[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book I)]
[July 6, 1994]
[Pages 1205-1207]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks Following Discussions With President Lech Walesa of Poland and 
an Exchange With Reporters in Warsaw
July 6, 1994

    President Clinton. Thank you very much, Mr. President. Let me say 
again how delighted I am to be here with my party and with my family in 
Poland.
    We had, from my point of view, a very satisfactory discussion about 
what we could do together to strengthen Poland in terms of its economic 
future and its political and security future and about what we could do 
to continue to integrate the democracies, the new democracies in Central 
and Eastern Europe into a broader Europe. I think they feel a great 
solidarity with the people of Poland in their common efforts to now make 
freedom work.
    President Walesa opened his remarks with a statement that I think 
may be well-known in Poland but perhaps not so much in the United 
States. He said Poland's future needed more American generals, starting 
with General Motors and General Electric. [Laughter] And we talked

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about what we could do to continue the process of economic reform--after 
all, Poland had a 4 percent growth rate last year, a very impressive 
rate of growth--but also to spread the benefits of that reform to the 
people who are still unemployed and who are having a hard time, not only 
to ease the pain of this economic transition for them but to raise a 
better promise for the future.
    We also talked about the security future of Poland. And let me just 
say that the most important thing for the present is that we are having 
the first Partnership For Peace military exercises in Poland in 
September. The United States and our NATO allies are very excited about 
that and deeply impressed that Poland led the way to 21 nations joining 
the Partnership For Peace. That is the beginning of a process that will 
not only eventually lead to an expansion of NATO but much more 
importantly gives us a chance to have a secure and unified Europe in 
which, for the first time, all nation states really do respect the 
territorial integrity of one another. And both these developments, the 
economic developments and the security developments, are due in no small 
part to the steadfast and courageous leadership that President Walesa 
has displayed for so many years.
    I thank him for that, and I thank him for the opportunity to make 
these few remarks.
    President Walesa. I wish to thank President Clinton for coming to 
our country. I wish to thank him for the initiatives which we welcome 
with great satisfaction.
    America, as I said at the beginning of my remarks, always held a 
certain promise for Poland and other countries of the region, but this 
hope was in a different context. Today, the hope consists in the 
generals I mentioned, if we could get the American generals, the 
generals I meant, General Motors and General Electric. Certain proposals 
have been set to encourage the generals to come our way, to make full 
use of the potential that we have. I think after supper we'll find 
solutions to all the problems.

NATO and Aid to Poland

    Q. Two questions to President Clinton. Mr. President, after Poland 
has become the most active partner for peace, it's time to start working 
out some concrete timetable of the Polish NATO journey. Do you agree 
with the idea? And the second question is we can observe--[inaudible]--
that to refer to the Central and Eastern European countries started to 
go more and more slowly. Does the United States plan to provide some 
economical, financial support to stop this negative tendency--
[inaudible]--to accelerate once again?
    Thank you.
    President Clinton. First of all, with regard to your first question, 
I have always stated my support for the idea that NATO will expand. But 
NATO is a partnership of many nations. I asked the NATO partnership to 
embrace, first, the Partnership For Peace, so that we would have a way 
of reaching out to all the nonmember democracies in Europe. I did that 
as a first step toward expansion of NATO but also because, in my mind, I 
wanted to see whether there was a real feeling that Europe could be 
united and that these countries could each pledge to respect one 
another's borders.
    I must tell you that I was surprised that 21 nations, including 
Sweden and Finland, two formerly neutral countries, asked to be a part 
of it. So it is taking on a life of, vitality of its own which should 
not be underestimated. And now what we have to do is to get the NATO 
partners together and to discuss what the next steps should be. Since 
that has not been done, I can't really say more about it, because it is 
a joint decision which has to be made, except to say that I believe that 
NATO will be expanded, and I believe everyone is impressed by the 
leadership which Poland has shown.
    The answer to your second question is yes, the United States should 
and will do more to help sustain the process of reform here in Poland 
and elsewhere, and to help to ease the transition for the people who 
have still not found jobs and who still have problems with their 
incomes.
    As President Walesa said in our meeting, many people in Poland who 
are unemployed are unemployed not because there is overproduction in 
Poland but because the transition from a Communist-controlled economy to 
a free market economy has not been completed where they live. We have 
some experience in dealing with those problems, even though they are 
problems everywhere, including the United States. And I think we must do 
more to help, and we will.

Russia

    Q. Mr. President, I'm wondering--a question for both of you, sir. 
I'm wondering about Presi-


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dent Walesa's lingering concerns about Russia, and I'm wondering what 
you have told him to ease those concerns.
    President Clinton. Only he can answer the first part of the 
question. But I will say that from my point of view, we are in better 
shape now than we were a few months ago. Russia has agreed to join the 
Partnership For Peace and, therefore, to accept the integrity of its 
neighbors' borders, the prospect of joint exercises here in Poland and 
in other countries, and the premise that NATO will expand. At the same 
time, Russia has brought its deficit down, its inflation rate down, and 
continues to privatize its economy.
    So, in an uncertain world, I think we are doing about as well as we 
can in moving things in the right direction. And I feel that we are 
moving in the direction that will maximize the chances of reform and 
democracy staying alive in all these countries.
    President Walesa. Mr. President, my apprehensions amount to 40 
percent and my hopes amount to the other 60. If the United States 
continues to extend its assurances of stability and security in this 
region of the world, the proportions will change. As for today, we 
should say that the United States did provide the proper assurances, and 
the proportion of hopes keeps expanding all the time. Russia, a 
democratic state, is a free-market economy, is a partner for everyone.

Note: The President spoke at 8:25 p.m. at the Presidential Palace. A 
tape was not available for verification of the content of these remarks.