    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (1999, Book II)]
    [October 29, 1999]
    [Pages 1922-1928]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a Democratic National Committee Dinner in Atlanta, Georgia
    October 29, 1999

        Thank you so much. Well, first, Larry and
    Carol, thank you for opening your home. This is
    a beautiful tent. I was complimenting Larry on the tent, and he said,
    ``Well, it covers the parking lot.'' [Laughter] And I said, ``Well,
    maybe you ought to just leave it up then.'' [Laughter] It's wonderful,
    and we could probably, most of us, be back tomorrow night if you'll have
    us here. [Laughter] This is really, really beautiful.
        And I want to compliment you, too, Doctor,
    on your short speech, where you said everything that needed to be said.
    And maybe we'll get a chance to vote for you someday; if you give
    speeches like that, you'll be elected to anything.
        I want to thank our DNC chair, Joe Andrew, for coming down with me tonight and for his leadership,
    and my good friend Andy Tobias and your State
    chair, David Worley. Thank you, David. I also
    want to acknowledge our finance director, Fran Katz, who is here. And her sister's family is here tonight.
    And I think this is Fran's last event. She has been magnificent for us,
    and thank you, Fran, for all the work you've done.
        I want to thank my longtime friend Senator Max Cleland and tell all of you that, in my opinion at least--I may
    be a little biased because we've been friends a long time, and I was the
    happiest person in America outside Georgia when he got elected in 1996.
    But he is doing a wonderful job for you, and you should be very proud of
    him.
        I want to thank Senator Charles Walker,
    the majority leader of the Senate, for being here; and Mike
    Thurmond, your labor commissioner; and
    all the other officials that are here: my longtime friend Michael
    Hightower, the Fulton County executive.
    Thank you all for coming.
        I will try to make a fairly brief speech tonight, but it occurred to
    me you have so many new people here tonight that don't normally come to
    these things, and two of them I see are from Arkansas. I don't know if
    the others have any excuse or not. [Laughter] But it occurred to me that
    if people were asking you why you were doing this, that tomorrow, people
    might ask the rest of you why you were here. And I would like to give
    you a few reasons, because they're why I'm here.
        And Joe Andrew's right. I guess I don't
    have to be here; I'm not running for anything. I kind of hate it; I wish
    I could. [Laughter] But that's the system we've got and every time I see
    a debate, I wish I were part of it. When the Republicans were debating
    in New Hampshire the other night, I wish I had been part of it, you
    know. [Laughter] I'm always convinced I could turn just one more, you
    know.

    [[Page 1923]]

