    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1998, Book I)]
    [May 27, 1998]
    [Pages 845-846]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at the Friends of Art and Preservation in Embassies Dinner
    May 27, 1998

        Thank you, Ann; thank you, Jo Carole
    Lauder. Thank you very much, Robin
    Duke, for your remarkable work, and your
    partner John Whitehead out there. I thank our
    good friend Lee Annenberg and
    Walter and the people from the Packard
    Foundation, the Sara Lee Corporation, and the others who have
    contributed to the FAPE Gift to the Nation program.
        I'd like to thank all the Members of Congress who are here and to
    say to Chuck, there still is, albeit smaller, a
    deep level of bipartisan support for the arts. And to the extent that it
    still exists, those who are part of it should be given even more credit
    because it's harder for them today. And I thank the Republicans and the
    Democrats who are here tonight for their support of the arts and our
    country's future.
        I had the enormous privilege of giving Roy Lichtenstein the National
    Medal of the Arts a couple of years ago. He was especially treasured by
    us here in the White House for many reasons that Dorothy knows, but I want to thank you, Dorothy, for giving
    this wonderful gift. And I want to thank you, Chuck, for giving this wonderful gift and making Roy be here
    in a way tonight. I'm particularly grateful.
        I understand that when Chuck paints and he's
    feeling especially good about his work, he does it to the music of
    Aretha Franklin, which brings him into my ambit of the arts. [Laughter]
    And judging by the energy of your work, I may issue an Executive order
    instructing all agencies to play Aretha Franklin from 9 to 5 every day
    from here on out. [Laughter]
        I want to also thank all of you who are here who are in the
    diplomatic corps, who both benefit our country and are benefited by the
    generosity of those who place the arts in our Embassies. I have been
    literally exhilarated and stunned with surprise from time to time as
    I've gone into our Embassies all around the world and seen the result of
    your efforts. And it is altogether fitting that the world's oldest
    democracy should have a program like this.
        In 1935 President Roosevelt said ``the conditions for democracy and
    art are one. The arts cannot thrive except when men are free to be
    themselves and to be in charge of the discipline of their own energies
    and ardors.'' Our freedom and our diversity has stimulated some of the
    most remarkable art in the world, and FAPE and the Arts in Embassies
    program are sustaining that art and brightening its exposure to people
    all around the globe.
        Tonight a young man whom I met in a different context came up to me
    tonight and showed me the card he got to certify that he was eligible to
    vote in the Irish election last week. And I think even those of you who
    aren't Irish felt a certain absolute exhilaration when the Irish people,
    both in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, voted for peace,
    and when the Protestants as well as the Catholics voted for peace.
        And I think that we felt it not only because it was a good thing in
    itself but because we are so animated and often frustrated by seeing
    conflict after conflict after conflict after conflict in this allegedly
    blissful post-cold-war era, where people are fighting each other over
    ancient differences. And yet when you think about it, when you strip the
    external veneer that being in the

    [[Page 846]]

    Communist or the anti-Communist world provided all of us a sort of
    comfortable identity, each individual and each group of people and each
    nation then are confronted with what is a very elemental human question:
    How can you recognize that you're different from other people without
    thinking that you're better than they are and that there is something
    wrong with them and that therefore you have to do something to them in
    order to really count for something yourself? Or is there another way in
    which you can recognize your differences, be proud of what is unique to
    you and to your tribe or your clan, and still believe that underneath
    you're connected by something that's even more important than what is
    different?
        I submit to you that that dilemma is being played out in some of the
    great epic battles around the globe today and in some of the more
    pedestrian and, for me, occasionally frustrating battles in this city
    today. And that in this context, when we look ahead to the 21st
    century--when Hillary convinced me we
    should start this millennium project, she said we would name it
    ``Honoring the past, and imagining the future.'' And I submit to you
    that it happens to be that we're on the verge of a new millennium, but
    because of all that's happened in the last few years, there is upon this
    country and upon all of us and, indeed, thoughtful people throughout the
    world, an enormous obligation to imagine the future in a way that honors
    our past but does not chain us to its darkest moments.
        So what kind of future are we going to create? How would we go about
    honoring the past? How will we meet the challenges of the future? What
    real gifts will we give to our children and our grandchildren? Our
    artists will have to help us find those answers. And every time someone
    walks into an American Embassy anywhere in the world, I want them to see
    that in America we are many people--we are many religions; we are many
    races; we are many backgrounds; we fight like cats and dogs--but we
    believe in the common values of freedom, and ultimately we believe that
    what unites us is far more important than what divides us, and it finds
    expression in the creative genius of the art they will see on the walls
    of our Embassies. That is what I hope.
        And if somehow we can permeate the world with the sense of
    possibility that was so manifest in that Irish election, then all over
    the world we'll be giving people with and without the brilliance of
    artistic gifts a chance to live as God meant them to live. That is your
    ultimate gift, and I'm very grateful to you.
        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at approximately 9:45 p.m. on the South Lawn
    at the White House. In his remarks, he referred to Ann Gund, president,
    and Jo Carole Lauder, chair, Friends of Art and Preservation in
    Embassies (FAPE); Robin Chandler Duke and John Whitehead, cochairs, FAPE
    Millennium Project; Leonore Annenberg, chair emeritus, FAPE, and her
    husband, Walter, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom; Dorothy
    Lichtenstein, whose gift of an original painting, ``Reflections on
    Senorita 1990,'' by her late husband, artist Roy Lichtenstein, was
    unveiled at the dinner; and contemporary artist Chuck Close, whose lino
    cut entitled ``Roy'' was also unveiled at the dinner.