    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book I)]
    [April 11, 1997]
    [Pages 423-432]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks and a Question-and-Answer Session With the American Society of
    Newspaper Editors
    April 11, 1997

        The President. Thank you very much. And thank you, Bob, for
    reminding me of my best line from the speech last night. [Laughter]
    George Bush got the last laugh--[laughter]--12,000 feet, not a scratch.
    I fell 6 inches; I'm hobbled for 6 months. [Laughter]
        I'm delighted to be here. I want to thank you for having me and
    congratulate this year's writing award winners. I missed last year, and
    I'm sorry I couldn't come, but the Vice President told me all about it.
    And because he came here, I had to listen one more time and look one
    more time at all those pictures from his days as a long-haired reporter
    for the Nashville Tennessean. [Laughter] This is what it's really like.
    I don't mind learning about global warming and high technology and
    everything, but I had to learn all about the newspaper business all over
    again. [Laughter] I hear that speech about once every 3 months from him.
        You know, times have changed remarkably since Will Rogers said,
    ``All I know is what I see in the papers.'' Today, we live in a world
    with 500 channels, literally hundreds of thousands of web sites
    exploding all the time--we're trying to develop the Internet, too--but
    still, the role that you play in informing and educating Americans and
    in helping them to make the right kind of choices is terribly important.
        I want to talk today about one of those choices that will have a
    profound effect on all of our lives and the lives of our children in the
    next century, and that is the choices we must make to sustain America's
    leadership in the world.
        Four years ago I came into office determined to renew our strength
    and prosperity here at home. But I also believed that in the global
    society of the 21st century, the dividing line between foreign and
    domestic policy was increasingly an artificial distinction. After all,
    our national security depends on strong families, safe streets, and
    world-class education. And our success at home clearly depends on our
    strength and willingness and our ability to lead abroad.
        The conviction that America must be strong and involved in the world
    has really been the bedrock of our foreign policy for the last 50 years.
    After World War II, a generation of farsighted leaders forged NATO,
    which has given us a half century of security and played a strong role
    in ending the cold war. They built the United Nations so that a hard-won
    peace would not be lost. They launched the Marshall plan