        I come here tonight because I believe in what we have done these
    last 7 years, because I believe the choices before the American people
    are stark but also marvelous, and because I believe that we are now in a
    position to do something that in my whole lifetime--in my whole
    lifetime, which now spans 53 years--we have never been able to do as a
    country before. We are, for the first time in my lifetime, economically
    and socially and politically strong enough and free enough of external
    and internal debilitating crises that we actually have a chance to write
    the future of our dreams for our children.
        And I'd like to tell you how I think that came to be and what I
    think the choices are. And tomorrow I hope you'll be able to tell people
    why you came.
        When I came to Georgia in 1991 and 1992, the United States was in a
    period of economic distress, social division--we had a big riot in Los
    Angeles, remember?--political drift, where the so-called vision thing
    was derided and government itself had been discredited. Even liberals
    thought government would mess up a two-car parade. And I came before the
    people of Georgia, and I said, ``Look I have some new ideas. It's time
    to put people back at the center of our politics. It's time to work for
    unity, not division. It's time to build a country with a goal of
    opportunity for every citizen and responsibility from every citizen and
    a community of all of our people, meeting our responsibilities at home
    but also our responsibilities to lead the world for peace and freedom
    and prosperity.''
        And Georgia was good to me. I remember when I ran in the Georgia
    primary, all the Washington experts said that ``Governor Clinton heads
    south to Georgia in deep trouble. If he doesn't get at least 40 percent
    in the Georgia primary, he's toast.'' It was by then I'd already been
    declared dead three times. Now it's happened so often, I'm going to open
    a tombstone business when I leave office. [Laughter] But anyway--and the
    people of Georgia in the primary gave me 57 percent of the vote in 1992
    and sent me on my way. And I'm very grateful for that.
        And then I remember, we had a rally in a football stadium outside
    Atlanta, in the weekend before the election of '92. You remember that,
    Max? And we filled it. And I think Buddy
    Darden was there. We filled the rally. And I
    remember Hank Aaron was there, and there
    were over 25,000 people there. And we won the State by 13,000 votes. So
    everyone who spoke at that rally can fairly claim to have made me
    President of the United States, since there were twice as many people
    there as we won the State by. But we made it, and the rest is history.
        I believe that a parallel process has been going on in Georgia,
    trying to create a new Democratic Party with Max
    and, first, Governor Miller and now Governor
    Barnes, with the election of Mike
    Thurmond and Thurbert Baker, Senator Walker, all
    the other people on your team, a new generation of leadership,
    reflecting the broad society of this great State.
        We've been working at this now, the Vice President and I and our
    team, for 7 years. And when I came in '92, we made an argument to the
    people. We said, ``Hey, give us a chance; the country's in trouble.''
    And the American people gave us a chance. But there is no more argument,
    because the results are in. And from the day I became President to this
    day, this is the record: We have 19\1/2\ million new jobs and the
    longest peacetime economic expansion in history, which by February, if
    it continues, will be the longest expansion ever, including all that has
    occurred during our wars; we have the highest homeownership in history,
    the lowest unemployment rate in 29 years, the lowest inflation rate in
    30 years, the lowest welfare rolls in 30 years, the lowest poverty rate
    in 20 years, the lowest teen pregnancy rate in 30 years, the lowest
    crime rate in 30 years, the first back-to-back budget surpluses in 42
    years; we've paid $140 billion, all for the national debt, the largest
    in history in the last 2 years; and we've done it with the smallest
    Federal Government in 37 years.
        Now, those are not arguments; those are the facts. And it was done
    by a Democratic Party with a modern philosophy rooted in old values that
    proved that we could manage the economy, balance the budget, reform
    welfare, be for high standards and more investment in education, be for
    the right kind of crime policies, and move this country forward. And it
    wasn't easy.
        We had our casualties. One of them is Buddy Darden, sitting right back there. He was one of the people who
    was brave enough to stand up and vote for my economic plan. When the
    Republicans said, falsely, that it would raise taxes on all Americans,
    it didn't. It raised taxes on most everybody in this room, including
    me--

