    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book I)]
    [March 1, 1995]
    [Pages 283-289]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to the Nixon Center for Peace and Freedom Policy Conference
    March 1, 1995

        To Tricia and John Taylor and all the people from the Nixon Center;
    our distinguished guests from Germany and from Russia; of course, to
    Henry Kissinger--I was thinking when he said we both spoke with accents,
    judging from the results of the last election, his native country

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    is still claiming him more than mine is claiming me. [Laughter] But I'm
    a big one for reconciliation--[laughter]--and there's plenty of time to
    achieve it.
        I am honored to be here tonight. Just a month before he passed away,
    President Nixon wrote me the last letter I received from him about his
    last trip to Russia. I told some people at the time that it was the best
    piece of foreign policy writing I had received, which angered my staff
    but happened to be the truth. [Laughter] And as with all of our
    correspondence and conversations, I was struck by the rigor of his
    analysis, the energy of his convictions, and the wisdom of the practical
    suggestions that he made to me.
        But more than the specifics of the letter, which basically argued
    for the imperative of the United States continuing to support political
    and economic reform in Russia, I was moved by the letter's larger
    message, a message that ran throughout Richard Nixon's entire public
    life and all of his prolific writings. President Nixon believed deeply
    that the United States simply could not be strong at home unless we were
    strong and prepared to lead abroad.
        And that made a big impression on me. When I was running for
    President in 1992, even though there was this little sticker up on the
    wall of my campaign headquarters that said, ``It's the economy,
    stupid,'' I always said in every speech that we had to have two
    objectives. We had to restore the American dream for all of our people,
    but we also had to make sure that we move into the next century still
    the strongest nation in the world and the world's greatest force for
    peace and freedom and democracy.
        Tonight I want to talk about the vital tradition of American
    leadership and our responsibilities, those which Henry Kissinger
    mentioned and those which President Nixon recognized so well. Our
    mission especially I want to discuss: to reduce the threat of nuclear
    weapons.
        Today, if we are going to be strong at home and lead abroad, we have
    to overcome what we all recognize, I think, is a dangerous and growing
    temptation here in our own land to focus solely on the problems we face
    here in America. I want to focus on the problems we face here in
    America--I've tried to do it for the last 2 years; I look forward to
    working with this new Republican-led Congress in the next 2--but not
    solely. There is a struggle now going on between those of us who want to
    carry on the tradition of American leadership and those who would
    advocate a new form of American isolationism, a struggle which cuts
    curiously across both party and ideological lines. If we're going to
    continue to improve the security and prosperity of all our people, then
    the tradition of American leadership must prevail.
        We live in a moment of hope. We all know that. The implosion of
    communism and the explosion of the global economy have brought new
    freedoms to countries on every continent. Free markets are on the rise.
    Democracy is ascendant. The slogan says, ``after victory.'' Today more
    than ever before, people across the globe do have the opportunity to
    reach their God-given potential. And because they do, Americans have new
    opportunities to reach theirs as well.
        At the same time, the post-cold-war world has revealed a whole web
    of problems that defy quick or painless solutions: aggression of rogue
    states, transnational threats like overpopulation and environmental
    degradation, terrible ethnic conflicts, and economic dislocation. But at
    the heart of all these complex challenges, I believe, lies an age-old
    battle for power over human lives, the battle between the forces of
    freedom and tyranny, tolerance and repression, hope and fear. The same
    idea that was under attack by fascism and then by communism remains
    under attack today in different ways all across the world, the idea of
    the open society of free people.
        American leadership is necessary for the tide of history to keep
    running our way and for our children to have the future they deserve.
    Yet, there are some who would choose escapism over engagement. The new
    isolationists oppose our efforts to expand free trade through GATT or
    NAFTA, through APEC and the Summit of the Americas. They reject our
    conviction that democracy must be nurtured with investment and support,
    a conviction that we are acting on from the former Soviet Union to South
    Africa. And some of them, being hypocritical, say that we must trumpet
    the rhetoric of American strength, and then at the same time, they argue
    against the resources we need to bring stability to the Persian Gulf or
    to restore democracy to Haiti or to control the spread of drugs and
    organized crime around the world or even to meet our most elemental
    obligations to the United Nations and its peacekeeping work.
