IT is unfortunate and unsettling to hear the vice president of the United States taunting his opponent for vetoing a bill which would require public school teachers to lead their students in the pledge. It is almost comical to see these two candidates falling all over themselves in an effort to salute the flag and place hand upon heart.

But what lies behind the pledge flap is something quite important, something which cannot simply be covered over and tucked away as a trivial low point in Campaign '88.

When John F. Kennedy '40 ran for the White House in 1960, a campaign to which the current candidate from Massachusetts is fond of referring, he was the first Catholic to stand a serious chance of becoming president. It was an issue that he was Catholic. Not because it should have been, or because it was strategically advantageous for his opponents to make it one, but because this nation's history of anti-Catholic sentiment mandated that it be one.

Hatred and fear of others is part of this country. The story of America, if one is willing to accept the myth which may or may not have a grounding in reality, is the story of the triumph of inclusion over prejudice. So Kennedy had no choice but to confront those who feared his Catholicism as he did in West Virginia.

THIS context is vital to understanding the current pledge flap. George Bush--or more likely his advisor, Roger Ailes--is not simply capitalizing on a cheap means of portraying Dukakis as a flaming liberal. He is tugging on the strings of xenophobia which run from coast to coast.

Kennedy was the first Catholic; Dukakis is the first ethnic candidate, the first child of immigrants of the late 19th century to attempt to push the parameters of the American dream. Those immigrants experienced prejudice, learning that a last name which sounded foreign brought them abuse more often than a welcoming gesture. But they also, by and large, found that America was open to them, and for the most part they became guardians of the rights of others to become Americans. In short, they were optimists.

The Democratic nominee achieved his zenith in the polls precisely as he was stressing his immigrant story as the motivating force in his life. By taking pride in his immigrant roots, Dukakis appeared as an energetic optimist--as opposed to previous Democrats.

He also found a means of reaching out to other neglected groups. After entering to the strains of Neil Diamond's Coming to America, Dukakis told the convention that whether one came in a slave galley or an immigrant ship, we are all in the same boat together.

But the flip side of the optimism of the immigrants' story is the paranoia that the mass of Americans' harbor toward those who are different. As quickly as they can be stirred by the story of the son of Greek immigrants, they can be frightened when reminded that he is, after all, not named Smith, Jones or even Bush.

BY raising the specter of the pledge, Bush is not so much demanding that Dukakis prove his loyalty to the flag as he is requiring that Dukakis hide his immigrant roots.

The novelist Philip Roth, who is one of the great chroniclers of what happened to many of those immigrants, observed recently that, by raising the issue of the pledge, Bush "manages to insinuate that there is something that remains unnaturalized in a man called Dukakis, an ineradicable alienness" which makes him something other.

You will notice that in recent weeks Dukakis has not mentioned his father too often (the first Greek ever to go to Harvard Medical School), or the pride he takes in his ancestors' homeland, or his favorite Greek expressions.

Before, Dukakis could emphasize his immigrant roots as a way of communicating his message; now, he must begin to hide them so that he may prove his Americanness. The change in his political rhetoric amounts to the equivalent of a name change--from Dukakis to say, Douglas.

Dukakis' recent silence has been criticized as a reluctance to fight back. But the very nature of Bush's attack is designed to induce silence. To challenge one's Americanness is to point out one's differences from the mainstream.

The accused quite naturally begins to keep low, talk softly, try not to call much attention to himself. And if the accused does decide to speak out, he affects an odd imitation of his accuser's voice. He begins to love the flag all the more, he may even ride around in a United States Army tank in front of television cameras.

Bush's constant harping on the pledge reminds us that there are still some Americans who, simply by an accident of birth, have great power over others.

The pledge issue is not trivial. It is not fluff. It is about the great gulf which still separates the dream from reality. Such gulfs do not simply pass away over time, they remain deep until they are filled. This year, either the gulf will remain, or as in 1960, a new bridge will be erected.