November 8, 1999
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT AT QUANDT LECTURE Georgetown University Washington. D.C.
3:27 P.M. EST
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
_________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release November 8,
1999
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
AT QUANDT LECTURE
Georgetown University
Washington. D.C.
3:27 P.M. EST
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, Secretary Albright, for your
introduction and your leadership. From the reception you just received, I
would say you can come home at any time. But I hope you'll wait a while
longer.
Thank you, Father O'Donovan, for welcoming me back to Georgetown.
Dean Gallucci, thank you. Mrs. Quandt, thank you so much for this lecture.
And to the representatives of BMW, members of the diplomatic community, the
many distinguished citizens who are here, and to Mr. Billington, Mrs.
Graham, and others, and to all the young students who are here -- in many
ways, this day is especially for you.
I, too, want to say a special word of thanks to Prime Minister
Zeman of the Czech Republic and Prime Minister Dzurinda of Slovakia. They
have come a long way to be with us today. They have come a long way with
their people in the last decade -- from dictatorship to democracy; from
command and control to market economies; from isolation to integration with
Europe and the rest of the world. It has been a remarkable journey. You
and your people have made the most of the triumph of freedom after the Cold
War. We thank you for your example, and for your leadership and your
friendship, and we welcome you. Thank you. (Applause.)
Today we celebrate one of history's most remarkable triumphs of
human freedom: the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, surely one
of the happiest and most important days of the 20th century.
For the young people, the undergraduates who are here who were,
at that time, 9 or 10 years old, it must be hard to sense the depth of
oppression of the communist system, the sense of danger that gripped
America and the world. I still remember all of our air-raid drills when I
was in grade school, preparing for the nuclear war as if, if we got in some
basement, it would be all right. (Laughter.) It, therefore, may be hard
to imagine the true sense of exuberance and pride that the free world felt
a decade ago.
So, today, I say to you, it is important to recall the major
events of that period; to remember the role America was privileged to play
in the victory of freedom in Europe; to review what we have done since; to
realize the promise of that victory; and most important of all, to reaffirm
our determination to finish the job -- to complete a Europe whole, free,
democratic, and at peace, for the first time in all of history.
Let's start by looking back a decade ago at Berlin. If the
Soviet empire was a prison, then Berlin was the place where everyone could
see the bars and look behind them. On one side of the wall lived a free
people, shaping their destiny in the image of their dreams. On the other
lived a people who desperately wanted to be free, that had found themselves
trapped behind a wall of deadly uniformity and daily indignities, in an
empire that, indeed, could only exist behind a wall, for, ever if an
opening appeared, letting ideas in and people out, the whole structure
surely would collapse.
In the end, that is exactly what happened in the fall of 1989.
Poland and Hungary already were on the road to democracy. President
Gorbachev of the Soviet Union had made clear that Soviet forces would not
stand in their way. Then, Hungary opened its borders to the West, allowing
East Germans to escape. Then the dam broke. Berliners took to the street,
shouting, "We are one people." And on November 9th, a decade ago, the wall
was breached. Two weeks later, the Velvet Revolution swept Czechoslovakia,
started by university students, just like the undergraduates here, marching
through Prague, singing the Czech version of "We Shall Overcome." Then, in
Romania, the dictator Ceausescu, fell in the bloody uprising. A little
more than a year later, the Soviet Union itself was no more. A democratic
Russia was born.
Those events transformed our world and changed our lives and
shaped the future of the young people in this grand room today. Yes, the
students of our era will still grow to live in a world full of danger, but
probably -- and hopefully -- they will not have to live in fear of a total
war in which millions could be killed in a single deadly exchange. Yes,
America will still bear global responsibilities, but we will be able to
invest more of our wealth in the welfare of our children and more of our
energy in peaceful pursuits.
You will compete in a global marketplace, travel to more places
than any generation before you, share ideas and experiences with people
from every culture -- more and more of whom have embraced, and will
continue to embrace, both democracy and free markets.
How did all this happen? Well, mostly it happened because, from
the very beginning, oppressed people refused to accept their fate. Not in
Poland in 1981, when Lech Walesa jumped over the wall at the Gdansk
Shipyard and Solidarity first went on strike; or in Czechoslovakia, during
the Prague Spring of 1968. I was there a year and a half later as a young
student, and I never will forget the look in the eyes of the university
students then and their determination eventually to be free.
