    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book I)]
    [April 1, 1993]
    [Pages 372-379]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to the American Society of Newspaper Editors in Annapolis
    April 1, 1993

        Thank you very much, Mr. Topping, distinguished guests at the head
    table, ladies and gentlemen. I want to say a special word of thanks and
    acknowledgement to the Superintendent of the Naval Academy, Admiral
    Lynch, who's here with us and who came up with me. He just gave me
    something I was told even a politician couldn't get in this country
    anymore, a free lunch. [Laughter]
        I just had lunch with 4,000 of the finest young men and women in
    this country or in any country, who are here at the Naval Academy. I
    went around the table, the table where I was sitting, and I asked every
    one of the young men and women who were seated at my table why they
    decided to come to the Naval Academy. And I wish every one of you could
    have heard their answers. It would have moved you immensely.
        And as I go now to meet with President Yeltsin in Vancouver, I will
    be even more freshly reminded about what the stakes are, because as much
    as any group of Americans, those young people about to enter our
    Nation's Armed Forces have a very great stake in what will occur.
        I'm delighted to be here with all of you who do so much to shape
    what our people think and even to give them access to what they need to
    know about these and other important issues. Had we met last year, if my
    voice had been in full flower, we doubtless would have talked almost
    exclusively about the economic issues facing America. And I am quite
    mindful of the fact that I am the first member of my party for a very
    long time who received a majority of the editorial endorsements of
    America's newspapers. That is something that I took very seriously. I
    was honored to receive them. And I can only hope that a year or so from
    now, those of you who did it will still be glad you did. In my heart of
    hearts, I hope that those of you who didn't will be sorry you didn't.
    [Laughter] But today, in this magnificent place in this wonderful State,
    I might also say I'm delighted to be joined here by my former colleague
    in the Governors' Association and my friend Governor Don Schaefer, the
    Governor of Maryland. Thank you for being here.
        I want to talk to you about the events in Russia, about our policies
    toward the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union, and
    about my meetings with President Boris Yeltsin this weekend. But first,
    I wish to speak about America's purposes in the world. That is not
    something we often examine, for it is human nature to focus on daily
    affairs most of the time. In our own lives, we do our jobs, we raise our
    children, we nurture our relationships, we struggle with the dilemmas of
    the moment one day at a time. Yet we are each guided by some sense of
    purpose, drawn from our families and our faith, which shapes the
    millions of small events of our life into a larger work that bears the
    imprint of our character.
        And so it is in the life of a nation. Decisions command attention.
    Crises drive action. But it is only with an overriding sense of purpose,
    drawn from their history and their cultures, that great nations can rise
    above the daily tyranny of the urgent to construct their security, to
    build their prosperity, to advance their interests, and to reaffirm
    their values.
        A clear sense of purpose is most essential, yet most elusive, at
    times of profound global change. A half a century ago, our Nation
    emerged victorious from the Second World War to discover itself in
    wholly unfamiliar terrain. The old empires of Europe and Asia were gone.
    A new Communist empire loomed. Ours was the only economy in the world
    still strong and dominant.
        Former Secretary of State, the late Dean Acheson, later described it
    as a time of ``great obscurity.'' Yet in that dim obscurity, he and
    George Marshall and President Harry Truman and other leaders in both
    political parties saw

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    the stakes clearly enough. They acted decisively. They accepted the
    mantle of leadership. Their sense of purpose helped to rescue Europe, to
    rebuild Japan, to contain aggression, and to foster two generations of
    unprecedented prosperity and peace.
        And now thanks in large measure to their vision, carried forward
    through succeeding generations, and thanks, too, to the enormous courage
    of the people of Russia and the other Republics of the former Soviet
    Union and the people of Eastern Europe, freedom has once again won a
    very great victory.
        Over the past 4 years, the Berlin Wall crumbled. The cold war ended.
    The Soviet Union gave way to 15 sovereign states. Millions threw off the
    constricting yoke of communism so they could assume instead the
    ennobling burdens of democracy.