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    to rebuild a Europe ravaged by war. They created the World Bank and
    other international financial institutions to pave the way for
    unprecedented prosperity for American people and others around the
    world. They did this throughout a half century, Republicans and
    Democrats together, united in bipartisan support for the American
    leadership that has been essential to the strength and security of the
    American people for half a century now.
        Now we stand at the dawn of a new century and a new millennium--
    another moment to be farsighted, another moment to guarantee America
    another 50 years of security and prosperity. We've largely swept away
    the blocs and barriers that once divided whole continents. But as
    borders become more open and the flow of information, technology, money,
    trade, and people across the borders are larger and more rapid, the line
    between domestic and foreign policy continues to blur.
        And we can only preserve our security and our well-being at home by
    being strongly involved in the world beyond our borders. From fighting
    terrorism and drug trafficking to limiting the proliferation of weapons
    of mass destruction, to protecting the global environment, we stand to
    gain from working with other nations, and we will surely lose if we fail
    to do so.
        Just as American leaders of both political parties did 50 years ago,
    we have to come together to take new initiatives and revitalize and
    reform old structures so that we can prepare our country to succeed and
    win and make the world a better place in this new era.
        You know, it is commonplace to say that since the end of the cold
    war, America stands alone as the world's only superpower. That is
    clearly true, but it can be dangerously misleading because our power can
    only be used if we are willing to become even more involved with others
    all around the world in an increasingly interdependent world. We must be
    willing to shape this interdependent world and to embrace its
    interdependence, including our interdependence on others. There is no
    illusory Olympus on which the world's only superpower can sit and expect
    to preserve its position, much less enhance it.
        In my State of the Union Address, I set out six key strategic
    objectives for America's prosperity, security, and democratic values in
    the 21st century: first, a Europe that is undivided, democratic, and at
    peace for the first time in its history; second, strong and stable
    relations between the United States and Asia; third, our willing
    continuation of America's leadership as the world's most important force
    for peace; fourth, the creation of more jobs and opportunity for our
    people through a more open and competitive trading system that also
    helps others all around the world; fifth, increasing cooperation in
    confronting new security threats that defy borders and unilateral
    solutions; and sixth, the provision of the tools necessary to meet these
    challenges, from maintaining the world's strongest, most modern, and
    most adaptable military to maintaining a strong, fully funded, and
    comprehensive diplomacy.
        On that last point, let me just point out that Secretary Albright
    often says that our whole diplomatic budget is only about one percent of
    the budget. We devote less of our resources to that than any other major
    country in the world. And yet, about half of America's legacy will be
    determined by whether we have the adequate resources to do that. That's
    a very important thing, because I think most of your readers don't know
    that. They think we spend more and get less out of our foreign policy
    investments when, in fact, we spend less and get more than almost any
    other area of public endeavor.
        Each of these six goals is vital to realizing the promise of our
    time and to guarding against its perils. Together, they provide a
    blueprint for our future, not just for the next 4 years but for the next
    half-century.
        In the next 3 months we'll face critical choices that will determine
    whether we have the vision and will to pursue these objectives. We have
    to seize the opportunity to complete the mission America set out on 50
    years ago and to push forward on the mission of the next 50 years.
        We will begin by strengthening the foundation for security and
    prosperity in our own hemisphere. In the first of my three trips to the
    Americas over the next year, I will meet with our closest neighbors in
    Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean to help our democracies and
    economies grow together and to intensify our shared fight against crime,
    drugs, illegal immigration, and pollution.
        Just before the 50th anniversary of the Marshall plan, I will hold a
    summit with the European Union to affirm our transatlantic ties even as
    we expand our global partnership.

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        I will host the world's leading industrial democracies at what we
    used to call the G-7 but now call the Summit of the Eight in Denver,
    which will give us an opportunity to deepen our cooperation with Russia
    for peace and freedom and prosperity.
        At the NATO summit in Madrid this July, we will continue to adapt
    NATO to the demands of a new era and invite the first--but not the
    last--new members to join history's most successful alliance.
        And I will continue America's efforts to bring the parties together
    at this very difficult moment for peace in the Middle East.
        Like the larger agenda they support, each of these initiatives calls
    for American leadership that is strong and steadfast. The powerful trend
    toward democracy and free markets is neither inevitable nor
    irreversible. Sustaining it will take relentless effort. But leadership
    brings its rewards. The more America leads, the more willing others will
    be to share the risks and the responsibilities of forging the future we
    want.
        In the last 4 years, we have seen that over and over again. We've
    seen it in Bosnia. We've seen it in Haiti. We've seen it in the Summit
    of the Americas and in the APEC leaders forum, where we have agreed with
    our partners to build a free and open trading system early in the next
    century.
        Our leadership also faces two other pressing tests now and in the
    coming months: first, immediately ratifying the Chemical Weapons
    Convention; and then, giving the United States the means we need to
    continue our growth by making trade more open and fair in the global
    economy.
        Let me deal with the first issue. For the last 50 years, Americans
    have lived under the hair-trigger threat of mass destruction. Our
    leadership has been essential to lifting that global peril, thanks in
    large measure to the efforts of my predecessors and during the last 4
    years also, when we have made remarkable progress.
        The collapse of the Soviet Union left 3,400 nuclear warheads in
    Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus. Today, there are none. North Korea was
    accumulating material for nuclear weapons when I became President. Now
    its nuclear program is frozen, under international supervision, and
    eventually will be dismantled.
        We helped to win the indefinite extension of the Nuclear Non-
    Proliferation Treaty, a powerful global barrier to the spread of nuclear
    weapons and their technology. We led in concluding the Comprehensive
    Test Ban Treaty, which will bring to life a decades-old dream of ending
    nuclear weapons testing. President Yeltsin and I agreed in Helsinki to a
    roadmap through the START treaties to cut our nuclear arsenals over the
    next decade by 80 percent from their cold war peaks and actually to
    destroy the warheads so they can never be used for destructive ends.
        Now America must rise to the challenge of ratifying the Chemical
    Weapons Convention and doing it before it takes effect on April 29th,
    less than 3 weeks from today.
        This century opened with the horror of chemical warfare in the
    trenches of World War I. Today, at the dawn of a new century, we have
    the opportunity to forge a widening international commitment to begin
    banishing poison gas from the Earth, even as we know it remains a grave,
    grave threat in the hands of rogue states or terrorist groups.
        The Chemical Weapons Convention requires other nations to do what we
    decided to do more than a decade ago, get rid of all chemical weapons.
    In other words, the treaty is about other nations destroying their
    chemical weapons. As they do so and renounce the development,
    production, acquisition, or use of chemical arms and pledge not to help
    others acquire them or produce them, our troops will be less likely to
    face one of the battlefield's most lethal threats. As stockpiles are
    eliminated and the transfer of dangerous chemicals is controlled, rogue
    states and terrorists will have a harder time getting the ingredients
    for weapons. And that will protect not only military forces but also
    innocent civilians.
        By giving us new tools for verification, enabling us to tap a global
    network for intelligence and information, and strengthening our own law
    enforcement, the treaty will make it easier for us to prevent and to
    punish those who seek to violate its rules.
        The Chemical Weapons Convention reflects the best of American
    bipartisanship, negotiated under President Reagan and President Bush,
    supported by a broad and growing number of Americans, including every
    chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff since the Carter administration.
    Last week at the White House, I was proud to welcome a remarkable cross-
    section of these supporters, including former Secretary of State