They did not accept their fate in Hungary in 1956, or even in St.
Petersburg way back in 1920, when the sailors who had led the Soviet
revolution first rose against their new oppressors. They did not accept
their fate in any Soviet home where the practice of religion was preserved,
though it was suppressed by the state; or in countless acts of resistance
we have never heard of, committed by heroes whose names we will never know.
The amazing fact is that all those years of repression simply
failed to crush people's spirits or their hunger for freedom. Years of
lies just made them want the truth that much more. Years of violence just
made them want peaceful struggle, and peaceful politics, that much more.
Though denied every opportunity to express themselves, when they were
finally able to do it they did a remarkable job of saying quite clearly
what they believed and what they wanted: democratic citizenship, and the
blessings of ordinary life.
Of course, their victory also would not have been possible
without the perseverance of the United States and our allies, standing firm
against the Iron Curtain and standing firm with the friends of freedom
behind it. Fifty years ago, when all this began, it was far from certain
that we would do that. It took determination -- the determination of
President Truman to break the blockade of the Soviet Union of Berlin; to
send aid to Greece and Turkey; to meet aggression in Korea. It took the
determination of all his successors to ensure that Soviet expansion went no
further than it did.
It took vision -- the vision of American leaders who launched the
Marshall Plan, and brought Germany into NATO, not just to feed Europe or to
defend it, but to unify it as never before, around freedom and democracy.
It took persistence -- the persistence of every President, from Eisenhower
to Kennedy to Bush, to pursue policies for four decades until they bore
fruit.
It took resources to bolster our friends and build a military
that adversaries ultimately knew they could not match. It took faith to
believe that we could prevail while avoiding both appeasement and war; that
our open society would in time prove stronger than any closed and fearful
society.
It took conviction -- the conviction of President Reagan, who
said so plainly what many people on the other side of the Wall had trouble
understanding, that the Soviet empire was evil and the wall should be torn
down; the conviction of President Carter, who put us on the side of
dissidents and kept them alive to fight another day.
And it took leadership in building alliances, and keeping them
united in crisis after crisis -- and finally, under President Bush, in
managing skillfully the fall of the Soviet empire, and the unification of
Germany, and setting the stage for a Europe whole and free.
This was the situation, the remarkable situation that I inherited
when I took office in 1993. The Cold War had been won. But in many ways,
Europe was still divided -- between the haves and have-nots; between the
secure and insecure; between members of NATO and the EU, and those who were
not members of either body and felt left out in the cold; between those who
had reconciled themselves with people of different racial and religious and
ethnic groups within their borders, and those who were still torn apart by
those differences.
And so we set out to do for the Eastern half of Europe what we
helped to do for the Western half after World War II -- to provide
investment and aid, to tear down trade barriers so new democracies could
stand on their feet economically; to help them overcome tensions that had
festered under communism; and to stand up to the forces of aggression and
hate, as we did in the Balkans; to expand our institutions, beginning with
NATO, so that a Europe of shared values could become a Europe of shared
responsibilities and benefits.
Since then, there have unquestionably been some setbacks -- some
small and some great. Under communism, most everyone was equally poor.
Now, some people race ahead, while others lag far behind. Former
dissidents who once struggled for freedom are now politicians trying to
create jobs, to fight corruption and crime, to provide basic security for
people who are simply tired of having to struggle.
Most terrible of all have been the wars in the former Yugoslavia,
which claimed a quarter-million lives and pushed millions from their homes.
But, still, 10 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, most of Europe is
unquestionably better off
-- as these two leaders so clearly demonstrate.
Democracy has taken root, from Estonia in the north to Bulgaria
in the south. Some of the most vibrant economies in the world now lie east
of the old Iron Curtain. Russia has withdrawn its troops from Central
Europe and the Baltics, accepted the independence of its neighbors -- and
for all its own problems, has not wavered from the path of democracy.
The armed forces of most every country, from Ukraine to Romania
all the way to Central Asia, now actually train with NATO. NATO has three
new allies -- Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic -- three strong
democracies that have stood with us in every crisis, from Iraq to Bosnia to
Kosovo. Other new democracies are eager to join us as well, including
Slovakia, and they know our alliance is open to all who are ready to meet
its obligation. Eleven countries are beginning a process that will lead
them to membership in the European Union.