        The new isolationists both on the left and the right would radically
    revise the fundamentals

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    of our foreign policy that have earned bipartisan support since the end
    of World War II. They would eliminate any meaningful role for the United
    Nations, which has achieved, for all of its problems, real progress
    around the world, from the Middle East to Africa. They would deny
    resources to our peacekeepers and even to our troops and, instead,
    squander them on Star Wars. And they would refuse aid to the fledgling
    democracies and to all those fighting poverty and environmental problems
    that can literally destroy hopes for a more democratic, more prosperous,
    more safe world.
        The new isolationists are wrong. They would have us face the future
    alone. Their approach would weaken this country. And we must not let the
    ripple of isolationism that has been generated build into a tidal wave.
    If we withdraw from the world today, mark my words, we'll have to
    contend with the consequences of our neglect tomorrow and tomorrow and
    tomorrow.
        This is a moment of decision for all of us without regard to our
    party, our background, or our accent. This is a moment of decision. The
    extraordinary trend toward democracy and free markets is not inevitable.
    And as we have seen recently, it will not proceed easily in an even,
    uninterrupted course. This is hard work. And at the very time when more
    and more countries than ever before are working to establish or shore up
    their own freedom in their fragile democracies, they look to us for
    support. At this time, the new isolationists must not be allowed to pull
    America out of the game after just a few hours of debate because there
    is a modest price attached to our leadership.
        We know now, as President Nixon recognized, that there must also be
    limits to America's involvement in the world's problems, limits imposed
    by clear-headed evaluation of our fundamental interests. We cannot be
    the world's policemen. We cannot become involved in every problem we
    really care about. But the choices we make must be rooted in the
    conviction that America cannot walk away from its interests or its
    responsibilities.
        That's why, from our first day in office, this administration has
    chosen to reach out, not retreat. From our efforts to open markets for
    America, to support democracy around the world, to reduce the threat
    posed by devastating weapons and terrorists, to maintaining the most
    effective fighting force in the world, we have worked to seize the
    opportunities and meet the obligations of this moment.
        None of this could have happened without a coalition of realists,
    people in both Houses of Congress and, importantly, people from both
    parties; people from coast to coast in our towns and cities and
    communities who know that the wealth and well-being of the United States
    depends upon our leadership abroad. Even the early leaders of our
    Republic, who went to great pains to avoid involvement in great power
    conflicts, recognized not only the potential benefits but the absolute
    necessity of engaging with the world.
        Before Abraham Lincoln was elected President, our farmers were
    selling their crops overseas, we had dispatched the trade mission all
    the way to Japan trying to open new markets--some problems don't go
    away--[laughter]--and our Navy had already sailed every ocean. By the
    dawn of this century, our growing political and economic power already
    imposed a special duty on America to lead, a duty that was crystallized
    in our involvement in World War I. But after that war, we and the other
    great powers abandoned our responsibilities, and the forces of tyranny
    and hatred filled the vacuum, as is well-known.
        After the Second World War, our wise leaders did not repeat that
    mistake. With the dawn of the nuclear age and the cold war, and with the
    economies of Europe and Japan in shambles, President Truman persuaded an
    uncertain and weary nation, yearning to shift its energies from the
    frontlines to the homefront, to lead the world again.
        A remarkable generation of Americans created and sustained alliances
    and institutions, the Marshall Plan, NATO, the United Nations, the World
    Bank, the IMF, the things that brought half a century of security and
    prosperity to America, to Europe, to Japan, and to other countries all
    around the world. Those efforts and the special resolve and military
    strength of our own Nation held tyranny in check until the power of
    democracy, the failures of communism, and the heroic determination of
    people to be free consigned the cold war to history. Those successes
    would not have been possible without a strong, bipartisan commitment to
    America's leadership.
        Senator Arthur Vandenberg's call to unite our official voice at the
    water's edge joined Republicans to Truman's doctrine. His impact was all

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    the more powerful for his own past as an isolationist. But as Vandenberg
    himself said, Pearl Harbor ended isolationism for any realist.