        Yet these victories also confront us with a moment of profound
    change, a challenge. The collapse of the Soviet Union changed the
    international order forever. The emerging economic powerhouses of the
    Pacific are changing the financial order forever. The proliferation of
    demonic weapons of mass destruction threaten to change the distribution
    of military power forever. Resurgent ethnic conflict is challenging the
    very meaning of the nation state. The rise of a global economy has
    changed the linkages between our domestic and our foreign policies and,
    I would argue to you, has made them indivisible.
        In a time of dramatic global change we must define America's broader
    purposes anew. And part of that purpose clearly consists of reviving
    economic opportunity and growth here at home, for the opportunity to do
    well here at home is the ultimate basis of our influence abroad.
        Congress is acting this week to break the gridlock, to build our
    prosperity. Just today, the Congress passed the heart of my economic
    program, a long-term plan to drastically reduce the deficit and increase
    investment in our Nation's economic future. After years of policies that
    have diminished our future, Washington has finally realized that the
    best social program is a good job, and the best route to deficit
    reduction is a growing economy founded on a bold plan of change that
    will both cut spending and increase investment to empower the working
    people of this country.
        Our program invests in people by changing the Tax Code to reward
    work and investment; by working to ensure that anybody who works 40
    hours a week and has children in the home won't have to live in poverty
    anymore; by providing our children with education and nutrition and the
    immunizations they need to start life successfully; by reinvesting the
    way we educate and train our workers to make it properly adequate for
    the new global economy; and by creating jobs now through investment in
    infrastructure and safe streets and community development in communities
    large and small all across this land.
        The American people had the courage to call for change last November
    and gave me the awesome opportunity and responsibility to try to
    implement that change. I am hopeful that Congress will now have the
    courage to vote for all those changes this week. As I said, today they
    voted for a plan that both reduces the long-term deficit and increases
    our investment in the things that will grow this economy, in new jobs
    and new technologies and new education strategies.
        I hope now they will adopt the short-term jobs program that will add
    a half a million new jobs to this country over the next 2 years. Let me
    say parenthetically that one of the great challenges of every wealthy
    country in the world today is not only to promote growth but to create
    jobs. There are many, many examples in the 1980's, when in Europe and
    elsewhere countries had great growth but produced no new jobs. That is
    what has happened here in the last year or so. And we must prove that we
    can do better.
        As I have said so often over the last year and a half, in the global
    village, with this kind of global economy, there is simply no clear
    dividing line between domestic and foreign policy. We can't be strong
    abroad unless we're strong at home. And we cannot be strong at home
    unless we are actively engaged in the world which is shaping events for
    every American. There is a sense in which every one of the young people
    in this country today will live a life which is shaped by events beyond
    our borders as well as events within our borders.
        And so today I say again we must have a clear sense of our purposes
    around the world. Everyone knows the world remains a dangerous place.
    And our preeminent imperative is to ensure our own security. That is why
    we're working to ensure that our military is not only the finest in the
    world but also specifically tailored

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    for the challenges of this new era, for the central fronts of our fight
    for a safe world have moved from the plains of northern Europe to our
    efforts to stem weapons of mass destruction, to relieve ethnic turmoil,
    to promote democracy, to expand markets, and to protect the global
    environment.
        During the cold war our foreign policies largely focused on
    relations among nations. Our strategies sought a balance of power to
    keep the peace. Today, our policies must also focus on relations within
    nations, on a nation's form of governance, on its economic structure, on
    its ethnic tolerance. These are of concern to us, for they shape how
    these nations treat their neighbors as well as their own people and
    whether they are reliable when they give their word. In particular,
    democracies are far less likely to wage war on other nations than
    dictatorships are.
        Emphatically, the international community cannot seek to heal every
    domestic dispute or to resolve every ethnic conflict. Some are simply
    beyond our reach. But within practical bounds and with a sense of clear
    strategic priorities, we must do what we can to promote the democratic
    spirit and the economic reforms that can tip the balance for progress
    well into the next century.
