`AMERICAN DREAM' MIGHT BE NIGHTMARE FOR NEXT GENERATION

With the 100 hour ground war victory in the Persian Gulf, the Vietnam ghost faded then it returned. On one day, General Norman Schwarzkopf concluded that President Bush did to him what Presidents Johnson and Nixon had done to General William Westmoreland in Vietnam: Bush wouldn't let Schwarzkopf win the war the way it should have been won. Schwarzkopf wanted to "continue the march" until he had achieved the "annihilation" of Saddam's army. Stormin' Norman was for a wipe out; the President, he argued, was for a more limited decimation.

The next day, the general changed his mind. The ghost of Vietnam hadn't haunted him after all. He was 100 percent with his commander-in-chief. Whereas earlier the general said that "historians would second-guess" Bush's decision to stop the war, now historians would find everyone to have been in complete accord. So much for the one-day specter of old Westmoreland.

And soon there will be the ghost of Vietnam set to music: "Miss Saigon" officially opens on Broadway on Thursday. It will be a huge hit. The musical depicts a Vietnamese pimp whose ring of prostitutes cater to American G.I.s. The pimp sees that America's days in Vietnam are numbered. He is desperate to find a way to this country because, as he sings it, he fervently believes in "The American Dream." He shatters the theatre with his show-stopper:

What's that I smell in the air, the American dream.

Sweet as a new millionaire, the American dream.

Everything is for sale, the American dream.

Sweet as a suite in Bel-Air, the American dream.

Bald people think they'd grow hair, the American dream.

Call girls are lining Times Square, the American dream.

Bums there have money to spare, the American dream.

Cars that have bars take you there, the American dream.

Busboys can buy the hotel, the American dream.

Wall Street is really to sell, the American dream.

Come make a life from thin air, the American dream.

Come and get more than your share, the American dream.

As the song concludes, a giant white Cadillac convertible glides gloriously downstage with a buxom blonde in a red, white and blue sequined mini bathing suit standing up holding an American flag, a glistening crown patterned after the Statue of Liberty on her head.

The audience goes wild applauding both the rendition and the message. People leave the theatre humming "The American Dream" and thinking "Only in America such a marvelous show." Never mind that the musical was a hit imported from London and written by French~men. It's predictable that a Vietnamese pimp might paint a jaundiced picture of the States. It's even understandable that some British theatre goers applauded the lyrics for they comported with their image of America.

It's a bit more difficult to comprehend the titillated Americans' view of America.

Maybe we are haunted by more than the ghost of Vietnam. Maybe we are haunted by the blitzy ghost of the Me generation. Desert Storm, after all, hasn't totally erased the old slate of a disastrous war. Junk bonds, bankrupt S&Ls haven't erased the old greed slate.

"The American Dream" of Broadway fame is the nightmare of future generations of Americans.