[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1999, Book I)]
[June 20, 1999]
[Pages 967-972]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Interview With Wolf Blitzer of Cable News 
Network's ``Late Edition'' in Cologne
June 20, 1999

President Boris Yeltsin of Russia

    Mr. Blitzer. Mr. President, thank you so much for joining us on this 
very special ``Late Edition'' from here in Cologne.
    There have been reports that President Yeltsin has been ill, 
erratic, that his behavior has been shaky. You just met with him a 
little while ago. What's your impression?
    The President. Well, his behavior was neither erratic nor shaky 
today. He was strong, clear, forceful, and looking to the future. We 
actually had quite a good meeting. We got a lot done. We set out an 
agenda to continue to work on reducing the nuclear threat; to continue 
to work on reducing the likelihood of any cooperation of Russian 
entities with Iran's missile technology development; with working to 
help Russia comply with the IMF and get its economy going strongly 
again; and obviously, we talked about our commitment to fully implement 
the agreements we made over Kosovo.
    So, today all I can tell you is I had good personal experience. He 
was clear, concise, and direct and strong.

Russia-U.S. Nuclear Security Cooperation

    Mr. Blitzer. But a lot of people were concerned when the Russians 
sent those 150 or 200 soldiers into Pristina so secretively. With the 
Russians still having thousands of nuclear warheads, should Americans be 
concerned about the security, the safety of that nuclear arsenal if 
there's a problem between civilian and military control of the Russian 
military?
    The President. Well, so far, I can only tell you what our experience 
is, now in its 6\1/2\ years. We've worked very well with the Russian 
military to implement the system that was set up actually before I 
became President, although we've tried to strengthen it, to strengthen 
the Russian security over nuclear weapons, to strengthen security over 
other materials. President Yeltsin and I 
agreed last year to destroy 50 tons of plutonium arising out of nuclear 
operations. We have great confidence in that, and it's working quite 
well. I have no reason to believe that it won't continue to do so.

Russian Role in Kosovo

    Mr. Blitzer. But will you concede, though, that the dash for the 
airport in Pristina and the grabbing hold of that piece of territory 
helped them get a better deal for their peacekeepers in Kosovo than 
would have been the case if they had not done so?
    The President. I'm not sure that's right, for the following reason: 
I felt it was important myself--and I told all of our people this, and 
several of our NATO Allies--that Russia have a different role in Kosovo, 
because of the importance of making clear our common commitment to 
protect civilians, both the Kosovar Albanians who are coming home and 
the Serbs who remain. Therefore, I thought it was important for Russia 
to have its forces in more than one of these sectors. And of course, as 
you know now, they'll be working with us and with the Germans and the 
French.

[[Page 968]]

    So they may believe that; the Russians may believe that. But in my 
own mind, I had already determined that if our Allies would go along, 
they should be in more than one sector.
    Mr. Blitzer. But not necessarily in control of the airport, which 
originally was going to be the strategic headquarters for the 
peacekeepers.
    The President. Yes, but now the division of labor they have worked 
out at the airport is quite acceptable to us and guarantees that the 
mission can go forward. So I think that's the most important thing.
    We have to--every decision we made, including the agreements made 
with the Russians, had one thing uppermost in their minds: Will the 
mission succeed? That is, today it's a very happy day. The Serbian 
forces will go out on schedule, the last of them. We have about 20,000 
of our NATO peacekeepers in there; 62,000 of the Kosovars have already 
come home, some of them before we wanted them to, because of the 
demining operations. So I feel very good about where we're going with 
this now, and I'm leaving here with real confidence that we are going to 
succeed in achieving all of our objectives.

