[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 81 (Wednesday, June 11, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1183-E1185]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS OF SECRETARY OF STATE MADELEINE K. ALBRIGHT AT 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY 50 YEARS AFTER SECRETARY OF STATE GEORGE C. MARSHALL 
                      ANNOUNCED THE MARSHALL PLAN

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. TOM LANTOS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, June 11, 1997

  Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, this past week the United States and the 
countries of Western Europe celebrated the 50th anniversary of the June 
5, 1947, Commencement Address at Harvard University by then Secretary 
of State George C. Marshall in which the idea of the Marshall plan was 
first publicly discussed.
  Fifty years to the day after Secretary Marshall delivered that 
seminal speech, our current Secretary of State, Madeleine K. Albright, 
was likewise honored with an honorary degree from Harvard University. 
It was an appropriate and well-deserved honor for Secretary Albright. 
She has demonstrated during her 5 short months as Secretary of State 
great sensitivity and outstanding ability to deal with the foreign 
policy issues facing our Nation. During the previous 4 years when she 
served as the Permanent U.S. Representative to the United Nations, she 
demonstrated great diplomatic capability as she acted to further our 
interests in that world body. She has had a most distinguished academic 
career, and she has been actively involved in public service throughout 
her life.
  In her address at the Harvard University commencement, Secretary 
Albright, gave an address that was a masterfully crafted balance of 
graduation humor, tribute to her predecessor coupled with proper 
commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Marshall plan, and the 
articulation of a vision of the challenges and opportunities for United 
States foreign policy at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 
21st century.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask that Secretary Albright's historic commencement 
address be placed in the Record and I urge my colleagues to give it the 
serious and thoughtful attention is clearly deserves.