        From the first hours of my administration, several critical
    situations have demanded our attention, in Iraq, in Somalia, in Haiti,
    in the Middle East, in the former Yugoslavia, and elsewhere. We have
    sought to develop strategies to address these and other immediate
    challenges. And I'm encouraged by the progress which has been made in
    most of the areas of challenge.
        Yet all of us must also focus on the larger questions that this new
    era presents. For if we act out of a larger sense of purpose and
    strategy, our work on the crises of the late 20th century can lay the
    basis for a more peaceful and democratic world at the start of the 21st
    century.
        The end of the long, twilight struggle does not ensure the start of
    a long peace. Like a wise homeowner who recognizes that you cannot stop
    investing in your house once you buy it, we cannot stop investing in the
    peace now that we have obtained it. That recognition was a triumph of
    President Truman's era. But unlike then, we lack the specter of a
    menacing adversary to spur our efforts to engage other nations. Now, not
    fear but vision must drive our investment and our engagement in this new
    world.
        Nowhere is that engagement more important than in our policies
    toward Russia and the newly independent states of the former Soviet
    Union. Their struggle to build free societies is one of the great human
    dramas of our day. It presents the greatest security challenge for our
    generation and offers one of the greatest economic opportunities of our
    lifetime. That's why my first trip out of the country will be to
    Vancouver, to meet with President Yeltsin.
        Over the past month, we have seen incredibly tumultuous events in
    Russia. They've filled our headlines and probably confused our heads.
    President Yeltsin has been at loggerheads with the People's Congress of
    Deputies. Heated political standoffs have obstructed economic change.
    Meanwhile, neighboring states, such as Ukraine and the Baltic nations,
    have watched Russia anxiously while they grapple with their own reforms
    and while they deal with economic problems equally severe.
        For most Americans, these events, while dramatic, are still very
    remote from their immediate concerns. After all, in every community we
    have our own problems. We've got our own needs. We face a stagnant
    economy and dislocations brought about by the end of the cold war and
    the downsizing of the military budget. We've got all these big companies
    restructuring themselves. And for the last 2 years small business has
    not created enough new jobs to offset that. It's projected that two-
    thirds of the growth of our income in the next 5 years, two-thirds, will
    be absorbed by health care cost increases. And 100 percent of the wage
    increases for the next 5 years will be absorbed by health care cost
    increases unless we act. We're worried about our cities, like Los
    Angeles, coming up on the anniversary of the disturbances there a year
    ago. And many people say, in the face of all this and with a huge budget
    deficit, why in the world should we help a distant people when times are
    so tough here at home?
        Well, I know that we cannot guarantee the future of reform in Russia
    or any of the other newly independent states. I know and you know that
    ultimately, the history of Russia will be written by Russians and the
    future of Russia must be charted by Russians. But I would argue that we
    must do what we can. We must act now, not out of charity, but because it
    is a wise investment, a wise investment building on what has already
    been done and looking to our

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    own future. While our efforts will entail new costs, we can reap even
    larger dividends for our safety and our prosperity if we act now.
        To understand why, I think we must grasp the scope of the
    transformation now occurring in Russia and the other states. From
    Vilnius on the Baltic to Vladivostok on the Pacific, we have witnessed a
    political miracle, genuinely historic and heroic deeds without precedent
    in all of human history. The other two world-changing events of this
    century, World Wars I and II, exacted a price of over 60 million lives.
    By contrast, look at this world-changing event. It has been remarkably
    bloodless, and we pray that it remains so.
        Now free markets and free politics are replacing repression. Central
    Europe is in command of its own fate. Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia are
    again independent. Ukraine, Armenia, and other proud nations are free to
    pursue their own destinies.
        The heart of it all is Russia. Her rebirth has begun. A great
    nation, rich in natural and human resources and unbelievable history,
    has once again moved to rejoin the political and economic cultures of
    the West. President Yeltsin and his fellow reformers throughout Russia
    are courageously leading three modern Russian revolutions at once to
    transform their country: from a totalitarian state into a democracy;
    from a command economy into a market; from an empire into a modern
    nation-state that freely let go of countries once under their control
    and now freely respect their integrity.
