[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book I)]
[January 15, 1994]
[Pages 76-77]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



The President's Radio Address
January 15, 1994

    Good morning. Today I'm speaking to you from Moscow where I'm 
completing a series of meetings with President Boris Yeltsin and other 
Russian reformers. My visit here comes near the end of a week of 
European meetings designed to increase American security and American 
prosperity by working to make Europe more united through shared 
democratic values and institutions, free trading market economies, and 
defense cooperation.
    Despite the challenges we face at home, from health care reform to 
fighting crime to retraining our work force and creating more jobs, we 
still must remain engaged in world affairs. That's the only way we can 
spur worldwide economic growth and open foreign markets so that we can 
boost our exports and create new American jobs. We also have to exert 
leadership in world affairs to protect our Nation and keep small 
problems today from growing into dangerous crises tomorrow.
    No part of the world is more important to us than Europe. Our people 
fought two world wars in this century to protect Europe's democracies. 
Today, Europe remains at the heart of our security and is also our most 
valuable partner in trade and investment.
    Now Europe stands at a key moment. The cold war is over. Western 
Europe no longer fears invasion, and we no longer live in the shadow of 
nuclear annihilation. The Soviet Union has given way to a dozen new 
independent and largely democratic states from Central Asia to the 
Baltic countries.
    Yet despite these advances for freedom, we still need to work with 
our transatlantic partners to build a new security. Many nations of the 
former Soviet bloc are fighting economic hardship that could threaten 
their new democracies. In many of these countries, militant nationalists 
are fanning the flames of ancient ethnic and religious hatreds. And we 
still have to finish the work of reducing the cold war nuclear 
stockpiles. We can't afford to ignore these challenges.
    Our country tried turning our back on Europe after World War I. The 
result was a global depression, the rise of fascism, and another world 
war. After World War II, we acted more wisely. We stood firm against 
Communist expansion. We founded NATO. We created new institutions to 
help expand global trade. We helped turn Western Europe's warring 
neighbors into solid allies. The result has been one of the most 
peaceful and prosperous times in all history.
    One key to our new security is helping Europe's former Communist 
states succeed themselves in building democratic governments, market 
economies, and peaceful militaries. Our best

[[Page 77]]

security investment today is to support these practices of freedom in 
Europe's Eastern half in places such as Poland, Ukraine, and Russia. 
That was my top goal on this trip.
    In Brussels, I met with European leaders about ways to strengthen 
all our nations by expanding trade and economic growth. I also attended 
a summit to adapt NATO, history's greatest military alliance, to this 
new era. Our NATO partners approved my proposal for a Partnership For 
Peace, a partnership which invites Europe's Eastern nations to 
participate in military cooperation with NATO's forces.
    In Prague I met with the leaders of the Czech Republic, Poland, 
Hungary, and Slovakia. These countries have been at the forefront of 
communism's collapse and democracy's rebirth. As I met with such famous 
democratic heroes as President Lech Walesa of Poland and President 
Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic, I assured them that the security of 
their countries is important to our security, and I outlined new ways to 
help their economic reform succeed.
    Then I flew to Kiev in the Ukraine. I met with Ukraine's President 
Kravchuk to nail down an agreement to eliminate over 1,800 nuclear 
warheads that were left in Ukraine when the Soviet Union broke apart. 
Most of those warheads had been targeted at the United States, and their 
elimination will make all of us safer, not only from nuclear accidents 
but from nuclear terrorism.
    And now I'm in Moscow. The weather's cold, but our work has brought 
us to a new season of partnership, warm partnership, with Russia's 
reformers. President Yeltsin and I reached a series of agreements to 
expand our trade ties, protect human rights, and reduce the threat of 
nuclear accidents or proliferation.
    One of the experiences I enjoyed most here in Moscow was speaking to 
an audience of Russians, many of them young people. In many ways their 
concerns reminded me of those voiced by our own young people, especially 
as they spoke about their educations and their careers, their hopes and 
their fears about the future. But their comments also suggested that 
their hopes for a new Russia, despite all the problems that they have 
today, a new Russia, proud and free, outweigh their fears. I tried to 
convince them that their peaceful transition to a more open society is 
important not only to them but to all the rest of us in the world as 
well. And I urged them to stay the course of economic and political 
reform.
    In the end, the next generation is what this entire trip is about, 
the young people in America, the young people in Europe and throughout 
the rest of the world. The kind of efforts we're pursuing this week, the 
kind of efforts that will increase democracy, provide for military 
cooperation instead of conflict, and provide for more open markets, for 
more jobs for our people and other people, these are the things which 
will make our young people's future more promising, more prosperous, and 
more secure.
    Thanks for listening.

Note: The address was recorded at 11:01 p.m. on January 14 at the 
Kremlin in Moscow for broadcast at 10:06 a.m. on January 15.