And just as important, because we and our allies stood up to
ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Kosovo, the century is not ending on a note
of despair with the knowledge that innocent men, women and children on the
doorstep of NATO can be expelled and killed simply because of their ethnic
heritage and the way they worship their God. Instead, it ends with a
ringing affirmation of the inherent human dignity of every individual.
With our alliance of 19 democracies strong and united, working
with partners across the continent, including Russia, to keep the peace in
the Balkans. With new hope for a Europe that can be, for the first time in
history, undivided, democratic and at peace. I hope all of you will be
proud of what your country and its allies have achieved, but I hope you
will be even more determined to finish the job, for there is still much to
be done.
On Friday, I will leave on a trip to Greece and Turkey, Italy and
Bulgaria. This trip is about reinforcing ties with some of our oldest
allies, and completing the unfinished business of building that stable,
unified, and democratic Europe. I believe there are three principal
remaining challenges to that vision that we must meet across the Atlantic,
and I might say one great challenge we must meet at home.
The first is the challenge of building the right kind of
partnership with Russia -- a Russia that is stable, democratic and
cooperatively engaged with the West. That is difficult to do because
Russia is struggling economically. It has tens of thousands of weapons
scientists -- listen to this -- it has tens of thousands of weapons
scientists making an average of $100 a month, struggling to maintain the
security of a giant nuclear arsenal. It has mired itself again in the
cruel cycle of violence in Chechnya that is claiming many innocent lives.
We should protect our interests in Russia, and speak plainly
about actions we believe are wrong. But we should also remember what
Russia is struggling to overcome and the legacy with which it must deal.
Less than a generation ago, the Russians were living in a society that had
no rule of law, no private initiative, no truth-telling -- no chance for
individuals to shape their own destiny. Now they live in a country with a
free press, with almost 1 million small businesses, a country that should
experience next year its first democratic transfer of power in a thousand
years.
Russia's transformation has just begun. It is incomplete; it is
awkward. Sometimes it is not pretty. But we have a profound stake in its
success. Years from now, I don't think we will be criticized, any of us,
for doing too much to help. But we can certainly be criticized if we do
too little.
A second challenge will be to implement, with our allies, a plan
for stability in the Balkans, so that region's bitter ethnic problems can
no longer be exploited by dictators, and Americans do not have to cross the
Atlantic again to fight in another war. We will do that by strengthening
democracies in the region, promoting investment and trade, bringing nations
steadily into Western institutions, so they feel a unifying magnet that is
more powerful than the internal forces that divide them.
I want to say that again -- I am convinced that the only way to
avoid future Balkan wars is to integrate the countries of Southeastern
Europe more with each other, and then more with the rest of Europe. We
have to create positive forces that pull the people toward unity, which are
stronger than the forces of history pulling them toward division, hatred
and death.
We must also push for a democratic transition in Serbia. Mr.
Milosevic is the last living relic of the age of European dictators of the
communist era. That era came crashing down with the Wall. He sought to
preserve his dictatorship by substituting communist totalitarianism with
ethnic hatred and the kind of mindless unity that follows if you are bound
together by your hatred of people who are different from you. The
consequences have been disastrous -- not only for the Bosnians and the
Kosovars, but for the Serbs, as well.
If we are going to make democracy and tolerance the order of the
day in the Balkans, so that they, too, can tap into their innate
intelligence and ingenuity and enjoy prosperity and freedom, there can be
no future for him and his policy of manipulating human differences for
inhuman ends.
A third challenge is perhaps the oldest of them all, and in some
ways, perhaps the hardest -- to build a lasting peace in the Aegean Sea
region, to achieve a true reconciliation between Greece and Turkey, and
bridge the gulf between Europe and the Islamic world.
When I am in Greece, I'm going to speak about the vital role
Greece is playing and can play in Europe. The world's oldest democracy is
a model to the younger democracies of the Balkans, a gateway to their
markets, a force for stability in the region. The one thing standing
between Greece and its true potential is the tension in its relationship
with Turkey.