       Secretary Albright: Thank you. Thank you, President 
     Pforzheimer, Governor Weld, President Rudenstine, President 
     Wilson, fellow honorands, men and women of Harvard, all those 
     who comprise the Harvard community, guests and friends, thank 
     you.
       I'm delighted to be here on this day of celebration and 
     rededication. To those of you who are here from the class of 
     `97, I say congratulations. (Applause.) You may be in debt, 
     but you made it. (Laughter.) And if you're not in debt now, 
     after the alumni association get through with you, you will 
     be. (Laughter and applause.)
       In fact, I would like to solicit the help of this audience 
     for the State Department budget. (Laughter.) It is under $20 
     billion.
       As a former professor and current mother, I confess to 
     loving graduation days--especially when they are accompanied 
     by a honorary degree. I love the ceremony; I love the 
     academic settings; and although it will be difficult for me 
     today--let's be honest--I love to daydream during the 
     commencement speech. (Laughter.)
       Graduations are unique among the milestones of our lives, 
     because they celebrate past accomplishments, while also 
     anticipating the future. That is true for each of the 
     graduates today, and it is true for the United States. During 
     the past few years, we seem to have observed the 50th 
     anniversary of everything. Through media and memory, we have 
     again been witness to paratroopers filling the skies over 
     Normandy; the liberation of Buchenwald; a sailor's kiss in 
     Times Square; and Iron Curtain descending; and Jackie 
     Robinson sliding home.
       Today, we recall another turning point in that era. For on 
     this day 50 years ago, Secretary of State George Marshall 
     addressed the graduating students of this great university. 
     He spoke to a class enriched by many who had fought for 
     freedom, and deprived of many who had fought for freedom and 
     died. The Secretary's words were plain; but his message 
     reached far beyond the audience assembled in this year to an 
     American people weary of war and wary of new commitments, and 
     to a Europe where life-giving connections between farm and 
     market, enterprise and capital, hope and future had been 
     severed.
       Secretary Marshall did not adorn his rhetoric and high-
     flown phrases, saying only that it would be logical for 
     America to help restore normal economic health to the world, 
     without which their could be no political stability and no 
     assured peace. He did not attach to his plan the label, Made 
     in America; but rather invited European ideas and required 
     European countries to do all they could to help themselves. 
     His vision was inclusive, leaving the door open to 
     participation by all, including the Soviet Union--and so 
     there would be no repetition of the punitive peace of 
     versailles--also to Germany.
       British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin called the Marshall 
     Plan a ``lifeline to sinking men,'' and it was--although I 
     expect some women in Europe were equally appreciative. 
     (Laughter)
       By extending that lifeline, America helped unify Europe's 
     west around democratic principles, and planted seeds of 
     transatlantic partnership that would soon blossom in the form 
     of NATO and the cooperative institutions of a new Europe. 
     Just as important was the expression of American leadership 
     that the Marshall Plan conveyed.
       After World War I, America had withdrawn from the world, 
     shunning responsibility and avoiding risk. Others did the 
     same. The result in the heart of Europe was the rise of great 
     evil. After the devastation of World War II and the soul-
     withering horror of the Holocaust, it was not enough to say 
     that the enemy had been vanquished, that what we were against 
     had failed.
       The generation of Marshall, Truman and Vandenberg was 
     determined to build a lasting peace. And the message that 
     generation conveyed, from the White House, from both parties 
     on Capitol Hill, and from people across our country who 
     donated millions in relief cash, clothing and food was that 
     this time, America would not turn inward; America would lead.
       Today, in the wake of the Cold War, it is not enough for us 
     to say that Communism has failed. We, too, must heed the 
     lessons of the past, accept responsibility and lead. Because 
     we are entering a century in which there will be many 
     interconnected centers of population, power and wealth, we 
     cannot limit our focus, as Marshall did in his speech to the 
     devastated battleground of a prior war. Our vision must 
     encompass not one, but every continent.
       Unlike Marshall's generation, we face no single galvanizing 
     threat. The dangers we confront are less visible and more 
     diverse--some as old as ethnic conflict, some as new as 
     letter bombs, some as subtle as climate change, and some as 
     deadly as nuclear weapons falling into the wrong hands. To 
     defend against these threats, we must take advantage of the 
     historic opportunity that now exists to bring the world 
     together in an international system based on democracy, open 
     markets, law and a commitment to peace.
       We know that not every nation is yet willing or able to 
     play its full part in this system. One group is still in 
     transition from centralized planning and totalitarian rule. 
     Another has only begun to dip its toes into economic and 
     political reform. Some nations are still too weak to 
     participate in a meaningful way. And a few countries have 
     regimes that actively oppose the premises upon which this 
     system is based.
       Because the situation we face today is different from that 
     confronted by Marshall's generation, we cannot always use the 
     same means. But we can summon the same spirit. We can strive 
     for the same sense of bipartisanship that allowed America in 
     Marshall's day to present to both allies and adversaries a 
     united front. We can invest resources needed to keep America 
     strong economically, militarily and diplomatically-
     recognizing, as did Marshall, that these strengths reinforce 
     each other. We can act with the same knowledge that in our 
     era, American security and prosperity are linked to economic 
     and political health abroad. And we can recognize, even as we 
     pay homage to the heroes of history, that we have our own 
     duty to be authors of history.
       Let every nation acknowledge today the opportunity to be 
     part of an international system based on democratic 
     principles is available to all. This was not the case 50 
     years ago.
       Then, my father's boss, Jan Masaryk, foreign minister of 
     what was then Czechoslovakia--was told by Stalin in Moscow 
     that his country must not participate in the Marshall Plan, 
     despite its national interest in doing so. Upon his return to 
     Prague, Masaryk said it was at that moment, he understood he 
     was employed by a government no longer sovereign in its own 
     land.
       Today, there is no Stalin to give orders. If a nation is 
     isolated from the international community now, it is either 
     because the country is simply too weak to meet international 
     standards, or because its leaders have chosen willfully to 
     disregard those standards.
       Last week in the Netherlands, President Clinton said that 
     no democratic nation in Europe would be left out of the 
     transatlantic community. Today I say that no nation in the 
     world need be left out of the global system we are 
     constructing. And every nation that seeks to participate and 
     is willing to do all it can to help itself will have 
     America's help in finding the right path. (Applause.)
       In Africa, poverty, disease, disorder and misrule have cut 
     off millions from the international system. But Africa is a 
     continent rich both in human and natural resources. And 
     today, it's best new leaders are pursuing reforms that are 
     helping private enterprise and democratic institutions to 
     gain a foothold. Working with others, we must lend momentum 
     by maintaining our assistance, encouraging investment, 
     lowering the burden of debt and striving to create successful 
     models for others to follow.
       In Latin America and the Caribbean, integration is much 
     further advanced. Nations throughout our hemisphere are 
     expanding commercial ties, fighting crime, working to raise 
     living standards and cooperating to ensure that economic and 
     political systems endure.
       In Asia and the Pacific, we see a region that has not only 
     joined the international system, but has become a driving 
     force behind it--a region that is home to eight of the ten 
     fastest growing economies in the world.
       With our allies, we have worked to ease the threat posed by 
     North Korea's nuclear program, and invited that country to 
     end its