        Russia's rebirth is not only material and political; it is genuinely
    spiritual. As the Librarian of Congress James Billington said, ``Evil
    has been transcended by repentance without revenge. Innocent suffering
    in past gulags has been given redemptive value. And the amazingly
    nonviolent breakthrough of August 1991, which occurred on the Feast of
    the Transfiguration, was indeed a miracle through which ordinary people
    rediscovered a moral dimension to their own lives.'' Across what was the
    Soviet Union, the freedom to pray has been met by a resurgence of
    worship.
        Nothing could contribute more to global freedom, to security, to
    prosperity than the peaceful progression of this rebirth of Russia. It
    could mean a modern state, at peace not only with itself but with the
    world. It could mean one productively and prosperously integrated into a
    global economy, a source of raw materials and manufactured products and
    a vast market for American goods and services. It could mean a populous
    democracy contributing to the stability of both Europe and Asia.
        The success of Russia's renewal must be a first-order concern to our
    country because it confronts us with four distinct opportunities. First,
    it offers us an historic opportunity to improve our own security. The
    danger is clear if Russia's reforms turn sour, if it reverts to
    authoritarianism or disintegrates into chaos. The world cannot afford
    the strife of the former Yugoslavia replicated in a nation as big as
    Russia, spanning 11 time zones with an armed arsenal of nuclear weapons
    that is still very vast.
        But there is great opportunity here. Across most of our history, our
    security was challenged by European nations, set on domination of their
    continent and the high seas that lie between us. The tragic violence in
    Bosnia reminds us again that Europe has not seen the end of conflict
    within its own borders.
        Now, we could at last face a Europe in which no great power, not
    one, harbors continental designs. Think of it: Land wars in Europe cost
    hundreds of thousands of American lives in the 20th century. The rise of
    a democratic Russia, satisfied within her own boundaries, bordered by
    other peaceful democracies, could ensure that our Nation never needs to
    pay that kind of price again.
        We also face the opportunity to increase our own security by
    reducing the chances of nuclear war. Russia still holds over 20,000
    strategic and tactical nuclear warheads. Ukraine, Belarus, and
    Kazakhstan have nuclear weapons on their own soil as well. We are
    implementing historic arms control agreements that for the first time
    will radically reduce the number of strategic nuclear weapons. Now, by
    supporting Russia's reforms, we can help to turn the promise of those
    agreements into a reality for ourselves and for our children, and for
    the Russians and their children, too.
        Second, Russia's reforms offer us the opportunity to complete the
    movement from having an adversary in foreign policy to having a partner
    in global problem solving. Think back to the cold war. Recall the arenas
    in which we played out its conflicts: Berlin, Korea, the Congo, Cuba,
    Vietnam, Nicaragua, Angola, Afghanistan. We competed everywhere. We
    battled the Soviets at the U.N. We tracked each other's movements around
    the globe. We lost

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    tens of thousands of our finest young people to hold freedom's line.
    Those efforts were worthy. But their worth was measured in prevention
    more than in creation, in the containment of terror and oppression
    rather than the advancement of human happiness and opportunity.
        Now reflect on what has happened just since Russia joined us in a
    search for peaceful solutions. We cooperated in the United Nations to
    defeat Iraqi aggression in Kuwait. We cosponsored promising peace talks
    in the Mideast. We worked together to foster reconciliation in Cambodia
    and El Salvador. We joined forces to protect the global environment.
    Progress of this kind strengthens our security and that of other
    nations. If we can help Russia to remain increasingly democratic, we can
    leave an era of standoff behind us and explore expanding horizons of
    progress and peace.