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    James Baker, General Colin Powell, other military leaders, legislators,
    arms control experts, and representatives from small and large
    businesses, religious groups, and scientists.
        I urge the Senate to do what is right and ratify this convention. If
    we fail to do it, we won't be there to enforce a treaty that we helped
    to write, leaving our military and our people more vulnerable to a
    silent and sudden killer. We will put ourselves in the same column with
    rogue nations like Libya and Iraq that reject this treaty, instead of in
    the company of those that set the norms for civilized behavior in this
    world. We will subject our chemical companies, among our leading
    exporters, to severe trade restrictions that could cost them hundreds of
    millions of dollars in sales and cost many Americans good jobs. And
    perhaps most important, we will send a clear signal of retreat to the
    rest of the world at the very time when we ought to be sending the
    opposite signal.
        America has led the effort to establish an international ban against
    chemical weapons. Now we have to ratify it and remain on the right side
    of history. If we do, there will be new momentum and moral authority to
    our leadership in reducing even more the dangers of weapons of mass
    destruction.
        Within my lifetime we've made enormous strides, stepping back from
    the nuclear precipice, from the bleak time of fallout shelters and air-
    raid drills. But we have so much more to do. We have to strengthen the
    world's ability to stop the use of deadly diseases as biological weapons
    of war. We have to freeze the production of raw materials used for
    nuclear bombs. We must give greater bite to the global watchdogs
    responsible for detecting hidden weapons systems and programs.
    Continuing this progress demands constant work, nonstop vigilance, and
    American leadership.
        There is a second matter that demands bipartisan cooperation in the
    coming months. For 50 years, our Nation has led the world not only in
    building security but in promoting global prosperity. Now we have to
    choose whether to continue to shape the international economy so that it
    works for all our people or to shrink from its challenges. The rapidly
    growing and ever-changing global economy is an inescapable fact of our
    time. In the last 50 years, global trade has increased 90 fold. Over the
    next decade, it is expected to grow at 3 times the rate of the American
    economy. Nations once divided by great gulfs of geography and military
    rivalry are now linked by surging currents of commerce.
        Now, the world marketplace does pose stiff challenges. But it offers
    us great opportunity. In each of the last 3 years, the United States has
    been ranked the world's most competitive economy. Our exports have
    surged to record levels; our budget deficit is now the smallest as a
    share of national income of any major economy in the world; basic
    industries have revived. Our auto industry is number one in the world
    again for the first time since the 1970's. From semiconductors to
    biotech to Hollywood, American firms lead the industries that are
    remaking the world. Our economy produced 11\1/2\ million jobs in the
    last 4 years for the first time ever. Our unemployment today is 5.2
    percent; that's 1\1/2\ percent lower than the 25-year average before I
    took office.
        We can make the most of this new economic era. We do not need to be
    afraid of global trade. But in a world where we have only 4 percent of
    the population and where the fastest growing markets for our products
    and services are Asia and Latin America, where export-related jobs pay
    13 to 16 percent more than other American jobs, we don't have a choice;
    we have to export. To do that, we have to have higher skills, stronger
    productivity, deeper investment. That's why we have to balance the
    budget--to keep our interest rates down, our investment up, and to keep
    the economy going.
        We have to give our people the best education in the world. That's
    why we need the new national school standards. We must open the doors of
    college to all. We ought to pass the ``GI bill'' for America's workers
    I've proposed that would give every unemployed and underemployed person
    a skills grant to use and get into training that he or she needs.
        We must continue to expand research and development in both the
    public and private sectors. And in every opportunity, we have to press
    forward for more open international trade.
        Our administration has concluded more than 200 separate trade
    agreements, each of which opens someone else's markets wider to American
    business. We fought for NAFTA, which created the free market with our
    neighbors, and today, in spite of its economic crisis, our exports to
    Mexico are up 37 percent over pre-NAFTA levels. We broke 7 years of
    global gridlock and successfully negotiated the new round of GATT,

