of North Korea's communist dictator Kim Il Sung, a clear-cut enemy of the West, demonstrates the most extraordinary lack of judgment. It ranks with the attendance of PLP delegates at a reception at the Soviet Embassy in London during Bermuda's constitutional talks.

If PLP delegates had gone to look at today's changing conditions in Warsaw, or Moscow, or Hungary or Romania since the collapse of dictatorships, we could understand that the trip had some value. A trip to help celebrate the longevity and continuance in power of the dictator of one of the few remaining hardline communist countries in the world is an action which cannot be defended.

Progressive Labour Party leader Mr. Frederick Wade rather lamely supported sending off the two delegates by saying, "We know that communism is on the way out, and we are with the West.'' Today there will be some people who wonder about that just as there were when Richard Nixon said, "I am not a crook.'' There will also be people who will wonder if being with the West is a recent PLP decision since it has now to be affirmed. What is sad for Bermuda is that there will be official doubts in the West today.

The PLP does not seem to understand that very attendance at celebrations for a communist dictator indicates support for his regime. Mr. Wade said the trip should not be construed as anything more than educational. Who needs to be educated in how to celebrate the birthday of a communist dictator? Attendance indicates support for the man and his regime. The PLP did not understand what was self-evident, that the trip could not be "educational'' because the Kim Il Sung celebrations are designed to delude. We venture to think that when communism eventually falls in North Korea the truths which will emerge will make the horrors perpetrated by the likes of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu look mild. The two PLP delegates will not learn any more from Kim Il Sung than they would have learned from Nicolae Ceausescu.

If the delegates had gone off on their own, it would have been bad enough but the trip was actually approved and authorised by the PLP, apparently after some discussion because Mr. Wade has said some party officials were worried.

It may be that the two delegates just wanted to latch on to a cheap trip. In reality, the price was very high. Yet Mr. Wade says, "We saw no harm in it.'' In other words, overall, the PLP saw no harm in displaying support for a hard-line communist dictator. Free nations have been celebrating the collapse of communism in the area of the world the Soviets used to dominate and it looks as if the PLP had to go pretty far afield to celebrate communism and dictatorship.

The PLP had to consider, and all of Bermuda now has to consider, what kind of message helping to glorify a communist dictator in 1992 sends to Bermuda's democratic friends and neighbours in the West. What will Washington and Ottawa and London make of this? We can only think that in foreign ministries throughout the democratic world this week notes have gone into the Bermuda file saying that Bermuda's Loyal Opposition flirts with communist North Korea.

The PLP sees no harm in it.