[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 75 (Wednesday, June 4, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1104-E1106]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            THE PRESIDENT'S GRADUATION REMARKS AT WEST POINT

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. BENJAMIN A. GILMAN

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, June 4, 1997

  Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, last weekend I had the honor and privilege 
of welcoming the President of the United States to the graduation 
ceremony at our Nation's military academy at West Point, NY, just 
outside of my congressional district.
  The President's graduation remarks to the 896 graduates of the West 
Point class of 1997 was an inspirational and encouraging clarion call 
to our Nation's military leaders of tomorrow.
  Many of us especially welcomed the President's underscoring the 
importance of NATO expansion, an issue which I have championed for many 
years because it will help ensure not only our Nation's own security, 
but also that of our allies and those nations struggling to achieve 
democracy.
  Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to insert the President's 
remarks in full at this point in the Record:

   Remarks by the President at the U.S. Military Academy Commencement

       The President: Thank you very much. Please be seated, 
     relax. Thank you, General Christman, for those kind 
     introductory remarks and for your truly extraordinary service 
     to your nation throughout your military career. Here at West 
     Point, and before, when we had more opportunities to work 
     together on a daily basis, I have constantly admired your 
     dedication and your ability.
       General Reimer, Secretary West, Senator Reed, Chairman 
     Gilman, Congressman Shimkus, Congresswoman Kelly, Congressman 
     Sessions, former Congressman Bilbray, parents and families 
     and friends of the cadets, and especially, to the Class of 
     1997, I extend my heartfelt congratulations.
       This has been a truly remarkable class. As General 
     Christman said, you wrote an unparalleled record of academic 
     achievement in the classroom. I congratulate you all, and 
     particularly your number one honor graduate and 
     valedictorian, Adam Ake. Congratulations to all of you on 
     your accomplishments. (Applause.)
       Now, General Christman also outlined the extraordinary 
     accomplishments of your athletic teams, and he mentioned that 
     I had the privilege of seeing Army win its first 10-win 
     season in football and reclaim the Commander in Chiefs Trophy 
     in Philadelphia. And he thanked me for that. But, actually, 
     as a lifelong football fan, I deserve no thanks. It was a 
     terrific game, and I'm quite sure it was the first time in 
     the field of any endeavor of conflict where the Army defeated 
     the navy not on land, but on water. (Laughter and applause.)
       I know that in spite of all of your achievements as a class 
     and in teams, a few of you also upheld West Point's enduring 
     tradition of independence. It began in 1796 when President 
     Adams' War Department ordered the first classes in 
     fortification. And the troops here thought they already 
     knew all about that, so they burned the classroom to the 
     ground, postponing the start of instruction by five years. 
     (Laughter.)
       Today, I am reliably informed that though your spirits are 
     equably high, your infractions are more modest. Therefore, I 
     hereby exercise my prerogative to grant amnesty for minor 
     offenses to the Corps of Cadets. (Applause.) The cheering was 
     a little disconcerting--now, the operative word there was 
     ``minor.'' (Laughter.)
       Men and women of the Class of '97, today you join the Long 
     Gray Line, the Long Gray Line that stretches across two 
     centuries of unstinting devotion to America and the freedom 
     that is our greatest treasure. From the defense of Fort Erie 
     in the War of 1812 to the fury of Antietam, from the trenches 
     of Argonne to the Anzio in Okinawa, to Heartbreak Ridge, the 
     Mekong Delta, the fiery dessert of the Gulf War, the officers 
     of West Point have served and sacrificed for our nation.
       In just the four years since I last spoke here, your 
     graduates have helped to restore democracy to Haiti, to save 
     hundreds of thousands of lives from genocide and famine in 
     Rwanda, to end the bloodshed in Bosnia. Throughout our 
     history, whenever duty called, the men and women of West 
     Point have never failed us. And I speak for all Americans 
     when I say, I know you never will.
       I'd like to say a special word of appreciation to West 
     Point and a special word of congratulations to the students 
     in this class from other countries. We welcome you here; we 
     are proud to have you as a part of our military service 
     tradition. And we wish you well as you go back home. We hope 
     you, too, can advance freedom's cause, for in the 21st 
     century that is something we must do together.
       Two days ago I returned from Europe on a mission to look 
     back to one of the proudest chapters in America's history and 
     to look forward to the history we all will seek to shape for 
     our children and grandchildren. This week is the 50th 
     anniversary of the Marshall Plan, what Winston Churchill 
     described as the most unsordid act in all history.
       In 1947, Americans, exhausted by war and anxious to get on 
     with their lives at home, were summoned to embrace another 
     leadership role by a generation of remarkable leaders--
     General George Marshall, Senator Arthur Vandenberg, President 
     Harry Truman --leaders who knew there could be no lasting 
     peace and security for an America that withdrew behind its 
     borders and withdrew from the world and its responsibilities. 
     They provided the indispensable leadership to create the 
     Marshall Plan, NATO, and the first global financial 
     institutions. They, in effect, organized America and our 
     allies to meet the challenges of their time--to build 
     unparalleled prosperity, to stand firm against Soviet 
     expansionism until the light of freedom shown all across 
     Europe.
       The second purpose of my journey was inextricably tied to 
     the first. It was to look to the future, to the possibility 
     of achieving what Marshall's generation could only dream of--
     a democratic, peaceful and undivided Europe for the first 
     time in all of history; and to the necessity of America and 
     its allies once again organizing ourselves to meet the 
     challenges of our time, to secure peace and prosperity for 
     the next 50 years and beyond.
       To build and secure a new Europe, peaceful, democratic and 
     undivided at last, there must be a new NATO, with new 
     missions, new members and new partners. We have been building 
     that kind of NATO for the last three years with new partners 
     in the Partnership for Peace and NATO's first out-of-area 
     mission in Bosnia. In Paris last week, we took another giant 
     stride forward when Russia entered a new partnership with 
     NATO, choosing cooperation over confrontation, as both sides 
     affirmed that the world is different now. European security 
     is no longer a zero-sum contest between Russia and NATO; but 
     a cherished, common goal.
       In a little more than a month, I will join with other NATO 
     leaders in Madrid to invite