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    which has lowered average tariffs on Americans goods around the world by
    one-third. We have broken down barriers and boosted exports to Japan, up
    41 percent since 1993 and 85 percent in the areas where we have
    negotiated specific trade agreements.
        This is a record to build on, not to rest on. When the momentum for
    open market falters, the world can easily slide backward. And when
    America falters, our relative position will certainly slide backward. It
    is unacceptable for us to sit on the sidelines while other nations forge
    bonds of trade. Only American leadership can create the prosperity for
    our people and for the world in the next 50 years. And America cannot
    lead if we don't act.
        And here's what the issue is: Every American President since 1974,
    Democrat and Republican alike, has had the authority to negotiate new
    trade agreements, called fast-track negotiating authority, which permits
    the agreements to be presented in a package to the Congress to be
    approved up or down. Every time this has been extended with the support
    of Members of Congress of both parties. That is how we have exercised
    our most fundamental economic leadership. That authority has expired.
    And today I renew my call to Congress to give me the authority to
    negotiate new trade agreements that will create opportunities for our
    workers and our businesses in the global economy and will maintain our
    leadership in creating the kind of world we want the young people who
    are here in this audience to live in.
        We have seen in the past 6 months what a strong trade agreement can
    do for our people and our businesses. The information technology
    agreement that we reached with 37 other nations in December will
    eliminate tariffs and unshackle trade on $500 billion of trade in
    computers, semiconductors, and telecommunications. This amounts to a $5
    billion cut in tariffs on American products exported to other nations.
    It can lead to hundreds of thousands of high-wage jobs for Americans.
        Now, if Congress grants fast-track authority, I can use it to open
    trade in areas where American firms are leading and where our future
    lies. We lead the world in high technology. In years to come, we must
    press to tear down barriers that keep that technology, products like
    computer software, medical equipment, environmental technology out of
    other markets.
        We lead the world in agricultural exports. We have to negotiate
    trade agreements to open even more markets. We will negotiate a
    comprehensive free trade agreement with Chile and follow through on our
    leadership to determine the future of trade in our own hemisphere with
    our own neighbors, all of whom but one are democracies. And we have to
    keep them that way and keep them strong.
        We will press aggressively to open markets in Asia as well. We must
    also continue to open opportunities in the world's newest market
    economies. In particular, I urge Congress to support my new partnership
    for freedom, to expand trade and investment, entrench free markets in
    democracy, and promote stability in Russia and the New Independent
    States.
        If we don't seize these opportunities, our competitors surely will.
    Let me just give you one example. Last year, for the first time ever,
    Latin American nations had more trade with Europe than the United
    States. There is no reason to think that others will wait while we sit
    idle. These nations, in Latin America especially, are our friends;
    they're our partners. They have done an enormously important thing in
    moving to freedom and democracy in the last few years all over Central
    and South America. We dare not let this opportunity pass us by.
        I am determined that the new trade agreements we seek will be good
    for our working people. After all, we've got 11\1/2\ million more jobs
    and 5.2 percent unemployment; we know we can make it good for the
    American people. And I am determined that they will be good for the
    environment. More and more, in the future, we will see nations
    negotiating environmental partnerships for the sake of their economies
    and the stability of their society and the future of their children.
        I have asked the United States Trade Representative, Charlene
    Barshefsky, to work with Members of Congress of both parties, with labor
    and business and environmental groups to try to reach consensus on these
    issues. But let me be clear: There is one consensus we cannot avoid. We
    cannot shrink from the challenges of leadership in the global economy.
        Trade and communications are remaking our world. They're bringing it
    closer together. They're bringing a revolution in global trade. Because
    in the long run we know that it's going to happen, we ought to lead it.
    We have to lead it. And if we do, it will increase our buying