[[Page E1184]]

     self-imposed isolation. We have encouraged China to expand 
     participation in the international system and to observe 
     international norms on everything from human rights to export 
     of arms-related technologies.
       Finally, in Europe, we are striving to fulfill the vision 
     Marshall proclaimed but the Cold War prevented--the vision of 
     a Europe, whole and free, united--as President Clinton said 
     this past week--``not by the force of arms, but by 
     possibilities of peace.''
       Where half a century ago, American leadership helped lift 
     Western Europe to prosperity and democracy, so today the 
     entire transatlantic community is helping Europe's newly free 
     nations fix their economies and cement the rule of law.
       Next month in Madrid, NATO will invite new members from 
     among the democracies of Central and Eastern Europe, while 
     keeping the door to future membership open to others. This 
     will not, as some fear, create a new source of division 
     within Europe. On the contrary, it is erasing the unfair and 
     unnatural line imposed half a century ago; and it is giving 
     nations an added incentive to settle territorial disputes, 
     respect minority and human rights and complete the process of 
     reform.
       NATO is a defensive alliance that harbors no territorial 
     ambitions. It does not regard any state as its adversary, 
     certainly not a democratic and reforming Russia that is 
     intent on integrating with the West, and with which it has 
     forged an historic partnership, signed in Paris just nine 
     days ago.
       Today, from Ukraine to the United States, and from 
     Reykjavik to Ankara, we are demonstrating that the quest for 
     European security is no longer a zero-sum game. NATO has new 
     allies and partners. The nations of Central and Eastern 
     Europe are rejoining in practice the community of values they 
     never left in spirit. And the Russian people will have 
     something they have not had in centuries--a genuine and 
     sustainable peace with the nations to their west.
       The Cold War's shadow no longer darkens Europe. But one 
     specter from the past does remain. History teaches us that 
     there is no natural geographic or political endpoint to 
     conflict in the Balkans, where World War I began and where 
     the worst European violence of the past half-century occurred 
     in this decade. That is why the peaceful integration of 
     Europe will not be complete until the Dayton Peace Accords in 
     Bosnia are fulfilled. (Applause.)
       When defending the boldness of the Marshall Plan 50 years 
     ago, Senator Arthur Vandenberg observed that it does little 
     good to extend a 15-foot rope to a man drowning 20 feet away. 
     Similarly, we cannot achieve our objectives in Bosnia by 
     doing just enough to avoid immediate war. We must do all we 
     can to help the people of Bosnia to achieve permanent peace.
       In recent days, President Clinton has approved steps to 
     make the peace process irreversible, and give each party a 
     clear stake in its success. This past weekend, I went to the 
     region to deliver in person the message that if the parties 
     want international acceptance or our aid, they must meet 
     their commitments--including full cooperation with the 
     international war crimes tribunal. (Applause.)
       That tribunal represents a choice not only for Bosnia and 
     Rwanda, but for the world. We can accept atrocities as 
     inevitable, or we can strive for a higher standard. We can 
     presume to forget what only God and the victims have standing 
     to forgive, or we can heed the most searing lesson of this 
     century which is that evil, when unopposed, will spawn more 
     evil. (Applause.)
       The majority of Bosnia killings occurred not in battle, but 
     in markets, streets and playgrounds, where men and women like 
     you and me, and boys and girls like those we know, were 
     abused or murdered--not because of anything they had done, 
     but simply for who they were.
       We all have a stake in establishing a precedent that will 
     deter future atrocities, in helping the tribunal make a 
     lasting peace easier by separating the innocent from the 
     guilty; in holding accountable the perpetrators of ethnic 
     cleansing; and in seeing that those who consider rape just 
     another tactic of war answer for their crimes. (Applause.)
       Since George Marshall's time, the United States has played 
     the leading role within the international system--not as sole 
     arbiter of right and wrong, for that is a responsibility 
     widely shared, but as pathfinder--as the nation able to show 
     the way when others cannot.
       In the years immediately after World War II, America 
     demonstrated that leadership not only through the Marshall 
     Plan, but through the Truman Doctrine, the Berlin airlift and 
     the response to Communist aggression in Korea.
       In this decade, America led in defeating Saddam Hussein; 
     encouraging nuclear stability in the Korean Peninsula and in 
     the former Soviet Union; restoring elected leaders to Haiti; 
     negotiating the Dayton Accords; and supporting the 
     peacemakers over the bomb throwers in the Middle East and 
     other strategic regions.
       We welcome this leadership role, not in Teddy Roosevelt's 
     phrase, because we wish to be ``an international Meddlesome 
     Matty,'' but because we know from experience that our 
     interests and those of our allies may be affected by regional 
     or civil wars, power vacuums that create opportunities for 
     criminals and terrorists and threats to democracy.
       But America cannot do the job alone. We can point the way 
     and find the path, but others must be willing to come along 
     and take responsibility for their own affairs. Others must be 
     willing to act within the bounds of their own resources and 
     capabilities to join in building a world in which shared 