        Third, Russia's reforms are important to us because they hold one of
    the keys to investing more in our own future. America's taxpayers have
    literally spent trillions of dollars to prosecute the cold war. Now we
    can reduce that pace of spending, and indeed, we have been able to
    reduce that pace of spending, not only because the arms of the former
    Soviet Union pose a diminishing threat to us and our allies. If Russia
    were to revert to imperialism or were to plunge into chaos, we would
    need to reassess all our plans for defense savings. We would have to
    restructure our defenses to meet a whole different set of threats than
    those we now think will occur. That means billions of dollars less for
    other uses: less for creating new businesses and new jobs; less for
    preparing our children for the future; less for the new technologies of
    the 21st century which our competitors in Germany, Japan, and elsewhere
    are pouring money into right now, hoping they can capture the high wage
    jobs of the future. Therefore, our ability to put people first at home
    requires that we put Russia and its neighbors first on our agenda
    abroad.
        Fourth, Russia's reforms offer us an historic opportunity. Russia,
    after all, is in a profound economic crisis today. But it is still an
    inherently rich nation. She has a wealth of oil and gas and coal and
    gold and diamonds and timbers for her own people to develop. The Russian
    people are among the most well educated and highly skilled in the world.
    They are good people sitting on a rich land. They have been victimized
    by a system which has failed them. We must look beyond the Russia of
    today and see her potential for prosperity. Think of it: a nation of 150
    million people able to trade with us in a way that helps both our
    peoples. Russia's economic recovery may be slow, but it is in the
    interest of all who seek more robust global growth to ensure that, aided
    by American business and trade, Russia rises to her great economic
    potential.
        The burning question today is whether Russia's economic progress,
    whether Russia's democratic progress will continue or be thwarted. I
    believe that freedom, like anything sweet, is hard to take from people
    once they have had a taste of it. The human spirit is hard to bottle up
    again, and it will be hard to bottle up again in Russia. Yet if we
    cannot be certain of how Russia's affairs will proceed, we are
    nonetheless certain of our own interests. The interest of all Americans
    lie with efforts that enhance our security and our prosperity. That's
    why our interests lie with Russian reform and with Russian reformers led
    by Boris Yeltsin.
        America's position is unequivocal. We support democracy. We support
    free markets. We support freedom of speech, conscience, and religion. We
    support respect for ethnic minorities in Russia and for Russian and
    other minorities throughout the region.
        I believe it is essential that we act prudently but urgently to do
    all that we can to strike a strategic alliance with Russian reform. My
    goal in Vancouver will be that. And that will be my message to the man
    who stands as the leader of reform, Russia's democratically elected
    President, Boris Yeltsin. I won't describe today all the specific ideas
    that I plan to discuss with him. And of course, I don't know all those
    that he will discuss with me. But I want to tell you the principles on
    which our efforts to assist reform will rest.
        First, our investments in Russian reform must be tangible to the
    Russian people. Support for reform must come from the ground up. And
    that will only occur if our efforts are broadly dispersed and not
    focused just on Moscow. I plan to talk with President Yeltsin about
    measures intended to help promote the broad development of small
    businesses, to accelerate privatization of state enterprises, to assist
    local food processing and distribution efforts, and to ease the
    transition to private markets. Our goal must be to ensure that the
    Russian people soon come to feel that they are the beneficiaries of
    reform

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    and not its victims. We must help them to recognize that their
    sufferings today are not the birth pangs of democracy and capitalism but
    the death throes of dictatorship and communism.
        Second, our investments in Russian reform must be designed to have
    lasting impact. Russia's economic vessel is too large and leaky for us
    to bail it out. That's not what's at issue here. Our challenge is to
    provide some tools to help the Russians do things that work for
    themselves. A good example is Russia's energy sector. Russia is one of
    the world's largest oil producers; yet millions of barrels of the oil
    Russia pumps each month seep out of the system before ever reaching the
    market. Just the leakage from Russia's natural gas pipelines could
    supply the entire State of Connecticut. The Russians must make many
    reforms to attract energy investments. And by helping to introduce
    modern drilling practices and to repair Russia's energy infrastructure,
    we can help Russia regain a large and lasting source of hard currency.