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    power and expand our exports. American workers and businesses, given the
    chance, can outcompete anyone, and I hope Congress will help me let them
    do just that.
        The larger question we face is as old as America: whether to turn
    inward or reach outward, whether to fear change or embrace it. Over the
    past 50 years, over the past 4 years, I believe we've made the choices
    that have served America well.
        Now we face another moment of choice. While we no longer face a
    single implacable foe, the enemy of our time is inaction. It is so easy
    to be inactive when things seem to be going well and so easy to believe
    a new choice will cause more trouble than it will do good. But we did
    not get where we are today by being inactive or by sitting on the
    sidelines. The decisions we make in the next few months will set
    America's course in the world for the next 50 years. We have to make
    them together, and they must be the right ones.
        Thank you very much.

    Security Classified Information

    [A participant asked if the President would support legislation proposed
    by the Commission on Protection and Reduction of Government Secrecy to
    place restraints on security classification of Government documents and
    to create a declassification center to report to the Congress on
    progress in that area.]

        The President. Well, first of all, let me say, the short answer to
    your question is: I think there has to be--we have to do something about
    it to respond to the commission's report and to respond to the fact that
    there are too many people who can make too many things classified in the
    Government. And we are reviewing the report. We have also started
    conversations with Members of Congress about it. And I'm--we're
    attempting to fashion what we think is the appropriate response. But let
    me remind you that I believe that we ought to unearth more documents and
    not keep so many secrets for so long.
        I've worked very hard to open up documents since I've been
    President. We did it with the human radiation experiments. We have
    conducted a relentless effort to find out what really happened in the
    Gulf war, in terms of whether our people were or were not and to what
    extent exposed to dangerous chemicals. And in any number of other ways,
    I support the general thrust for the commission's report.
        I have asked my staff to study it. I have not received a specific
    recommendation on the specific points in the report, but generally I
    think there is too much secrecy in the Government, and I think too many
    people have too much unfettered discretion just to declare documents
    secret, and I think that you will see some significant progress coming
    out of this.

    Domestic Chemical Weapons Stockpiles

    [A participant asked about more intensive scrutiny of the Nation's aging
    chemical weapons stockpiles, suggesting accelerated disposal and highway
    infrastructure improvements to decrease risks to the public.]