     economic growth is possible, violent conflicts are 
     constrained, and those who abide by the law are progressively 
     more secure.
       While in Sarajevo, I visited a playground in the area once 
     known as ``sniper's alley,'' where many Bosnians had earlier 
     been killed because of ethnic hate. But this past weekend, 
     the children were playing their without regard to whether the 
     child in the next swing was Muslim, Serb or Croat. They 
     thanked America for helping to fix their swings, and asked me 
     to place in the soil a plant which they promised to nourish 
     and tend.
       It struck me then that this was an apt metaphor for 
     America's role 50 years ago, when we planted the seeds of 
     renewed prosperity and true democracy in Europe; and a 
     metaphor as well for America's role during the remaining 
     years of this century and into the next.
       As this great university has recognized, in the foreign 
     students it has attracted, the research it conducts, the 
     courses it offers and the sensibility it conveys, those of 
     you who have graduated today will live global lives. You will 
     compete in a world marketplace; travel further and more often 
     than any previous generation; share ideas, tastes and 
     experiences with counterparts from every culture; and 
     recognize that to have a full and rewarding future, you will 
     have to look outwards.
       As you do, and as our country does, we must aspire to set 
     high standards set by Marshall, using means adapted to our 
     time, based on values that endure for all time; and never 
     forgetting that America belongs on the side of freedom. 
     (Applause.)
       I say this to you as Secretary of State. I say it also as 
     one of the many people whose lives have been shaped by the 
     turbulence of Europe during the middle of this century, and 
     by the leadership of America throughout this century.
       I can still remember in England, during the war, sitting in 
     the bomb shelter, singing away the fear and thanking God for 
     America's help. I can still remember, after the war and 
     after the Communist takeover in Prague, arriving here in 
     the United States, where I wanted only to be accepted and 
     to make my parents and my new country proud.
       Because my parents fled in time, I escaped Hitler. To our 
     shared and constant sorrow, millions did not. Because of 
     America's generosity, I escaped Stalin. Millions did not. 
     Because of the vision of Truman-Marshall generation, I have 
     been privileged to live my life in freedom. Millions have 
     still never had that opportunity. It may be hard for you, who 
     have no memory of that time 50 years ago, to understand. But 
     it is necessary that you try to understand.
       Over the years, many have come to think of World War II as 
     the last good war, for if ever a cause was just, that was it. 
     And if ever the future of humanity stood in the balance, it 
     was then.
       Two full generations of Americans have grown up since the 
     war--first mine, now yours; two generations of boys and 
     girls, who have seen the veterans at picnics and parades and 
     fireworks saluting with medals and ribbons on their chests; 
     seeing the pride in their bearing and thinking, perhaps, what 
     a fine thing it must have been--to be tested in a great cause 
     and to have prevailed.
       But today of all days, let us not forget that behind each 
     medal and ribbon, there is a story of heroism yes, but also 
     profound sadness; for World War II was not a good war. From 
     North Africa to Solerno, from Normandy to the Bulge to 
     Berlin, an entire continent lost to Fascism had to be taken 
     back, village by village, hill by hill. And further eastward, 
     from Tarawa to Okinawa, the death struggle for Asia was an 
     assault against dug-in positions, surmounted only by 
     unbelievable courage at unbearable loss.
       Today, the greatest danger to America is not some foreign 
     enemy. It is the possibility that we will fail to hear the 
     example of that generation; that we will allow the momentum 
     toward democracy to stall; take for granted the institutions 
     and principles upon which our own freedom is based; and 
     forget what the history of this century reminds us--that 
     problems abroad, if left unattended, will all too often come 
     home to America. [Applause.]
       A decade or two from now, we will be known as neo-
     isolationists who allowed tyranny and lawlessness to rise 
     again; or as the generation that solidified the global 
     triumph of democratic principles. We will be known as the 
     neo-protectionists, whose lack of vision produced financial 
     meltdown; or as the generation that laid the groundwork for 
     rising prosperity around the world. We will be known as the 
     world-class ditherers, who stood by while the seeds of 
     renewed global conflict were sown; or as the generation that 
     took strong measures to forge alliances, deter aggression and 
     keep the peace.
       There is no certain road map to success, either for 
     individuals or for generations. Ultimately, it is a matter of 
     judgment, a question of choice. In making that choice, let us 
     remember that there is not a page of American history, of 
     which we are proud, that was authored by a chronic complainer 
     or prophet of despair. We are doers. We have a 
     responsibility, as others have had in theirs, not to be 
     prisoners of history, but to shape history; a responsibility 
     to fill the role of pathfinder, and to build with others a 
     global network of

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     purpose and law that will protect our citizens, defend our 
     interests, preserve our values, and bequeath to future 
     generations a legacy as proud as the one we honor today.
       To that mission, I pledge my own best efforts and summon 
     yours. Thank you very, very much.

     

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