Safety of U.S. Troops

    Mr. Blitzer. But you have to be concerned about the potential for 
the KLA, the Kosovo Liberation Army--the revenge, the hatred, the fact 
that they're not going to be satisfied with autonomy, they're going to 
want full independence from Serbia--the potential for danger to those 
U.S. troops is very, very real.
    The President. There is a potential for danger for all troops, from 
both disgruntled Kosovar Albanians or disgruntled or frightened Serbs in 
Kosovo. But I am encouraged that the leaders of the KLA have now signed 
on to the commitment to demilitarize. They've agreed to put away their 
uniforms; to give up their big weapons, their non-pistol weapons; to do 
everything we have asked them to do.
    Might there be individuals or small groups who are full of anger and 
seek revenge? Of course, and we'll have to be very vigilant, just as 
we've had to be vigilant in Bosnia.
    I also think we're going to have to work hard, to take initiative, 
to try to take some of that venom out of the atmosphere. When Elie 
Wiesel, our Nobel laureate who survived the 
Holocaust, came back from the tour I asked him to take of the camps, he 
talked about how troubled he was by the children, the families, how much 
we needed to work on that, and how hard we'd have to work to get 
people--religious leaders and others in there to try to get people to 
turn away from revenge.
    But this is a problem everywhere where such things occur. And you'd 
look at these hideous accounts that are just now coming out, even worse 
than we imagined, about the mass killings and the graves and the 
unusual, almost unimaginable cruelty. So it will take them some time to 
get through that, and we're going to work with them.
    Mr. Blitzer. You know, some in the U.S. military, though, are 
concerned that just as--when the U.S., when President Reagan sent troops 
into Lebanon, there were high expectations. When you sent troops into 
Somalia, there were high expectations. Things could go sour quickly. Is 
that realistic, or are you taking certain steps that will prevent 
another Lebanon or Somalia?
    The President. Well, I think we learned a lot about that. And when 
we went to Bosnia, where all the same things were present--remember, 
we'd had a quarter of a million people killed; we'd had 2.5 million 
refugees; we had all those horrible internment camps--all the hideous, 
awful stories we're hearing now out of Kosovo, we had in Bosnia for a 
longer period of time.
    So we did a lot of extra work on security, and we were quite careful 
about how we defined our mission and how we carried it out, based on 
lessons learned both in Lebanon and in Somalia.
    And so we'll try to carry those lessons through. I can't tell the 
American people there will not be any violent incident, that no American 
will ever be harmed or killed. But I can say that we have learned the 
lessons of the last several years, and I think what we are doing is 
profoundly important.

Aftermath of Situation in the Balkans

    Mr. Blitzer. In your Oval Office address, you declared victory. Some 
of your critics, though, say that as long as President Slobodan 
Milosevic is in power, there is no victory.
    The President. Well, that's two different things. Let me first say 
that when I spoke to the American people, I said we had three 
objectives: to reverse the ethnic cleansing and bring the Kosovar 
Albanians home--we're doing that, 62,000 are already back; to do it in a 
way that

[[Page 969]]

would keep our Alliance together--we're stronger than we ever were; and 
that I would seek a partnership with Russia as we had in Bosnia. We have 
now formalized that partnership, so that even though our relationships 
with Russia were quite strained during this period of the conflict, I 
think that we're actually in a position to have a stronger relationship 
with Russia in the future than we had before the conflict started. And 
so I feel good about that. So that is victory.
    Now, do I think the Serbian people would be better off without Mr. 
Milosevic? You bet I do. He has been 
indicted by the War Crimes Tribunal, and every day now we see the vivid 
pictures which graphically demonstrate that it was even worse than we 
imagined. There is no statute of limitations on that. The Serbian--the 
leader of the Serbian church has now called 
for him to step aside. And I certainly hope that will happen, and we 
have time to focus on that. But first, we've got to do the mission. 
We've got to bring the folks home in safety and self-government.
    Mr. Blitzer. Well, what the critics also say is that the U.S. and 
the NATO Allies have done nothing to go after other leading indicted war 
criminals, Serbs Ratko Mladic, Radovan Karadzic, Arkan. Why should 
President Milosevic be any more concerned than they are? They're all 
still free men.
    The President. Well, in our sector in Bosnia, we have arrested 
people who were indicted, and so have the British, and we have worked 
with them. And I think that would be a big mistake for Mr. 
Milosevic now. We may not have an 
extradition agreement with Serbia. But he--as long as he remains at 
large, there is no statute of limitations. And if I were in his 
position, I wouldn't take too much comfort from that. But the best thing 
that can happen for the Serbian people is if he were no longer 
President.
    Mr. Blitzer. And you think that's realistic, that that could happen 
anytime soon?
    The President. Well, I think that I shouldn't comment on that right 
now. But I think that there's--with the church leaders calling for 
him to step down, with the people in the 
opposition in Serbia calling for him to do so, and with the commitment 
we have made as allies to support humanitarian aid to the Serbs but no 
reconstruction aid as long as he's there, I think that's a pretty clear 
message.
    Mr. Blitzer. You know about the reports that you've signed an 
intelligence finding to actively seek to undermine his regime?
    The President. I don't comment on those things. I can't----

