[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.