Dissent on War Is Part of '4 Freedoms,' Bush Is Told : History: F.D.R. is remembered at the Capitol. His granddaughter takes issue with the President's view.

Dissent on War Is Part of ‘4 Freedoms,’ Bush Is Told : History: F.D.R. is remembered at the Capitol. His granddaughter takes issue with the President’s view.

By WILLIAM J. EATON

Jan. 31, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

WASHINGTON — A granddaughter of Franklin D. Roosevelt quietly challenged President Bush during a Capitol Hill ceremony Wednesday by reminding him that Americans who oppose the Gulf War are exercising one of the “Four Freedoms” that F.D.R. first enunciated half a century ago.

Her soft-spoken dissent came as a somber counterpoint to Bush’s stirring call for national unity and support of the U.S. military operation in his State of the Union address Tuesday night.

“These are difficult days for persons of conscience,” Anne Roosevelt said as she began her remarks at a 50th anniversary commemoration of her grandfather’s 1941 State of the Union message.

“Those wonderful, hopeful headlines--’The Cold War is Over’--have been replaced by ‘America at War,’ ” she continued.

Bush, who spoke a few minutes after Roosevelt made her unusually blunt comments, did not respond directly. He invoked F.D.R.’s memory in justifying the war against Iraq and its leader, Saddam Hussein, as a quest for a moral standard in international affairs.

“The triumph of the moral order must still be the vision that compels us,” Bush said. “So we ask God to bless us, to guide us, and to help us through whatever dark nights we still may face.”

Roger Porter, a White House aide, indicated unhappiness with Anne Roosevelt, however. He told reporters: “She’s not like her grandfather.”

Bush and top congressional leaders, gathered in Statuary Hall, listened in silence to the words of Anne Roosevelt, daughter of former Rep. James Roosevelt of Los Angeles. Coincidentally, her comments came on the 109th anniversary of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s birth.

“Last spring we held the hope of peace, on what turned out to be the eve of conflict,” she said. “Half a century ago my grandfather, in this Capitol, gave a speech about peace when we, as a nation, were on the very edge of war.

“Fifty years from now, will my daughter stand here in celebration of a world order where nations everywhere work together for a hopeful, more civilized future?” she asked. “Or will she stand to merely remember that someone once called us, in eloquent tone and terms, to that high concept? I do not know.”

“But I do know--as you, Mr. President, said last night--it is concern which supports the protest and honest objection to this war, not anti-patriotism or lack of respect for the bravery of our troops,” she said. “And this nation is a good enough society to listen and consider.”

Addressing the audience, which included many leading members of the House and Senate as well as the President, she added:

“You are leaders of conscience. . . . Exercise your leadership in pursuit of that high concept--that freedom of speech and expression and worship (and) freedom from want and from fear might be attained in our own time and generation.”

Her mention of the “Four Freedoms” came after the playing of a brief recorded excerpt from F.D.R.’s address to Congress on Jan. 6, 1941, when he urged passage of Lend-Lease legislation to help Britain stave off Nazi attacks.