Expectations of Operation Allied Force

    Mr. Blitzer.  I knew you wouldn't, but I figured I would ask anyhow.
    Let's move on to talk about--under the category of ``now the truth 
can be told.'' When you gave the order to launch the airstrikes, did you 
ever believe in your wildest imagination it would take 78 days, and all 
the devastation that it did take, to finally declare a victory?
    The President.  I'll tell you what I thought. I thought that there 
was maybe a 50 percent chance it would be over in a week, because once 
he knew we would do it, I thought he 
would remember Bosnia, and I thought he would understand what we could 
do. But I knew that if he decided to take the punishment of the air 
campaign, it could go on quite a long while, because he would be trying 
all along to divide the allies or to bring pressure from the outside to 
try to find some way to bring it to a close.
    And so I told everybody when we started, I said, ``Look, if we start 
this and it doesn't work out in 2 or 3 days, we've got to be prepared to 
go on.''
    I knew that we had, because of the facts of this case, the 
capacity--with the sophisticated weaponry and the skill of our pilots--I 
knew we had the capacity to essentially take down the military apparatus 
and the economic apparatus supporting it. But I knew it could take quite 
a long time. I didn't have any specific deadline, but I knew it could 
take quite a long time.

Response to Genocide and Minority Oppression

    Mr. Blitzer.  Mr. President, some of your aides are now talking 
about a Clinton doctrine in foreign policy in the aftermath of this war 
against Yugoslavia. Is there, in your mind, a Clinton doctrine?
    The President. Well, I think there's an important principle here 
that I hope will be now upheld in the future and not just by the United 
States, not just by NATO but also by the leading countries of the world, 
through the United Nations. And that is that while there may well be a 
great deal of ethnic and religious conflict

[[Page 970]]

in the world--some of it might break out into wars--that whether within 
or beyond the borders of a country, if the world community has the power 
to stop it, we ought to stop genocide and ethnic cleansing. People 
ought--innocent civilians ought not to be subject to slaughter because 
of their religious or ethnic or racial or tribal heritage.
    That is what we did, but took too long in doing, in Bosnia. That is 
what we did and are doing in Kosovo. That is, frankly, what we failed to 
do in Rwanda, where so many died so quickly, and what I hope very much 
we'll be able to do in Africa if it ever happens there again.

Gun Control Legislation

    Mr. Blitzer. All right. Let's move on to some domestic issues. 
Guns--a big subject this past week. Do you really believe it's 
realistic, it's appropriate to register all guns in the United States? 
And if that were done, would that stop the violence?
    The President. Well, you asked two questions. Realistic? In this 
Congress, perhaps not. Appropriate? Sure. We register cars. And if we 
did register them, it would be easier to track sales and easier to do 
comprehensive background checks.
    But that's not what I asked the Congress to do. All I asked the 
Congress to do was to close the loophole for sales at gun shows and flea 
markets, so we could do the same background checks we now do at gun 
stores. And do I think that would make America a less violent place? 
Yes, I think there would be less crime with guns if that happened.
    We already--under the Brady bill, we've stopped 400,000 improper 
sales. And we also have a 25-year low in our crime rate and violent 
crime coming down, on average, even slightly more than that. So do I 
think violent crime would go down more? Absolutely, I do.
    Mr. Blitzer. And the registration, you're going to hold off on, for 
the time being?
    The President. Yes. I mean, if we can't close the gun show loophole, 
we're certainly not going to pass that.
    But let me ask you this--and that doesn't have anything to do with 
the right to keep and bear arms. We have--there's a constitutional right 
to travel in America, enshrined by the Supreme Court as a constitutional 
right. No one believes that registering our cars or proving that we know 
how to drive them undermines our constitutional right to travel. It 
facilitates our constitutional right to travel by making sure we're safe 
on the road and that we know what we're doing.
    Mr. Blitzer. All right, but you will concede, though, that the 
Democrats have a potential political bonanza from this defeat of the 
legislation this past week, going into the elections next year.
    The President. Well, if the public supports this. But I didn't want 
a political bonanza. I wanted a safer America. And our party did not 
seek political points on this. We sought--if we wanted a political 
bonanza, we would have gone in with a bunch of issues that we knew were 
popular that we had no chance to pass. We thought--we went in there with 
an agenda that we thought we could pass, that we knew would make America 
a safer place.
    No one questions--no one seriously questions, after the experience 
of the last 5 years with the Brady bill, that if we close the gun show 
and flea market loophole, that there will be fewer improper sales and it 
will make America safer at minimum disruption to the people who buy and 
sell guns and use them lawfully. So that's--what we've tried to do is to 
get things done that would make America a safer place.