        The President. You've asked me a question no one's ever asked me
    before, but I can tell you the answer to the first question is, does it
    make more sense to bring more attention to the country about it? The
    answer to that is yes, if for no other reason, not just because of what
    your people may be exposed to but because one of the reasons we decided
    to destroy all this before I ever came along--my predecessors made that
    decision, it was the right one--is that you don't want even small
    amounts of these kinds of chemicals in the wrong hands--can be used for
    very bad things.
        And let me also say--now, on the second question, I will have to go
    back and see what the facts are and see what we can do to accelerate it.
    I don't know enough now to give you a sensible answer, but you've asked
    a good question, and I will get an answer, and I'll get back to you. And
    let me just make one other point on this. Some of the opponents of the
    Chemical Weapons Convention say, ``Well, you know, you can't protect
    everybody against everything.'' Well, if that were the standard, we'd
    never have any treaties, and we wouldn't pass any laws.
        You know, still, some people may be able to cook up chemical weapons
    in laboratories in their garages. But if you look at what happened to
    the Japanese people, for example, when the extremist sect unleashed the
    sarin gas in the Tokyo subway, it was a devastating thing. Now, maybe
    they could or could not do that once the chemical weapons regime is
    fully in force and we have much tighter restrictions on what can cross
    national lines. But one thing we know for sure: Japan has already
    ratified this treaty

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    because they have suffered through this, and they know even if somebody
    who has got a half-cocked idea and a home-baked laboratory can go out
    and do something terrible like this, there will be fewer incidents like
    this if we pass the Chemical Weapons Convention.
        And I think it's very interesting--a lot of the objections that have
    been raised to this convention in America were totally dismissed out of
    hand in Japan, a country that has genuinely suffered from chemicals like
    this in the hands of terrorists. But that goes back to the question the
    gentleman from Alabama asked, and it's one of the reasons we want to
    destroy our stockpiles as quickly as possible, because, in addition to
    the risks that people in the area are exposed to, we want to minimize
    the chances that anybody ever can get their hands on any of this for
    mischievous, evil purposes.

    Access to Chemical Weapons Technology

    [A participant requested a response to the argument that the Chemical
    Weapons Convention might allow some rogue states access to U.S. chemical
    weapons technology and asked if the President could change the treaty to
    ensure its ratification.]

        The President. Well, first of all, it is--let me answer the second
    question first, and then I'll go back. In general, obviously no one
    country can change the body of a treaty which has already been ratified
    by other countries; we can't do that, and lots of other countries have
    ratified it. But every country is empowered to, in effect, attach a set
    of understandings as to what the treaty means, and as long as they're
    not plainly inconsistent with the thrust of the document and don't
    vitiate it, they can go forward. And one of the things we've been doing
    with a lot of the opponents and the skeptics of the treaty--Senator
    Helms, for example, and others raised, I think, 30 different questions
    in the beginning, and we have reached agreement, I believe, in 20 of
    those 30 areas, and we've offered alternatives that we believe are
    reasonable in the other areas.
        Let me just say for those of you who may not understand this, Iran
    is a signatory of the--they have ratified the Chemical Weapons
    Convention. Iraq and Libya have not and will not. The concern is that if
    a country is attacked by chemical weapons, and they are part of the
    treaty, that all the rest of us have pledged to do something to help
    them. And the concern would be, well, what if Iran is attacked by Iraq,
    and the United States and Germany, for example, give them a lot of
    sophisticated defense technology on chemical weapons, and they turn
    around and use the chemical weapons against someone else--in other
    words, if they turned out to have lied about their promise in the
    treaty? That's the argument.
        We have made it clear that, as regards other countries, we will not
    do anything to give them our technology--not Iran, not anybody--and
    that's what our response will be, will be limited to helping them deal
    with the health effects of the attack. We will help people in medical
    ways and with other things having to do with the health consequences.
        So I believe that the compromise we have reached on that, once it
    becomes fully public and the language is dealt with, will be acceptable
    to at least most of those who have opposed the treaty on that ground.