        Today, it is Vandenberg's spirit that should drive our foreign
    policy and our politics. The practical determination of Senators Nunn
    and Lugar to help Russia reduce its nuclear arsenal safely and securely,
    the support from Speaker Gingrich and Leader Gephardt, from Chairman
    Livingston and Representative Obey for aid to Russia and the Newly
    Independent States, the work of Senators Hatfield, Leahy, and McConnell,
    and Chairman Gilman, and Representative Hamilton for peace in the Middle
    East; the efforts of Senator Warner to restructure our intelligence: all
    these provide strong evidence of the continuing benefits and vitality of
    leadership with bipartisanship.
        If we continue to lead abroad and work together at home, we can take
    advantage of these turbulent times. But if we retreat, we risk
    squandering all these opportunities and abandoning our obligations which
    others have entrusted to us and paid a very dear price to bring to us in
    this moment in history.
        I know that the choice to go forward in a lot of these areas is not
    easy in democracies at this time. Many of the decisions that America's
    leaders have to make are not popular when they're made. But imagine the
    alternative. Imagine, for example, the tariffs and barriers that would
    still cripple the world trading system for years into the future if
    internationalists coming together across party lines had not passed GATT
    and NAFTA. Imagine what the Persian Gulf region would look like today if
    the United States had not stepped up with its allies to stop Iraqi
    aggression. Imagine the ongoing reign of terror and the flood of
    refugees at our borders had we not helped to give democracy a second
    chance in Haiti. Imagine the chaos that might have ensued if we had not
    moved to help stabilize Mexico's economy. In each case, there was
    substantial and sometimes overwhelming majority opinion against what
    needed to be done at the moment. But because we did it, the world has a
    better chance at peace and freedom.
        But above all now, I ask you to imagine the dangers that our
    children and grandchildren, even after the cold war is over, still can
    face if we do not do everything we can to reduce the threat of nuclear
    arms, to curb the terrible chemical and biological weapons spreading
    around the world, to counter the terrorists and criminals who would put
    these weapons into the service of evil. As Arthur Vandenberg asked at
    the dawn of the nuclear age, after a German V-1 attack had left London
    in flames and its people in fear, ``How can there be isolation when men
    can devise weapons like that?''
        President Nixon understood the wisdom of those words. His life
    spanned an era of stunning increases in humankind's destructive
    capacity, from the biplane to ballistic missiles, from mustard gas to
    mushroom clouds. He knew that the atomic age could never be won but
    could be lost. On any list of his foreign policy accomplishments, the
    giant steps he took toward reducing the nuclear threat must stand among
    his greatest achievements.
        As President, I have acted on that same imperative. Over the past 2
    years, the United States has made real progress in lifting the threat of
    nuclear weapons. Now, in 1995, we face a year of particular decision in
    this era, a year in which the United States will pursue the most
    ambitious agenda to dismantle and fight the spread of weapons of mass
    destruction since the atom was split.
        We know that ours is an enormously complex and difficult challenge.
    There is no single policy, no silver bullet, that will prevent or
    reverse the spread of weapons of mass destruction. But we have no more
    important task. Arms control makes us not only safer, it makes us
    stronger. It is a source of strength. It is one of the most effective
    insurance policies we can write for the future of our children.
        Our administration has focused on two distinct but closely connected
    areas, decreasing and dismantling existing weapons and preventing
    nations or groups from acquiring weapons of mass destruction and the
    means to deliver them. We've made progress on both fronts.
        As the result of an agreement President Yeltsin and I reached, for
    the first time in a generation Russian missiles are not pointed at our
    cities or our citizens. We've greatly reduced the lingering fear of an
    accidental nuclear launch. We put into force the START I treaty with
    Russia that will eliminate from both our countries delivery systems that
    carry more than 9,000 nuclear warheads, each with the capacity to
    incinerate a city the size of Atlanta.
        START I, negotiated by two Republican administrations and put into
    force by this Democratic administration, is the first treaty that
    requires the nuclear powers actually to reduce

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    their strategic arsenal. Both our countries are dismantling the weapons
    as fast as we can. And thanks to a far-reaching verification system,
    including on-site inspections which began in Russia and the United
    States today, each of us knows exactly what the other is doing.