Greece and Turkey, ironically, are both our NATO allies, and each
other's NATO allies. They have served together with distinction in the
Balkans. Their people helped each other with great humanity when the
terrible earthquakes struck both lands earlier this year. This is a
problem that can be solved. Eventually, it will be solved. And I intend
to see that the United States does everything we possibly can to be of
help. When I go to Turkey, I will point out that much of the history of
the 20th century, for better or worse, was shaped by the way the old
Ottoman Empire collapsed before and after World War I, and the decisions
that the European powers made in the aftermath.
I believe the coming century will be shaped in good measure by
the way in which Turkey, itself, defines its future and its role today and
tomorrow. For Turkey is a country at the crossroads of Europe, the Middle
East and Central Asia; the future can be shaped for the better if Turkey
can become fully a part of Europe, as a stable, democratic, secular,
Islamic nation.
This, too, can happen if there is progress in overcoming
differences with Greece -- especially over Cypress; if Turkey continues to
strengthen respect for human rights; and if there is a real vision on the
part of our European allies, who must be willing to reach out and to
believe that it is at Turkey where Europe and the Muslim world can meet in
peace and harmony, to give us a chance to have the future of our dreams in
that part of the world in the new millennium.
Now, the last challenge is one we can only meet here at home. We
have to decide, quite simply, to maintain the tradition of American
leadership and engagement in the world that played such a critical role in
winning the Cold War and in helping us to win the peace over this last
decade.
Think about it -- we spent trillions of dollars in the Cold War
to defeat a single threat to our way of life. Now, we are at the height of
our power and prosperity. Let me just ask you to focus on this and measure
where we are as against what has been happening in the debate about
maintaining our leadership. We have the lowest unemployment rate in this
country in 30 years, the lowest welfare rolls in 30 years, the lowest crime
rates in 30 years, the lowest poverty rates in 20 years, the first back to
back budget surpluses in 42 years, and the smallest federal government in
37 years. In my lifetime, we have never had -- ever -- as a people, the
opportunity we now have to build the future of our dreams for our children.
In the early 1960s, we had an economy that closely approximated
this, but we had to deal with the challenge of civil rights at home and
also from the Vietnam War abroad. Today, we are not burdened by crisis at
home or crisis abroad, and the world is out there, looking to see what we
are going to do with the blessings God has bestowed upon us at this moment
in time.
Everything else I said will either happen or not happen without
American involvement unless we make up our minds that we are going to stay
with the approach to the world that has brought us to this happy point in
human history. That is the most important decision of all.
Now, what are we doing? Well, first, our military budget is
growing again to meet new demands. That has to happen. But I want to
point out to all of you, it is still, in real terms, $110 billion less than
it was when the Berlin Wall fell. Everyone agrees that most of that money
should be reinvested here at home. But don't you think just a small part
of the peace dividend should be invested in maintaining the peace we
secured and meeting the unmet challenges of the 21st century?
Look at all the money we spent at such great cost over the last
50 years. The amazing fact is we are not spending a penny more today to
advance our interest in the spread of peace, democracy and free markets
than we did during the 1980s. Indeed, we are spending $4 billion less each
year.
I think it's worth devoting some small fraction of this nation's
great wealth and power to help build a Europe where wars don't happen,
where our allies can do their share and we help them to do so;to seize this
historic opportunity for peace between Arabs and Israelis in the Middle
East; to make sure that nuclear weapons from the former Soviet Union don't
fall into the wrong hands; to make sure that the nuclear scientists have
enough money to live on and to feed their families by doing constructive,
positive things so they're not vulnerable to the entreaties of the
remaining forces of destruction in the world; to relieve the debts of the
most impoverished countries on Earth, so they can grow their economies,
build their democracies and be good, positive partners with us in the new
century; and to meet our obligations to and through the United Nations, so
that we can share the burden of leadership with others, when it obviously
has such good results.
I think most Americans agree with this. But some disagree -- and
it appears they are disproportionately represented in the deciding body.
Some believe America can and should go it alone, either withdrawing from
the world and relying primarily on our military strength, or by seeking to
impose our will when things are happening that don't suit us.
Well, I have taken the stand for a different sort of approach --
for a foreign affairs budget that will permit us to advance our most
critical priorities around the world. That's why I vetoed the first bill
that reached my desk; why I'm pleased that Democrats and Republicans in
Congress worked together last week on a strong compromise that meets many
of our goals. But we're not finished yet. We still must work to get
funding for our United Nations obligations and authorization to allow the
use of IMF resources for debt relief.