    Cuba

    [A participant asked about the difference between the U.S. policy of
    engagement with such countries as China, Vietnam, and North Korea, and
    the policy of embargo for Cuba, suggesting it would be better to open up
    Cuba.]

        The President. Well, I think, first of all, as a practical matter,
    with each of these countries, we do what we think is in our interest and
    what is most likely to further our interest. Secondly, the other three
    countries you have mentioned have not murdered any Americans lately.
        We had a law that I strongly supported, the Cuba democracy act. I
    strongly supported it. I thought it was absolutely the right policy. It
    strengthened the economic embargo but also gave us a chance to open up
    relations to Cuba and to take care of humanitarian problems, to
    facilitate travel, to do all kinds of things. And we were implementing
    that law. It gave the Executive requisite flexibility. And in return for
    the Cuba democracy act, the Castro government illegally shot down two
    planes and murdered Americans. And so we changed our policy. Congress
    was outraged. They passed the Helms-Burton law, and I signed it
    regretfully but not reluctantly.
        And our policy toward Cuba, therefore, today is one that was
    dictated by Cuba, not by the United States. And until I see some
    indication

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    of willingness to change, it's going to be very difficult to persuade me
    to change our policy. And I would have a different attitude toward China
    or Vietnam or North Korea if they murdered any Americans. And I would
    hope you would want me to have a different attitude toward them if they
    did.

    President's Legacy and Aspirations for the Future

    [A participant said his son's class would vote for the first time in
    2004 and asked what the President's legacy would be for them and what
    they could do to prepare themselves for the future.]

        The President. Let me answer the second question first. I think the
    following things I would recommend to the fifth graders to prepare
    themselves for the 21st century. Number one, first and foremost, be a
    good student. Learn all you can. Learn the hard things as well as those
    that aren't hard for you. And stay out of trouble. Don't do something
    dumb, like get involved with drugs or alcohol or something that will
    wreck your life. Learn. Be a good student.
        Secondly, get to know people who are your age but who are different
    from you, people of a different racial or ethnic group, people of a
    different religion, because you're going to live in the most
    multiethnic, multiracial, multireligious democracy in human history. And
    how we handle that will determine whether the 21st century is also an
    American century--still somewhat of an open question, although I'm
    encouraged about it.
        The third thing I would say is, learn as much as you can about the
    rest of the world, because it will be a smaller world and you will need
    to know more about it.
        And the fourth thing I would say is, start to take the
    responsibilities of citizenship seriously and find some way--even at the
    age of 10--to be of service in your community, whether it's helping some
    student in your school that's not learning as well as he or she should
    or doing something on the weekends to help people who are unfortunate. I
    think that we need to build an ethic of citizen service into our young
    people.
        Those are the four things I would advise him to do.
        In terms of what I hope the legacy will be, I hope people will look
    back on this period and say that while I was President, we prepared
    America for the 21st century basically in three ways: that we preserved
    the American dream of opportunity for everybody who is willing to work
    for it; number two, that we preserved America's leadership for peace and
    freedom and prosperity in the world, and the world is a better place
    because of it; and number three, that Americans are living in greater
    harmony with one another as one America because we passionately
    advocated a respect for people's differences and respect for our shared
    values, and we made real progress in overcoming these divides and
    extremist hatreds that have not only weakened our democracy but are
    virtually destroying countries all around the world.
        Or in a more pedestrian way, I hope at least people will say,
    ``Well, after Bill Clinton was President, at least we had a new set of
    problems to deal with.'' [Laughter]
        In 1983, I was in Portland, Maine, at a Governors conference. And
    the former Senator and former Secretary of State, Edmund Muskie, who
    recently passed away--a remarkable man--was there. And we were having a
    visit, and he said, ``You know, I loved being a Governor. In some ways I
    liked it even more than being a Senator or Secretary of State. I liked
    running something.'' And I said, ``How did you keep score, Senator
    Muskie? How did you know whether you had succeeded or not?'' He said,
    ``I knew I had succeeded if my successor had a new set of problems.''
    [Laughter]
        And you think about it: We will always have problems. It's endemic
    to the human condition and to the nature of life. The way you define
    progress is if you get a new set of problems and if you get over it.
        And particularly, I feel, on this whole issue of how we deal with
    our racial diversity--it's something, of course, that's dominated my
    whole life because I grew up as a Southerner, but it's a very different
    issue now. It's more than black Americans and white Americans. The
    majority of students in the Los Angeles County schools are Hispanic. And
    there are 4 school districts in America--4--where there are children who
    have more than 100 different racial, ethnic, or linguistic backgrounds
    within the school districts already.

