize the vast amount of information people encounter in their everyday lives. All stereotypes share the common feature of oversimplifying the world: they view individuals not in terms of their individual characteristics, but in terms of their membership in a particular group [14, p.532].

The most common stereotypes and forms of prejudice have to do with racial, religious and ethnic categorization. For instance, people from the former Soviet Union were called “cunning”, “mean" and “aggressive" due to the long standing confrontation sparked after the Second World War. Similar effect can be observed in attitude of some Russians and Ukrainians, especially those aged ones who suffered from the pressing Soviet ideology that imposed the image of ENEMY on the minds of people in the former USSR.

Although usually backed by little or no evidence, political stereotypes often have harmful consequences. Stereotypes, whether positive or negative, are inherently harmful for three reasons:

1. They neutralize our ability to treat each member of a group as an individual.

2. They lead to narrow expectations for behavior. It means that if Americans have stereotypes about citizens of the former Soviet Union, they expect them to behave in certain way. For example, for a long period of time American propaganda treated Soviets as aggressive, rude and unreliable. Logically seeing people from the former USSR Americans would treat them accordingly. Thus, stereotypes can be a limiting force for people while contacting other people.

3. They lead to faulty attributions. The theory is based on the idea that humans try to explain why things happen this or that way, that is, attribute them to some cause. One of the things people are mostly fond of doing is explaining behavior, both others and their own. According to attribution theory, people tend to attribute all behavior to some cause [Lahey, 15, p.624].

Analysis of “anti-Sovietism" and “anti-Americanism" go back to the times of Cold War confrontation. Social and political attitudes towards another state, nationality and society, towards a global political actor are invariably complex, shaped by historical context and the prevailing constellation of political forces. Even at the height of the Cold War when leaders in the United States and the Soviet Union were predisposed to view each other through diametrically opposed ideological lenses, one can find nuances and shifting boundaries in the definition of what the “other” really was like.

Admittedly, the label “anti-Americanism" and “antiSovietism” can function as quick shorthand to encapsulate a cluster of criticism about what the United States and the Soviet Union stand for. Moreover, total “anti-” anything implies phobia: an inability to tolerate, understand or accept. Outright condemnation and rejection follow.

The origin of above mentioned terms go back to the Second World War. By 1947, the post-war world was sharply bipolar. Leaders in the United States and the Soviet Union both saw themselves as heads of peaceful and morally upright systems threatened by the aggressive intentions of the other one. International tension, hostility and mistrust prevailed from 1947 up until Stalin's death in 1953 [16, p.112]. But periods after 1953 were not less dramatic for the relationships of two countries.

In those years leaders and citizens of the USA were potentially anti-Soviet. Soviets were behaving in ways American administrations found unpalatable for American security. So, black context of fear, accusation and apparent threats that characterized the Cold War stimulated development of new anti-Soviet phobias and stereotypes. The fears and ideological hatred led to the formation of the image of ENEMY in the minds of American people.

The image of ENEMY is a complex one. The enemy can be seen as:

1) a stranger;

2) an aggressor;

3) faceless;

4) enemy of God. War is seen as applied theology;

5) the barbarian;

6) a greedy creature;

7) a criminal;

8) a beast;

9) death; It is perceived as the ultimate threat;

10) the worthy opponent [17, p.180].

Castigating another group of people as enemy indicates that 'they' are unlike us. Calling Soviets 'enemies' during the period of Cold War meant that Americans needed no sympathy and as a result no guilt destroying them. In all American propaganda, the face of enemy is designed to provide a focus for hatred. The Soviets were different from Americans. They were aliens. They were outsiders. They were not humans.

Enemy making and warfare are social creations rather than biological ones. Unfortunately, nations create a sense of social solidarity and membership in part by systematically creating enemies. The corporate identity of most peoples depends on dividing the world into a basic antagonism [17, p.17]: “Us versus Them”, “Insiders versus Outsiders”, “The tribe/nation versus the Enemy”.

The hostile imagination begins with a simple but crippling assumption: what is strange or unknown is dangerous and it means evil. The unknown is untrustworthy. Around the basic antagonism between insiders and strangers the tribal mind forms an entire myth of conflict. The mythic mind, which still governs modern politics, is obsessively dualistic. It splits everything into polar opposites. The basic distinction between insiders and outsiders is parlayed into a paranoid ethic and metaphysic in which reality is seen as a morality play, a conflict between: “The tribes/nation versus The enemy”, “Good versus Evil”, “The sacred versus The profane" [17, p.18].