    Over the long run, that effort can help to protect the environment as
    well and to moderate world energy prices. We have a direct interest in
    doing that.
        Third, our people must do what we can to have people-to-people
    initiatives, not just government-to-government ones. We have entered a
    new era in which the best way to achieve many of our goals abroad is not
    through diplomats or dollars but through private citizens who can impart
    the skills and habits that are the lifeblood of democracy and free
    markets. We intend to expand efforts for retired American business
    executives to work with Russian entrepreneurs to start new businesses.
    We intend to work so that our farmers can teach modern farming
    practices; so that our labor leaders can share the basics of trade
    unionism; so that Americans experienced in grassroots activities can
    impart the techniques that ensure responsive government; so that our
    Armed Forces can engage in more exchanges with the Russian military; and
    so that thousands and thousands of young Russians who are reform's
    primary beneficiaries and reform's primary constituency--so that they
    can come to our country and study our government, our economy, and our
    society, not because it's perfect but because it's a great example of a
    democracy at work.
        Fourth, our investments in reform must be part of a partnership
    among all the newly independent states and the international community.
    They must be extended in concert with measures from our allies, many of
    whom have at least as much stake in the survival of Russian democracy as
    we do. Working through the international financial institutions, we can
    do great things together that none of us can do by ourselves.
        This principle is especially important as we help Russia to
    stabilize its currency and its markets. Russia's central bank prints too
    many rubles and extends too many credits. The result is inflation that
    has been nearly one percent a day. Inflation at such levels gravely
    imperils Russia's emerging markets. In Vancouver, I plan to discuss the
    progress we are making among the major industrialized nations to help
    Russia make the leap to a stable currency and a market economy. While we
    cannot support this effort alone in the United States and while we must
    insist on reciprocal commensurate Russian reforms, American leadership
    to curb inflation and stabilize the currency is essential.
        Fifth, we must emphasize investments in Russia that enhance our own
    security. I want to talk with President Yeltsin about steps we can take
    together to ensure that denuclearization continues in Russia and her
    neighboring states. We will explore new initiatives to reassure Ukraine
    so that it embraces the START Treaty, and to move toward the goal of the
    Lisbon Protocol agenda, which was intended to ensure that Russia is the
    only nuclear-armed successor state to the Soviet Union. Ukraine will
    play a special role in the realization of these objectives, and we
    recognize our interest in the success of reform in Ukraine and the other
    new states. I'll talk with President Yeltsin about new efforts to
    realize the two-thirds reduction in United States and Soviet strategic
    nuclear arsenals envisioned under START. And I'll suggest steps both of
    us can take to stem the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,
    something that will be a major, major cause of concern for years to
    come.
        Sixth, we must recognize that our policies toward Russia and the
    other states comprise a long-term strategy. It may take years to work
    completely. That was the key to our success in the cold war. We were in
    it for the long run, not to win every day, not to know what every
    development in every country would be. We had clear principles, clear
    interests, clear values, a clear strategy, and we were in it for the
    long run. As the Soviets veered from the

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    terror of Stalin to the thaw of Khrushchev, to the gray days of
    Brezhnev, to the perestroika of Gorbachev, our purpose always remained
    constant: containment, deterrence, human freedom.
        Our goals must remain equally fixed today: above all, our security
    and that of our allies but also democracy, market economies, human
    rights, and respect for international law. In this regard, I welcome
    President Yeltsin's assurance that civil liberties will be respected and
    continuity in Russia's foreign policy maintained as Russia strives to
    determine her own future.
        The path that Russia and the other states take toward reform will
    have rough stretches. Their politics may seem especially tumultuous
    today, in part because it's so much more public than in decades past,
    thanks to the television and to the other mass media. Then, the ruler of
    the Kremlin had only subjects; now, the ruler of the Kremlin has
    constituents, just like me, and it's a lot more complicated. We must be
    concerned over every retreat from democracy but not every growing pain
    within democracy.