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        So this is a big deal. And every issue that we debate, whether it's
    affirmative action or immigration or things that seem only peripherally
    involved in this, need to be viewed through the prism of how we can
    preserve one America, the American dream, our shared values, and still
    accord people real respect and appreciation for their independent
    heritages. It will be a great, great challenge. It's a challenge that,
    by the way, I think the newspapers of the country can do a lot to help
    promote in terms of advancing dialogue, diversifying your own staffs,
    doing the things that will help America to come to grips with what it
    means not to be a country with a legacy of slavery and the differences
    between blacks and whites but to have grafted onto that not only the
    immigration patterns of the early 20th century but what is happening to
    us now.
        It is really potentially a great thing for America that we are
    becoming so multi-ethnic at the time the world is becoming so closely
    tied together. But it's also potentially a powder keg of problems and
    heartbreak and division and loss. And how we handle it will determine,
    really--that single question may be the biggest determinant of what we
    look like 50 years from now and what our position in the world is and
    what the children of that age will have to look forward to.

    National Economy

    [A participant said his area had been devastated by downsizing of the
    military and asked how the President's trade policies would help revive
    its citizens' spirits and its economy.]

        The President. Well, let's talk about the downsizing of the military
    and the trade policy. The trade policy alone won't necessarily revive a
    place with a stagnant economy, because very often the trade policy
    increases jobs in the places that are already doing well, because
    success will build on success. So the only way it can help is if the
    people in the Mohawk Valley can identify companies that are going to
    have to expand because of expanding trade and try to get the expansions
    to locate there.
        But what I think is important--and I believe the United States,
    first of all, has an extra obligation to communities that have been
    adversely affected by military downsizing. And we have worked very hard
    to accelerate the rate at which we work with communities that have had
    military downsizing, to give them back the resources that they can use
    to rebuild their communities. In many places, we've had a lot of
    success; in some places we haven't.
        Secondly, I think it's important that in areas like yours the United
    States gives greater economic incentives for new investment to diversify
    the economy. One of the things that I have asked the Congress to do in
    my balanced budget plan is to more than double the number of empowerment
    zones and enterprise communities from the numbers we have now in the new
    plan, so we can give real incentives for people to invest their money
    and to create good, stable, long-term jobs in areas with high
    unemployment rates.
        If there's anything else you can think of I can do, I'll be happy to
    do it. If there's anything we should have done in the defense downsizing
    to benefit your area that we haven't done, I'll be happy to look into
    that. But I think the main thing we have to do at the national level is
    to keep the economy strong and then to create extra incentives for
    people--like people we're trying to move from welfare to work where I
    proposed some special incentives--or for places with high unemployment
    rates, so that we can more uniformly spread economic opportunity.
        When you see that America has a 5.2 percent unemployment rate,
    that's very misleading. We have a lot of States with unemployment rates
    below 4 percent now. We have within States a lot of communities with
    unemployment rates below 5.2 percent. But we still have places with
    unemployment rates of 7, 8, 9, 10, 12 percent. And so the trick is to
    create the economic incentives that will even out the investment
    patterns. And that's what I'm trying to do. And if you can think of
    anything specific I can do to help you, I hope you'll feel free to
    contact me and let me know.
        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 12:17 p.m. at the J.W. Marriott Hotel. In
    his remarks, he referred to Bob Giles, board president, American Society
    of Newspaper Editors.

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