This is a big issue. It has captured public attention as never
before. I mean, just think about it: This issue for debt relief for the
millennium is being headlined by the Pope and Bono, the lead singer for U2.
(Laughter.) That is very broad base of support for this initiative.
(Laughter.) Most of the rest of us can be found somewhere in between our
pole-star leaders there.
But it's not just a political issue. It is the smart thing to
do. If you go to Africa, you see what competent countries can do to get
the AIDS rate down, to build democratic structures, to build successful
economies and growth. But we have to give them a chance. And the same is
true in Latin America, in the Caribbean, in other places. This is a big
issue.
I hope the bipartisan agreement we reached over the weekend on
the foreign affairs budget is a good sign that we are now moving to
reestablish and preserve the bipartisan center that believes in America's
role in the new post-Cold War world.
In the coming year, we have an ambitious agenda that also
deserves bipartisan support. We have about 100 days to meet the ambitious
timetable the leaders of the Middle East have set for themselves to achieve
a framework agreement. We have to secure the peace in the Balkans. We
have to ease tensions between India and Pakistan. We have to help Russia
to stabilize its economy, resolve the conflict in Chechnya, and cheer them
on as they have their first democratic transfer of power, ever.
- -
MORE
We have to bring China into the World Trade Organization, while
continuing to speak plainly about human rights and religious freedom. We
have to launch a new global trade round in African and Caribbean trade
bills, press ahead with debt relief, support the hopeful transitions to
democracy in Nigeria and Indonesia, help Colombia defeat the narco
traffickers, contain Iraq and restrain North Korea's missile program. We
have to continue to do more to fight terrorism around the world. And we
must do what is necessary -- and for the young people here, I predict for
20 years this will become a national security issue -- we have to do more
to reverse the very real phenomenon of global warming and climate change.
To meet those challenges and more, we simply must hold on to the
qualities that sustained us throughout the long Cold War; the wisdom to see
that America benefits when the rest of the world is moving toward freedom
and prosperity; to recognize that if we wait until problems come home to
America before we act, they will come home to America.
We need the determination to stand up to the enemies of peace --
whether tyrants like Milosevic or terrorists like those who attacked our
embassies in Africa. We need faith in our own capacity to do what is
right, even when it's hard -- whether that means building peace in the
Middle East or democracy in Russia or a constructive partnership with
China. We need the patience to stick with those efforts for as long as it
takes, and the resources to see them through.
And, most of all, we need to maintain the will to lead; to
provide the kind of American leadership that for 50 years has brought
friends and allies to our side, while moving mountains around the world.
Years from now, I want people to say those were the qualities of
this generation of Americans. I want them to say that when the Cold War
ended, we refused to settle for the easy satisfaction of victory, to walk
home and let our European friends go it alone. We did not allow the larger
prize of a safer, better world to slip through our fingers.
We stood and supported the Germans as they bravely reunified, and
supported the Europeans as they built a true union and expanded it. We
stood against ethnic slaughter and ethnic cleansing. We stood for the
right kind of partnership with Russia. We acted to try to help Christian
and Jewish and Muslim people reconcile themselves in the Middle East, and
in the bridge represented by Turkey's outreach to Europe. I want them to
say that America followed through, so that we would not have to fight
again.
A few months ago, my family and I went to a refugee camp full of
children from Kosovo. They were chanting their appreciation to the United
States, thanking America for giving them a chance to reclaim their lives.
It was an incredibly moving event, with children who have been traumatized
far beyond their ability even to understand what has happened to them, but
who know they have been given a chance to go home now.
Years from now, I believe the young people in this audience will
have a chance to go to Europe time and time again, and you will, doubtless,
meet some of those children. Or, maybe some of the young people who
actually tore down the Berlin Wall, or marched in the Velvet Revolution.
They will be older then. I hope they will say, when I was young I sang
America's praises with my voice, but I still carry them in my heart. I
think that will be true if America stays true. That is what we ought to
resolve to do on the anniversary of this marvelous triumph of freedom.
Thank you very much. (Applause.)
END 4:02 P.M. EST
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