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     the first of Europe's new democracies in Central Europe to 
     join our Alliance, with the consent of the Senate, by 1999--
     the 50th anniversary of NATO's founding.
       I firmly believe NATO enlargement is in our national 
     interests. But because it is not without cost and risk, it is 
     appropriate to have an open, full, national discussion before 
     proceeding. I want to further that discussion here today in 
     no small measure because it is especially important to those 
     of you in this class. For, after all, as the sentinels of our 
     security in the years ahead, your work will be easier and 
     safer if we do the right thing--and riskier and much more 
     difficult if we do not.
       Europe's fate and America's future are joined. Twice in 
     half a century, Americans have given their lives to defend 
     liberty and peace in world wars that began in Europe. And we 
     have stayed in Europe in very large numbers for a long time 
     throughout the Cold War. Taking wise steps now to strengthen 
     our common security when we have the opportunity to do so 
     will help to build a future without the mistakes and the 
     divisions of the past, and will enable us to organize 
     ourselves to meet the new security challenges of the new 
     century. In this task, NATO should be our sharpest sword and 
     strongest shield.
       Some say we no longer need NATO because there is no 
     powerful threat to our security now. I say there is no 
     powerful threat in part because NATO is there. And 
     enlargement will help make it stronger.
       I believe we should take in new members to NATO for four 
     reasons. First, it will strengthen our Alliance in meeting 
     the security challenges of the 21st century, addressing 
     conflicts that threaten the common peace of all.
       Consider Bosnia--already the Czech Republic, Poland, 
     Romania, the Baltic nations and other Central European 
     countries are contributing troops and bases to NATO's 
     peacekeeping mission in Bosnia. We in the United Sates could 
     not have deployed our troops to Bosnia as safely, smoothly 
     and swiftly as we did without the help of Hungary and our 
     staging ground at Taszar, which I personally visited. The new 
     democracies we invite to join NATO are ready and able to 
     share the burdens of defending freedom in no small measure 
     because they know the cost of losing freedom.
       Second, NATO enlargement will help to secure the historic 
     gains of democracy in Europe. NATO can do for Europe's East 
     what it did for Europe's West at the end of World War II--
     provide a secure climate where freedom, democracy and 
     prosperity can flourish. Joining NATO once helped Italy, 
     Germany and Spain to consolidate their democracies. Now the 
     opening of NATO's doors has led the Central European nations 
     already--already--to deepen democratic reform, to strengthen 
     civilian control of their military, to open their economies. 
     Membership and its future prospect will give them the 
     confidence to stay the course.
       Third, enlarging NATO will encourage prospective members to 
     resolve their differences peacefully. We see all over the 
     world the terrible curse of people who are imprisoned by 
     their own ethnic, regional and nationalist hatreds, who rob 
     themselves and their children of the lives they might have 
     because of their primitive, destructive impulses that they 
     cannot control.
       When he signed the NATO Treaty in 1949, President Truman 
     said that if NATO had simply existed in 1914 or 1939, it 
     would have prevented the world wars that tore the world 
     apart. The experience of the last 50 years supports that 
     view. NATO helped to reconcile age-old adversaries like 
     France and Germany, how fast friends and allies; and clearly 
     has reduced tensions between Greece and Turkey over all these 
     decades. Already the very prospect of NATO membership has 
     helped to convince countries in Central Europe to settle more 
     than half a dozen border and ethnic disputes, any one of 
     which could have led to future conflicts. That, in turn, 
     makes it less likely that you will ever be called to fight in 
     another war across the Atlantic. (Applause.)