        Let me remind you of our own early history. It was marked by
    revision of our governing charter and fistfights in Congress. Vaclav
    Havel has noted, ``Democracy is not a destination, but it's a horizon
    toward which we make continual progress.'' Just remember how long it was
    from the signing of the Declaration of Independence to forging a real
    new Constitution to the election of the first President, and then you
    can't be so impatient about what's happened in the short stretch of time
    from Gorbachev to Yeltsin to the present crisis. As long as there are
    reformers in the Russian Federation and other states leading the journey
    toward democracy's horizon, our strategy must be to support them. And
    our place must be at their side.
        Moreover, we and the Russian people must not give up on reform
    simply because of the slow pace of economic renewal. Recall for a moment
    how many of the world's economic success stories were written off too
    soon. Western visitors to Japan in 1915 dismissed its economic prospects
    as dismal. Korea's economy was described as a ``hopeless case'' by
    American experts in 1958, and look at them now. Many Germans after World
    War II anticipated decades of national poverty. A German Minister of
    Economic Affairs noted after the war, ``Few realized that if people were
    allowed once more to become aware of the value and worth of freedom,
    dynamic forces would be released.'' The miracle of prosperity that
    Japan, Korea, and Germany have discovered awaits those who are willing
    to sustain democratic and economic reforms in Russia and in her
    neighboring states. I believe that, and I hope you do too.
        Despite today's troubles, I have great faith that Russian reform
    will continue and eventually succeed. Let me here address directly the
    Russian people who will read or hear my words. You are a people who
    understand patriotic struggle. You have persevered through an
    unforgiving climate. Your whole history has been punctuated with
    suffering on a scale unknown to the American people. You heroically
    withstood murderous invasions by Napoleon and Hitler. Your great
    literature and your music, which has so enriched our own culture, were
    composed with the pen of longing and the ink of sorrow. Your
    accomplishments of education and science speak to your faith in
    progress. And now, as you seek to build a great tomorrow for Russia upon
    a foundation of democracy and commerce, I speak for Americans everywhere
    when I say, we are with you. For we share this bond: The key to each of
    our futures is not in clinging to the past but in having the courage to
    change.
        As we look upon Russia's challenges, we should remember, all of us,
    that the American and Russian people have in common so much. We are both
    rooted deeply in our own land. We are both built of diverse heritage. We
    are both forever struggling with the responsibilities that come with
    vast territory and power. We both have had to deal with the dilemmas of
    human nature on an immense scale. That may be why there has been so
    little real hatred between our people, even across the decades when we
    pointed weapons of nightmarish destruction at each other's lands.
        Now, as in the past, America's future is tied in important ways to
    Russia's. During the cold war, it was tied in negative ways. We saw in
    each other only danger. Now that the walls have come down, we can see
    hope and opportunity.
        In the end, our hope for the future of Russian reform is rooted
    simply in our faith in the institutions that have secured our own
    freedom and prosperity. But it is also rooted in the Russian people. The
    diversity of their past accomplishments gives us hope that there are
    diverse possibilities for the future. The vitality of Russian journalism
    and public debate today gives us

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    hope that the great truth-seeking traditions of Russian culture will
    endure and that Russia's antidemocratic demagogs will not, indeed, must
    not in the long run prevail. And the discipline of Russia's military,
    which has proved itself anew in August of 1991 and since, that
    discipline gives us hope that Russia's transition can continue to be
    peaceful.
        Fifty years ago, in a different period of historic challenge for
    Russia, the great Russian poet Anna Akhmatova wrote, ``We know what lies
    in the balance at this moment and what is happening right now. The hour
    for courage strikes upon our clocks, and the courage will not desert
    us.''
        The opportunity that lies before our Nation today is to answer the
    courageous call of Russian reform, as an expression of our own values,
    as an investment in our own security and prosperity, as a demonstration
    of our purpose in a new world.
        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 1:26 p.m. in Dahlgren Hall at the U.S.
    Naval Academy. In his remarks, he referred to Seymour Topping, president
    of the society.