The primary function of this paranoid metaphysic of Homo Hostilis is to justify the killing of outsiders and to rationalize warfare. Myth, besides telling us who we are, where we came from, and what our destiny is, sanctions the killing of strangers who are considered nonhuman and profane. Myth makes killing or dying in war a sacred act performed in the service of some god or immortal ideal. Thus, the creation of propaganda is as old as the hostile imagination.

Talking about American-Soviet confrontation during the “Cold War”, we can conclude that both peoples only saw and acknowledged those negative aspects of the enemy that supported the stereotypes they had already created. Thus, American television mainly reported bad news about the Russians, and vice versa. Americans remembered only the evidences that confirmed their prejudices.

American presidential tirades against Soviet state control and lack of individual property reflect an unconscious anger at the real loss of individual freedom under corporate capitalism. American propaganda and speeches, delivered by American presidents from H. Truman to G. Bush, the junior is incurably dualistic, a moralistic Manichean:

We (Americans) are innocent - They (Soviet) are guilty

We tell the truth - inform. - They lie - use propaganda.

We only defend ourselves - They are aggressors.

We have a defense department - They have a war department.

Our missiles and weapons are designed to deter - Their weapons are designed for the first strike.

In the case described above Americans are victims, passively-aggressive who are obsessed with power, who have given the enemy, the USSR power of initiation and aggression. The purpose of propaganda whether we are talking about the United States or the Soviet Union is to paralyze thought, to prevent discrimination, and to condition individuals to act as a mass. The art of propaganda is to create a portrait that incarnates the idea of what we wish to destroy so we will react rather than think, and automatically focus our free-floating hostility, indistinct frustrations, and unnamed fears.

Enemy is portrayed as enemy of God. God and country may be quite separable in theory, but in day-to-day politics and religion they are fused. God sanctifies social order, way of life, values and territory.

The stereotypes rooted during “cold war period” are effective within time. They work in the minds of people again and again. We try to answer the question whether the above-mentioned stereotypes affect the relationships between the USA and independent Ukraine.

Analyzing American-Ukrainian relationships we can distinguish few periods. One of them is the Russia-oriented approach which covers the period from 1991 till 1994 [11].

In the 1990^th the United States were shocked by the separation of Ukraine and its appeal to independence, so President Bush made steps to support the Soviet leader

Michael Gorbachov in his efforts to preserve the Soviet Union that was falling apart.

G. H. W. Bush administration couldn't decide and take the foreign policy strategy towards Ukraine because there were two approaches: Russia-oriented approach (it mostly considered by liberals and proponents of the idea of a block of countries united around Russia) and realists (predominantly consisted of conservatives and representatives of the school of political realism). Decisive idea in shaping “new Ukrainian foreign policy” was the fact that Ukraine was the third country in the world by the amount of strategic nuclear weapons directed against the West.

After 1990s the situation changed and the official line of Washington was oriented to develop relationships with former Soviet republics. Explaining the policy and perspectives for the course of independence the counselor of the State Department Robert Zelick mentioned: “We do not support the dissolvent of the USSR” [18, p.36].

American Congress was more receptive to the efforts of Ukrainians become independent. On the one hand the idea to support ethnic communities was traditionally appealing. On the other hand American congressmen were active participants of human right protection process that took place in Ukraine in 70-s-80-s. American Congress passed few laws connected with Ukraine and among them: the letter from Senate to President Bush on the 15^th of November of 1989 and the Resolution of two Houses about the Memory week dedicated to the victims of Ukrainian famine in 1932-1933.

Among the speeches that reflected foreign policy of the USA towards Ukraine was the one delivered by President Bush in Kyiv in July of 1991. Proclamation of independence and changes in domestic and foreign policy of Ukraine pushed G. H. W. Bush to visit Ukraine in 1991. This step was interpreted as a sign of support in favor of Ukrainian independence. President Bush delivered the speech called later as the “Chicken Kiev Speech”. The speech itself was unsuccessful, because it included compliments to M. Gorbachov whose popularity was quite low by that time. While delivering it President Bush called Ukrainians to give up the course of independence and get back to the USSR [13].

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