       Fourth, enlarging NATO, along with its Partnership for 
     Peace with many other nations and its special agreement with 
     Russia and its soon-to-be-signed partnership with Ukraine, 
     will erase the artificial line in Europe that Stalin drew, 
     and bring Europe together in security, not keep it apart in 
     instability.
       NATO expansion does not mean a differently divided Europe. 
     It is part of unifying Europe. NATO's first members should 
     not be its last. NATO's doors will remain open to all those 
     willing and able to shoulder the responsibilities of 
     membership, and we must continue to strengthen our 
     partnerships with non-members.
       Now, let me be clear to all of you, these benefits are not 
     cost- or risk-free. Enlargement will require the United 
     States to pay an estimated $200 million a year for the next 
     decade. Our allies in Canada and Western Europe are prepared 
     to do their part; so are NATO's new members. So must we.
       More important, enlargement requires that we extend to new 
     members our Alliance's most solemn security pledge, to treat 
     an attack against one as an attack against all. We have 
     always made the pledge credible through the deployment of our 
     troops and the deterrence of our nuclear weapons. In the 
     years ahead, it means that you could be asked to put your 
     lives on the line for a new NATO member, just as today you 
     can be called upon to defend the freedom of our allies in 
     Western Europe.
       In leading NATO over the past three years to open its doors 
     to Europe's new democracies, I weighed these costs very 
     carefully. I concluded that the benefits of enlargement, 
     strengthening NATO for the future, locking in democracy's 
     gains in Central Europe, building stability across the 
     Atlantic, uniting Europe, not dividing it--these gains 
     decisively outweigh the burdens. The bottom line to me is 
     clear: Expanding NATO will enhance our security. It is the 
     right thing to do. We must not fail history's challenge at 
     this moment to build a Europe peaceful, democratic, and 
     undivided, allied with us to face the new security threats of 
     the new century. A Europe that will avoid repeating the 
     darkest moments of the 20th century and fulfill the brilliant 
     possibilities of the 21st.
       This vision for a new Europe is central to our larger 
     security strategy, which you will be called upon to implement 
     and enforce. But our agenda must go beyond it because, with 
     all of our power and wealth, we are living in a world in 
     which increasingly our influence depends upon our recognizing 
     that our future is interdependent with other nations, and we 
     must work with them all across the globe; because we see the 
     threats we face tomorrow will cross national boundaries. They 
     are amplified by modern technology, communication, and 
     travel. They must be faced by like-minded nations, working 
     together. Whether we're talking about terrorism, the 
     proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, or 
     environmental degradation.
       Therefore, we must pursue five other objectives. First, we 
     must build a community of Asia Pacific nations bound by a 
     common commitment to stability and prosperity. We fought 
     three wars in Asia in half a century; Asia's stability 
     affects our peace, and Asia's explosive growth affects our 
     prosperity. That's why we've strengthened our security 
     ties to Japan and Korea, why we now meet every year with 
     the Asian Pacific leaders, why we must work with and not 
     isolate ourselves from China.
       One of the great questions that will define the future for 
     your generation of Americans is how China will define its own 
     greatness as a nation. We have worked with China because we 
     believe it is important to cooperate in ways that will shape 
     the definition of that great nation in positive, not 
     negative, ways. We need not agree with China on all issues to 
     maintain normal trade relations, but we do need normal trade 
     relations to have a chance of eventually reaching agreement 
     with China on matters of vital importance to America and the 
     world.
       Second, we are building coalitions across the world to 
