LIKE the proverbial hardliner who finds communists beneath his bed, Senator Gary Hart sees a Vietnam in every bush.

The Senator's fear of using American power borders on the pathological. He has opposed the deployment of US troops to Grenada and Lebanon, he refuses to commit American forces directly in order to keep open the vital Straits of Hormuz, through which much of the Western world's imported oil flows, and now he wants America to abandon Central America.

The Senator's quest for the Democratic Presidential nomination has led him to harp constantly on America's bitter memory of its involvement in Southeast Asia. He sees Central America, and particularly El Salvador, as a quagmire that will once again suck in American blood and money endlessly and without course.

Hart charges Reagan with leading this country into another unwinnable war in that region, and charges Mondale with supporting Reagan's views. Hart has even prepared a campaign ad that pictures a burning fuse and that accuses Mondale of failing to learn "the lessons of Vietnam" in Central America Hart argues that arms might not solve problems which stem from poverty, hunger, and disease. The Senator wants the U.S. immediately to "withdraw military forces introduced into Costa Rica. El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, or Nicaragua for training exercises or any other purpose..."

THE problem with Hart's approach is that it misinterprets the past and provides no program for the future El Salvador is not Vietnam, and to withdraw our troops precipitously, or even at all, would make a mockery of American policy and power in a region that is of vital importance to us.

The differences in scale between El Salvador and Vietnam are obvious. Vietnam was a huge nation with a population of over 40 million: El Salvador is a tiny country that boasts less than 5 million inhabitants. Vietnam was thousands upon thousands of miles away: San Salvador is closer to Washington than San Fransisco.

The nature of the conflict is also dissimilar. In Vietnam, we unwittingly fought not against communism, but rather Vietnamese nationalism. Ho Chi Minh succeeded not as an exponent of class struggle, but of national struggle: Vietnamese saw him as the leader who would free them from the colonial subjugation that had started with the Chinese, continued with the French, and would end with the Americans.

El Salvador, however has no recent and bitter memory of foreign oppression. There is no group or leader that holds a monopoly on the national identity. The problem is rather one of security and basic economic and political fairness. And this problem is one we are trying to address.

A recent Hart commercial, referring to Central America, warned that "those who make Peaceful Change impossible make Violent Revolution inevitable." One wonders if the Senator has paid much attention to American diplomacy in Central America over the last decade. The March 25 election, for instance, would never have occurred without American efforts.

Despite guerilla intimidation and widespread confusion over election rules, well over a million Salvadorans went to the polls to choose their President.

It is true that the electoral process in El Salvador was by no means perfect. Salvadorans felt much pressure to get an election stamp on their identity cards. Leftist candidates could not participate for fear of assassination.

But the desire for a stamped identity card simply can't explain why so many Salvadorans would go so far and wait so long to vote when simple excuses--guerilla intimidation or bureaucratice confusion--could always explain an abstention. And most importantly, the voters had a clear choice: they could pick either the murderous reactionary D'Abuisson or the conservative Guerrero and moderate Duarte.

Perhaps an even more far-reaching change has been the introduction of agrarian reform, another program sponsored by the U.S. The break-up of large landed estates has fundamentally eroded the power of the authoritarian elite and benefited tens of thousands of Salvadoran peasants. The redistribution of land, while in many cases working imperfectly and under attack, nonetheless represents a fundamental break with El Salvador's oligarchic past.

OF COURSE, despite these reforms, the situation in El Salvador remains bad. Right-wing death squads murder hundreds of civilians a month. Left-wing insurgents are groing in strength; they control one-fourth of the country and have brought the economy to a standstill with their constant attacks on the country's infrastructure.

But precisely these problems argue against American disengagement. Without America military support and advisors, the Salvadoran government would be hard pressed to survive. Violence would only increase as rightists lashed out in desperation and left-wing guerillas pressed their offensive across the nation. Improvements brought about by careful American diplomacy would be thrown to the winds. Before long, whatever remained of the country would fall under Marxist domination.

Some might argue that it matters not whether a nation as small and insignificant as El Salvador becomes communist or partially democratic. Yet to ignore ideology is to care little for one's own values. The human rights situation in Communist nations is appalling, as it is in many other countries. But no totalitarian regime has ever permitted a change of power, while many authoritarian government have done so--Argentina, Spain, and Greece are prominent examples. A communist El Salvador would never allow true elections; a formerly authoritarian El Salvador is holding them right now.

Our stake in El Salvador is not just moral: it is also strategic. Vietnam may have been on the other side of the world: Central America is in our backyard. A communist El Salvador would threaten vital American increase the pressure on democratic Honduras and Costa Rica. The growing strength of revolutionary ideology on the isthmus would make the Panama Canal even more vulnerable to attack by terrorists or governments. And a Marxist-dominated Central America would have much adverse effect on Mexico, which faces increasing demographic and political pressures in the years to come.

The examples of the past have a way of being misapplied to the present. Our experience in Southeast Asia does not teach us never to use force, but rather to employ it carefully. As Walter Mondale points out, "The lesson from Vietnam is not that we should forgo power everywhere at all times." But Gary Hart apparently wants to do just that. By unilaterally withdrawing American military might from Central America, he would foresake the chance for democratic change and endanger our own backyard. Hart's battle is long over: it does not belong in an area so close and so vital to us.