        And again, through the far-sighted program devised by Senators Nunn
    and Lugar, we are helping Russia and the other Newly Independent States
    to eliminate nuclear forces and transport, safeguard, and destroy
    nuclear weapons and material.
        Ironically, some of the changes that have allowed us to reduce the
    world's stockpile of nuclear weapons have made our nonproliferation
    efforts harder. The breakup of the Soviet Union left nuclear materials
    dispersed throughout the Newly Independent States. The potential for
    theft of nuclear materials, therefore, increased. We face the prospect
    of organized criminals entering the nuclear smuggling business. Add to
    this volatile mix the fact that a lump of plutonium the size of a soda
    can is enough to build a bomb, and the urgency of the effort to stop the
    spread of nuclear materials should be clear to all of us.
        That's why from our first day in office we have launched an
    aggressive, coordinated campaign against international terrorism and
    nuclear smuggling. We are cooperating closely with our allies, working
    with Russia and the other Newly Independent States, improving security
    at nuclear facilities, and strengthening multilateral export controls.
        One striking example of our success is Operation Sapphire, the
    airlift of nearly 600 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, enough to
    make dozens of bombs, from Kazakhstan to the United States for disposal.
    We've also secured agreements with Russia to reduce the uranium and
    plutonium available for nuclear weapons, and we're seeking a global
    treaty banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons.
        Our patient, determined diplomacy also succeeded in convincing
    Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty
    and give up the nuclear weapons left on their territory when the Soviet
    Union dissolved. One of our administration's top priorities was to
    assure that these new countries would become non-nuclear nations, and
    now we are also achieving that goal. Because of these efforts, four
    potential suppliers of ballistic missiles, Russia, Ukraine, China, and
    South Africa, have all agreed to control the transfer of these missiles
    and related technology.
        Pulling back from the nuclear precipice has allowed us to cut United
    States defense expenditures for strategic weapons by almost two-thirds,
    a savings of about $20 billion a year, savings which can be shifted to
    vital needs such as boosting the readiness of our Armed Forces, reducing
    the deficit, putting more police on our own streets. By spending
    millions to keep or take weapons out of the hands of our potential
    adversaries, we are saving billions in arms costs and putting it to
    better use.
        Now, in this year of decision, our ambition for the future must be
    even more ambitious. If our people are to know real lasting security, we
    have to redouble our arms control, nonproliferation, and antiterrorism
    efforts. We have to do everything we can to avoid living with the 21st
    century version of fallout shelters and duck-and-cover exercises, to
    prevent another World Trade Center tragedy.
        In just 4 days we mark the 25th anniversary of the Non-Proliferation
    Treaty. Nothing is more important to prevent the spread of nuclear
    weapons than extending the treaty indefinitely and unconditionally. And
    that's why I've asked the Vice President to lead our delegation to the
    NPT conference this April and to work as hard as we can to make sure we
    succeed in getting that indefinite extension.
        The NPT is the principal reason why scores of nations do not now
    possess nuclear weapons, why the doomsayers were wrong. One hundred and
    seventy-two nations have made NPT the most widely subscribed arms
    limitation treaty in history for one overriding reason: It's in their
    self-interest to do so. Non-nuclear-weapon states that sign on to the
    treaty pledge never to acquire them. Nuclear-weapon states vow not to
    help others obtain nuclear weapons, to facilitate the peaceful uses of
    atomic energy, and to pursue nuclear arms control and disarmament,
    commitments I strongly reaffirm, along with our determination to attain
    universal membership in the treaty.
        Failure to extend NPT infinitely could open the door to a world of
    nuclear trouble. Pariah nations with rigid ideologies and expansionist
    ambitions would have an easier time acquiring terrible weapons, and
    countries that have chosen to forgo the nuclear option would then
    rethink

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    their position. They would certainly be tempted to reconsider that
    decision.
        To further demonstrate our commitment to the goals of the treaty,
    today I have ordered that 200 tons of fissile material, enough for
    thousands of nuclear weapons, be permanently withdrawn from the United
    States nuclear stockpile--200 tons of fissile material that will never
    again be used to build a nuclear weapon.