     confront these new security threats that know no borders: 
     weapons proliferation, terrorism, drug trafficking, 
     environmental degradation. We have to lead in constructing 
     global arrangements that provide us the tools to deal with 
     these common threats: the Chemical Weapons Convention, the 
     Nonproliferation Treaty, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, 
     and our efforts to further reduce nuclear weapons with 
     Russia.
       Now our great task is also to build these kinds of 
     arrangements fighting terrorism, drug traffickers and 
     organized crime. Three weeks from now in Denver I will use 
     the summit of the eight leading nations to press this agenda.
       The third thing we have to do is to build an open trading 
     system. Our security is tied to the stake other nations have 
     in the prosperity of staying free and open and working with 
     others, not working against them. In no small measure because 
     of the trade agreements we have negotiated, we have not only 
     regained our position as the world's number one exporter, we 
     have increased our influence in ways that are good for our 
     security. To continue that progress it is important that I 
     have the authority to conclude smart, new market-opening 
     agreements that every President in 20 years has had.
       Some of our fellow Americans do not believe that the 
     President should have this authority anymore; they believe 
     that somehow the global economy presents a threat to us--but 
     I believe it's here to say, and I think the evidence is that 
     Americans, just as we can have the world's strongest and best 
     military, we have the strongest and best economy in the 
     world--the American people can out-work and out-compete 
     anyone given a free and fair chance. (Applause.)
       Not only that, but this is about more than money and jobs. 
     This is about security. The world, especially our democratic 
     neighbors to the south of us, are looking to us. if we don't 
     build economic bridges to them, someone else will. We must 
     make it clear that America supports free people and fair, 
     open trade.
       Fourth, we have to embrace our role as the decisive force 
     for peace. You cannot and you should not go everywhere. But 
     when our values and interests are at stake, our mission is 
     crystal clear and achievable--America should stand with our 
     allies around the world who seek to bring peace and prevent 
     slaughter. From the Middle East to Bosnia, from Haiti to 
     Northern Ireland, we have worked to contain conflict, to 
     support peace, to give children a brighter future, and it has 
     enhanced our security.
       Finally, we have to have the tools to do these jobs. Those 
     are the most powerful and best-trained military in the world 
     and a fully funded diplomacy to minimize the chances that 
     military force will be necessary.
       The long-term defense plan we have just completed will 
     increase your readiness, capabilities, and technological 
     edge. In a world of persistent dangers, you must and you will 
     be

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     able to dominate the conflicts of the future as you did the 
     battlefields of the past.
       Fifty-five years ago, in the early days of World War II, 
     General George Marshall, the man we honored this week, spoke 
     here at your commencement about the need to organize our 
     nation for the ordeal of war. He said, we are determined that 
     before the sun sets on this terrible struggle, our flag will 
     be recognized as a symbol of freedom on the one hand and of 
     overwhelming power on the other.
       Today, our flag of freedom and power flies higher than 
     ever, but because our nation stands at the pinnacle of its 
     power, it also stands at the pinnacle of its responsibility. 
     Therefore, as you carry our flag into this new era, we must 
     organize ourselves to meet the challenges of the next 50 
     years. We must shape the peace for a new and better century 
     about to dawn so that you can give your children and your 
     grandchildren the America and the world they deserve.
       God bless you and God bless America. (Applause.)

       

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