2000 Presidential Election

    Mr. Blitzer. All right. Speaking about politics, let's talk about 
Presidential politics. Do you think that Texas Governor George W. Bush 
is qualified to be President of the United States?
    The President. Well, that's a decision the American people have to 
make.
    Mr. Blitzer. Well, what do you think?
    The President. Well, I think--you know, for one thing, we've got to 
see where he stands on the issues. So far, we 
know almost nothing of that, except what we know from his record as 
Governor. He said--his announcement speech was very well crafted and was 
strikingly reminiscent of what those of us who call ourselves New 
Democrats have been saying since 1991.
    But on the specifics, I just don't know. I mean, for example, 
he said nothing about this gun battle going 
on in the House. He signed the concealed weapons bill in the Texas 
Legislature. That's just the one example.
    The one thing I thought the Vice President did particularly well when he announced was to say, ``I'm 
very proud of what we've done

[[Page 971]]

in the last 6\1/2\ years. I've got all the relevant experience to be 
President. But the important thing is, what are we going to do in the 
next 4 years? And here are specific things I will do.'' I think that 
Governor Bush owes it to the American people 
to say the same thing.
    Mr. Blitzer. Well, why is Vice President Gore so far behind Governor 
Bush in the polls, and what does the Vice President have to do to catch 
up?
    The President. Well, I think in historical terms, he's not particularly far behind. I think if you go back and 
look at this point in 1959, when candidate Richard Nixon, Vice President 
Richard Nixon, was going to run as the Republican nominee, he was 
considerably further behind Adlai Stevenson, who was the best-known 
Democrat at the time.
    I think the American people--the encouraging thing to me is that 
two-thirds of them have said they want to know more about all the 
candidates, including the Vice President. 
And I believe when they look at experience, proven success, and the 
program for the future--most--all elections are about tomorrow--I think 
he's going to do very well.
    Mr. Blitzer. Do you think that he was trying, this week, to distance 
himself from you, the Vice President, by saying, almost volunteering, 
that your behavior last year was inexcusable?
    The President. Well, I took no offense at it. He didn't say anything that I hadn't said in much starker 
terms a long time ago. So there was nothing inappropriate about that.
    I thought the most important thing he 
did, frankly, by far, was to say, ``I've got experience in areas that 
matter, and we have succeeded; here's what I'm going to do, 
specifically, if you elect me; and the real choice is whether you want 
to build on this record of success and go beyond it, or you want to go 
back.''
    I think--keep in mind, the American people will view this election, 
as they should--as they should--as about them, their children, and their 
future. All elections are about tomorrow. So if you've been a good Vice 
President or a good Governor of Texas, for the voters at election time, 
that's only valuable if it's evidence that you'll do good tomorrow.
    They hire you; they give you a check every 2 weeks to do a good job. 
So I thought the most important thing he 
did was to talk about his future vision.

Hillary Clinton's Possible Senate 
Candidacy

    Mr. Blitzer. All right, let's talk about the First Lady's potential 
run for the Senate from New York. When did you discover, when did you 
learn that the First Lady was a New York Yankees fan?
    The President. Oh, when I first--shortly after I met her, because 
I'm a big baseball fan. I mean, I'm----
    Mr. Blitzer. You know, a lot of people think she just came up----
    The President. I know that. But she said how it came to be. Her 
primary allegiance all her life has been to the Chicago Cubs. If you go 
to Chicago, basically, most of the people on the north side are for the 
Cubs; most of the people on the south side are for the White Sox. And 
she said, but I also--I remember back in the seventies, we were talking 
about other baseball, and she said, ``But I like the Yankees, too.'' I 
said, ``Well, why don't you like the White Sox?'' She said, ``If you're 
from Chicago, you're for the White Sox or the Cubs, and normally not 
both.'' So our family always liked the Yankees.
    Mr. Blitzer. All right. You know, there----
    The President. I learned it a long time ago.
    Mr. Blitzer. ----you know, there are reports out today in U.S. News 
and World Report that she's thinking of moving out of the White House 
and getting a place in New York in the fall.
    The President. Well, it's not true that she's going to move out of 
the White House. But let me answer the report. Months ago, we said that 
we intended to get a place in New York. We talked--we started talking 
not long after we moved to the White House about where we would live 
when we got out. She's always wanted to live in New York, so we said 
we'd do that. And I would divide my time between New York and going home 
to Arkansas and finishing my library and doing my work there.
    Now, if she runs for the Senate, she'll obviously have to spend a 
lot more time there. But it will be more like an incumbent Member of 
Congress running for reelection. That is, she's not going to stop being 
First Lady and doing her other responsibilities, but she'll have to 
spend a lot more time in New York, and we'll have to get a place there 
for her to be while she's spending her time there.
    Mr. Blitzer. If she runs for the Senate, will you be eligible to 
vote for her in New York