        A second key goal of ours is ratifying START II. Once in effect,
    that treaty will eliminate delivery systems from Russian and American
    arsenals that carry more than 5,000 weapons. The major reductions under
    START I, together with START II, will enable us to reduce by two-thirds
    the number of strategic warheads deployed at the height of the cold war.
    At my urging, the Senate has already begun hearings on START II, and I
    am encouraged by the interest of the Senators from both parties in
    seeking quick action. I commend the Senate for the action taken so far,
    and I urge again the approval of the treaty as soon as possible.
        President Yeltsin and I have already instructed our experts to begin
    considering the possibility, after START II is ratified, of additional
    reductions and limitations on remaining nuclear forces. We have a chance
    to further lift the nuclear cloud, and we dare not miss it.
        To stop the development of new generations of nuclear weapons, we
    must also quickly complete negotiations on a comprehensive test ban
    treaty. Last month I extended a nuclear testing moratorium that I put
    into effect when I took office. And we revised our negotiating position
    to speed the conclusion of the treaty while reaffirming our
    determination to maintain a safe and reliable nuclear stockpile.
        We will also continue to work with our allies to fully implement the
    agreement we reached with North Korea, first to freeze, then to
    dismantle its nuclear program, all under international monitoring. The
    critics of this agreement, I believe, are wrong. The deal does stop
    North Korea's nuclear program, and it does commit Pyongyang to roll it
    back in the years to come. I have not heard another alternative proposal
    that isn't either unworkable or foolhardy or one that our allies in the
    Republic of Korea and Japan, the nations most directly affected, would
    fail to support. If North Korea fulfills its commitment, the Korean
    Peninsula and the entire world will clearly be less threatened and more
    secure.
        The NPT, START II, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the North
    Korean Agreement, they top our agenda for the year ahead. There are
    other critical tasks we also face if we want to make every American more
    secure, including winning Senate ratification of the Chemical Weapons
    Convention, negotiating legally binding measures to strengthen the
    Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, clarifying the ABM Treaty so as
    to secure its viability while permitting highly effective defenses
    against theater missile attacks, continuing to support regional arms
    control efforts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and pushing for the
    ratification of the Convention on Conventional Weapons which, among
    other things, would help us to reduce the suffering caused by the tens
    of millions of antipersonnel mines which are plaguing millions of people
    all across this world.
        My friends, this is a full and challenging agenda. There are many
    obstacles ahead. We cannot achieve it if we give in to a new
    isolationism. But I believe we can do no less than make every effort to
    complete it.
        Tonight let us remember what President Nixon told the joint session
    of Congress when he returned from his historic trip to Moscow in 1972.
    He said, ``We have begun to check the wasteful and dangerous spiral of
    nuclear arms. Let us seize the moment so that our children and the
    world's children can live free of the fears and free of the hatreds that
    have been the lot of mankind through the centuries.''
        Now it is within our power to realize the dream that Richard Nixon
    described over 20 years ago. We cannot let history record that our
    generation of Americans refused to rise to this challenge, that we
    withdrew from the world and abandoned our responsibilities when we knew
    better than to do it, that we lacked the energy, the vision, and the
    will to carry this struggle forward, the age-old struggle between hope
    and fear.
        So let us find inspiration in the great tradition of Harry Truman
    and Arthur Vandenberg, a tradition that builds bridges of cooperation,
    not walls of isolation; that opens the arms of Americans to change
    instead of throwing up our hands in despair; that casts aside
    partisanship and brings together Republicans and Democrats for the good
    of the American people and the world. That is the tradition that made
    the most of this land, won the great battles of this century

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    against tyranny, and secured our freedom and our prosperity.
        Above all, let's not forget that these efforts begin and end with
    the American people. Every time we reduce the threat that has hung over
    our heads since the dawn of the nuclear age, we help to ensure that from
    the far stretches of the Aleutians to the tip of the Florida Keys, the
    American people are more secure. That is our most serious task and our
    most solemn obligation. The challenge of this moment is matched only by
    its possibility. So let us do our duty.
        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 9:15 p.m. at the Mayflower Hotel. In his
    remarks, he referred to Tricia Nixon Cox, daughter of former President
    Richard Nixon; John Taylor, Director, Richard Nixon Library and
    Birthplace; and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.