    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book I)]
    [April 3, 1996]
    [Pages 541-543]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to Commerce Department Employees on the Aircraft Tragedy in
    Croatia
    April 3, 1996

        Thank you, Dr. Good. Ladies and gentlemen, the Vice President and
    the First Lady and the members of the Cabinet and I wanted to come here
    to be with the employees of the Commerce Department at this very
    difficult hour. Hillary and I have just come from Ron Brown's home,
    visiting with Alma and Michael and their family and friends who are
    there. And we wanted to come and spend a few moments with you.
        As all of you know, the plane carrying Secretary Brown and his
    delegation, including a number of your colleagues, business leaders, and
    members of the United States military, went down today near Dubrovnik,
    Croatia. We do not know for sure what happened there. But

    [[Page 542]]

    I wanted to come here today, as it is almost Passover for American Jews
    and I know a lot of you will want to be leaving soon, just to have the
    chance to say a few words to you.
        The first thing I want to say is, before I left I asked Alma, I
    said, ``Alma, what do you want me to say when I go to the Commerce
    Department?'' She said, ``Tell them Ron was proud of them, that he liked
    them, that he believed in them, and that he fought for the Commerce
    Department, and tell them that you're going to do that now,'' which I
    thought was an incredible thing.
        I've known Ron Brown a long time. I was always amazed at the way he
    was continually reaching out trying to bridge the differences between
    people, always trying to get the best out of people, always believing
    that we could do more than we have done. In a way, this job was sort of
    ready-made for him at this moment in history, and he loved it very much.
        Most of the time, Ron Brown spent using the power of the Commerce
    Department to find ways to give opportunity to ordinary Americans, to
    generate jobs for the American economy and build better futures for
    American citizens. But when we met earlier this week, right before he
    left for the Balkans, he was so excited because he thought that, along
    with these business leaders and the other very able people from the
    Commerce Department on this mission, that they would be able to use the
    power of the American economy to help the peace take hold in the
    Balkans, to help people in that troubled place have the kind of decent,
    honorable, and wonderfully ordinary lives that we Americans too often
    take for granted. And he was so excited by it. If you saw any of the
    clips on the television that have been showing today about his meetings
    yesterday, you could see that.
        I just want to say on a very personal note that I hope all Americans
    today will be grateful for what all the people who were on that plane
    did, for the military personnel, for the business leaders, who didn't
    have to go on that mission, who did it not out of a sense of their own
    profit but out of a sense of what they could do to help America bring
    peace.
        To all of the wonderful people in the Commerce Department that were
    on that plane, some of them very young, one of them who came to our
    campaign in 1992 thinking the most important thing he could do was to
    ride a bicycle across the country asking people to vote for the Vice
    President and me, wound up a trusted employee at the Commerce
    Department; to all of their loved ones and their families, their
    friends, I want to say I am very grateful for their lives and their
    service.
        I also want to say just one last thing about Ron Brown. He was one
    of the best advisers and ablest people I ever knew. And he was very,
    very good at everything he ever did. Whether he was the Commerce
    Secretary or a civil rights leader or something else, he was always out
    there just giving it his all. And he always believed that his mission in
    life was to put people's dreams within their reach if they were willing
    to work for it and believe in themselves.
        When we were over at his home a few moments ago, Alexis Herman, who
    as many of you know used to work with Ron at the Democratic Committee,
    and they've been friends a long time, told me that his favorite
    Scripture verse was that wonderful verse from Isaiah:

          They who wait upon the Lord shall have their strength renewed.
            They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They will run and not
            grow weary. They will walk and faint not.

        Well, Ron Brown walked and ran and flew through life. And he was a
    magnificent life force. And those of us who loved him will always be
    grateful for his friendship and his warmth.
        But every American should be grateful that at a very difficult
    moment in our Nation's history, he made this Commerce Department what it
    was meant to be, an instrument for realizing the potential of every
    American. For all of you who played a role in that, I ask for your
    prayers for Secretary Brown and his family, for your colleagues and
    their families, for the business leaders and their families, and for our
    beloved military officers and their families. And I ask you always,
    always to be fiercely proud for what you have done and very grateful for
    the opportunity to have done it.
        I'd like to ask now that we bow for a moment of silence.

    [At this point, a moment of silence was observed.]

        Amen.
        Thank you.

    [[Page 543]]

    Note: The President spoke at 4:09 p.m. at the Department of Commerce. In
    his remarks, he referred to Secretary Brown's widow, Alma Brown, and his
    son, Michael Brown. The related proclamation of April 4 is listed in
    Appendix D at the end of this volume.