[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book I)]
[May 26, 1995]
[Pages 756-757]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at a Meeting With Surgeon General Nominee Henry Foster and an 
Exchange With Reporters
May 26, 1995

    The President. I want to thank the Senate Labor and Human Resources 
Committee for endorsing the nomination of Dr. Foster to be Surgeon 
General and for doing it in a bipartisan fashion. I'd also like to say a 
special word of appreciation to the people of Tennessee who stood with 
him and especially to the young children in the ``I Have A Future'' 
program who came up here and talked about how he helped to turn their 
lives around, helped to convince them to stay in school, to keep 
working, to turn away from drugs, from teen pregnancy, from the other 
problems that bother so many of our children.
    This is a good day for the United States, and I look forward to 
going on to the next stage and to working right through until we get Dr. 
Foster confirmed.
    Q. Mr. President, what are you going to do if the----
    The President. I would like for Dr. Foster to say something, too.
    Dr. Foster. I, too, would like to thank the Senate Labor and Human 
Resources Committee for a fair hearing and for moving this forward to 
the full Senate. I also particularly want to thank the person on that 
committee who knew me best, Senator William Frist, for supporting my 
nomination. And lastly, I want to thank the President, his 
administration, congressional Members, and my family for supporting me 
so stoutly during these times.

Bosnia

    Q. Mr. President, what are you going to do if the U.N. peacekeepers 
are harmed in Bosnia by the Serbs? They have threatened to retaliate on 
the bombing.
    The President. We'll have to examine their actions as they take 
them. The United States is in a--I want to make clear the position we're 
in here. We, as a part of and a leader of NATO, responded to the request 
of the United Nations, which I thought was very appropriate, to deal 
with the shelling of Sarajevo and the shelling of civilians by the 
Bosnian Serbs, in clear violation of the understandings that have been 
in place for quite some time now. And we did that in an appropriate way 
against military targets, so that the taking of hostages as well as the 
killing of civilians by them is totally wrong and inappropriate, and it 
should stop.
    The United Nations, the forces on the ground and the United Nations 
Command obviously will have to analyze these circumstances on a daily 
basis. We will work with them, and we'll do whatever is appropriate. And 
I still believe that the action we took was appropriate. It was in 
response to the request from the U.N., and it certainly was provoked by 
the inappropriate shelling of civilians by the Bosnian Serbs.
    Q. Do you have a backup plan if something happens? You're sending an 
aircraft carrier to the Adriatic. Does that have a----
    The President. I can't comment any further on what's going on now. I 
think it's important for the United Nations, who have the forces on the 
ground, to be able to deal with this situation. And as the events 
unfold, I'll be happy to comment.

China

    Q. Mr. President, why are you giving China MFN again, sir?
    The President. Well, I haven't made a decision on that yet. But as 
you know, I said last year--and I believe--that we should continue to 
press China on the human rights issues, but I don't believe that 
singling China out on the MFN is necessarily the best way to do it. 
There are other countries with whom we have human rights differences as 
well. And we have certainly pressed our differences with China, not only 
person-to-person, face-to-face with the Chinese but also in the 
appropriate international forum, and we will continue to do that.

[[Page 757]]

    And we also have other differences with them. I agreed to let 
President Li from Taiwan come here. I thought that was the appropriate 
thing to do. We won't always agree with the Chinese, but I think it's 
important that when we disagree, we do it in the right way, aggressively 
and forthrightly, but in the proper forum.

Bosnia

    Q. President Yeltsin has called Mr. Major and Mr. Kohl complaining 
about the--[inaudible]--has he tried to reach you, and what would you 
tell him?
    The President. Not yet, no. If he did, I would tell him just what I 
told you, that the United Nations asked for this; they certainly weren't 
put up to it, that the Bosnian Serbs went way beyond the bounds of 
acceptable conduct. There have been clear restrictions on bombing 
civilians and shelling those areas for a long time now. I would ask him 
to call the Serbs and tell them to quit it and tell them to behave 
themselves and that this would not happen.

Surgeon General Nominee Foster

    Q. Are the Democrats ready to overcome a filibuster on the Foster 
nomination if it happens?
    The President. The Democrats are not numerous enough to overcome a 
filibuster. But Senator Frist and Senator Jeffords put their country 
above their party today and did what they thought was right, and I think 
there will be others. There may even be some who may not think they 
should vote for him, Dr. Foster, who believe that it's wrong to 
filibuster a nomination of this kind.
    In the past, when the Democrats were in the majority in the Senate, 
they often did that as well. They often gave Republican Presidents votes 
on their nominees, even if they didn't agree with them. This--it would 
be unusual and unwarranted if this fine man were denied his day in court 
in the Senate, and I don't believe the American people want that to 
happen, and I don't believe that a majority of the Senate wants that to 
happen.
    Q. What are you doing for the rest of the day?
    The President. Working. [Laughter]

Note: The President spoke at 12:33 p.m. in the Oval Office at the White 
House. During the exchange, a questioner referred to President Boris 
Yeltsin of Russia, Prime Minister John Major of the United Kingdom, and 
Chancellor Helmut Kohl of Germany. A tape was not available for 
verification of the content of these remarks.