[[Page 972]]

State? In other words, would you move your voting registration from 
Arkansas to New York?
    The President. Well, I might, because I think every vote counts, and 
I'd certainly want her to win if she ran.
    Mr. Blitzer. Could be that close?
    The President. I will say this. I think if this is what she wants to 
do, if she wants, if she decides to do this, I will be enthusiastically 
supportive, because I think she would be truly magnificent. I think 
she'd be great for the people of New York and good for the people of 
America.
    In all the years I've been in public life, of all the people I've 
ever known, she has been the most consistently, seriously dedicated to 
the kinds of public issues that I think are important today: to the 
welfare of children, the strength of families, the future of education, 
quality of health care. I mean, this is something--if the people of New 
York chose her, they would have somebody with 30 years of unbroken, 
consistent, committed dedication, who knows a lot and is great with 
working with people. So if that's what she wants, I'm strong for it.
    Mr. Blitzer. And so you're ready to move from----
    The President. I'm ready to do whatever she wants. I will be--
whatever the facts are about her running for the Senate, I'll be 
dividing my time between New York and home, because I've got a library 
to build; I've got a public policy center to set up; and it's a real 
gift I want to give my native State, and I want it to be something 
wonderful and good. So, I've spent quite a lot of time on it already.

Post-Presidency Plans

    Mr. Blitzer. Mr. President, you've always been someone who's looked 
ahead. When you look ahead to your personal life after you leave the 
White House, what do you see?
    The President. Well, it depends in part on what Hillary does. You know, I'll probably be going to 
meetings of the Senate spouses club, if she decides to run. But I want 
to continue to be active in areas that I care a great deal about. And I 
think that through my library and through the public policy center and 
perhaps through some other activities, I can continue to work on some of 
the issues of world peace and reconciliation of people across these 
racial and religious lines that I've devoted so much of my life to. I 
can continue the work at home on issues that I care a great deal about, 
including involving young people in public service, whether it's young 
people in AmeriCorps or young Americans who are interested in running 
for public office. I've given a lot of thought to it.
    But I'll find something useful to do. I want to work hard. I'm too 
early--it's too early to quit work, and I'm not good enough to go on the 
senior golf tour. So I expect I'll have to just keep on doing what I'm 
doing.
    Mr. Blitzer. So what--I'm hearing more of the Jimmy Carter model as 
opposed to a Gerald Ford model?
    The President. Yes, that may just be a function of age and 
circumstance. I think President Carter has been 
the most effective former President in my lifetime and one of the three 
or four most important former Presidents, in his public service and the 
quality of his work, in the entire history of the United States. So what 
I would do wouldn't be exactly what he has done, but I think the model 
of what he has done and how he's done it is a good model for every 
former President who gets out who still has good health and a few years 
left.
    Mr. Blitzer. Okay, Mr. President. I'm told we're all out of time. I 
want to thank you very much for joining us for this special ``Late 
Edition'' here in Cologne.
    The President. This is your last trip with me, so I want to thank 
you for 6\1/2\ good years. Good luck.
    Mr. Blitzer. Thank you very much. It's been an honor to cover you.

Note: The interview was videotaped at 4:27 p.m. in the Bibliotek Room at 
the Hyatt Regency Hotel for later broadcast on Cable News Network. In 
his remarks, the President referred to President Slobodan Milosevic of 
the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro); Serbian 
Patriarch Pavle, president of the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Serbian 
Orthodox Church; and suspected war criminals Radovan Karadzic, Ratko 
Mladic, and Zeljko (Arkan) Raznatovic, indicted by the International War 
Crimes Tribunal. A tape was not available for verification of the 
content of this interview.