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    [laughter]--but not all Americans. And we said, ``Look, everybody's been
    talking about this deficit, but nobody wants to do anything about it. If
    we don't cut the deficit in half in 4 years, we're never going to turn
    the economy around.'' And most everybody in this room has made more from
    the stock market and their investments and the healthy economy and low
    interest rates than the higher taxes of '93 cost. But Buddy Darden's
    just one of the people who was brave enough to lay down his job in
    Congress to build up a better future for our people and our country, and
    I will never forget it.
        So the first thing I want to say is, these are real numbers. And
    everywhere along the way, we had to fight in the face of bitter partisan
    opposition for our economic plan, for our crime plan, for the right kind
    of welfare reform that required able-bodied people to work, but also
    protected their children's food and medicine, and gave their parents
    more child care. And it's working. It's working. And you should be proud
    of that.
        So the first thing you can say is, ``Well, we gave those guys a
    chance 7 years ago, and it's worked out pretty well.'' Now, that ought
    to be the first part of your answer.
        And the second thing we have to ask ourselves is, now what? You
    know, all these polls say, well--and the press always, because they love
    to kind of stick the knife in and see if you squirm while they're
    sticking you--they're always saying, ``Well, but the polls say 70
    percent of the people want a change.'' And I always say, ``Well, if
    they'd polled me, I'd have been in the 70 percent.'' If someone said,
    ``Vote for me; I'll do everything Bill Clinton did,'' I'd vote against
    that person. Why? Because the world is changing very fast. And because
    what I have tried to do, compared to where we were in 1991 and 1992, is
    get this country turned around. It's like turning around an ocean liner
    in the middle of the ocean; you can't do it overnight. And we are moving
    in the right direction. But there are a lot of big challenges out there.
        So the second thing I want you to think about is, what are we going
    to do now? My belief is, since this is the chance of a lifetime to build
    the future of our dreams, we ought to be taking on the big challenges
    and seizing on the big opportunities. And I'd like to tell you what they
    are. And then I'd like to compare our position with the contemporary
    Republican position.
        But first, let me just make a general observation here. Twenty-one
    years ago, when I ran for Governor for the first time--and I was 32
    years old, and I didn't know what I was doing, I don't think--I asked
    this kind of old sage in Arkansas, I said, ``You got any advice for
    me?'' I was about 30 points ahead in the polls. He said, ``Yes, Bill.''
    He said, ``Let me tell you something. In this business, you're always
    most vulnerable when you think you're invulnerable.'' And if you think
    about that, that's a pretty good rule for life. You know, I'm convinced
    one of the reasons that we've had such intense partisan battles in the
    last year is that the majority party of Congress believe they have the
    luxury of doing it because the country's doing so well, so there can't
    be any really adverse consequences to not paying our United Nations dues
    and not ratifying the test ban treaty and not funding the Wye peace
    talks or anything else, fooling around with the environment. Because,
    after all, things are going well and everybody's in a good humor, and so
    this will be treated with a certain amount of frivolity.
        And if you think about it, countries are no different than
    businesses or families or individuals. How many times have you made a
    mistake in your life because you relaxed your concentration or you got
    diverted when things were going well, and you felt that nothing possibly
    could happen very bad? I see a lot of you nodding your heads. This is a
    common human challenge.
        So it is not self-evident that we will use this great moment of
    prosperity and success to do what we ought to do. But if you think about
    the children and the grandchildren that we all have or hope to have, and
    what we owe to them and how, at least in my 53 years, our country has
    never had this kind of a chance before, we'll have a hard time
    explaining why we didn't make the most of it if we don't.
        So here's what I think we ought to be doing to build that bridge to
    the new century for our kids. Number one, we have to deal with the aging
    of America. We're going to double the number of people over 65 in 30
    years. That means we have to save Social Security for the baby boom
    generation, which is a gift not only to the baby boom generation but to
    their children and grandchildren who won't have to support us if we save
    Social Security. It means we have to save Medicare, and we should reform
    it to make it more like the best private sector practices in medicine,
    but also we should

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    add a prescription drug benefit, because 75 percent of our seniors don't
    have affordable prescription drugs.
        It means that we should deal with the children of America. For the
    first time ever in the last 2 years, we have more kids in the public
    schools than we had in the baby boom generation. And they're a very
    different crowd. They are the most racially and ethnically, culturally
    and religiously diverse group of children we have ever had. It is true
    here in Atlanta, where you have more foreign companies headquartered
    than any other city in America. It is true just across the river from
    the Nation's Capital in Washington, in Fairfax County, which has the
    most diverse school district in America, children from 180 different
    national and ethnic groups in one school district. It's true in my home
    State of Arkansas, which in the 1980 census had the highest percentage
    of people living in Arkansas who were born there of any State in the
    country except West Virginia, now ranks second in the country in the
    percentage growth of Hispanics. This is a nationwide thing. We are
    changing the whole scope of what it means to be an American in our
    schools before our very eyes. And we must be committed to giving these
    kids, every one of them, a genuinely world-class education.
        We need higher standards; we need more accountability; we need to be
    committed to turn around failing schools or close them down. But we
    don't need to brand kids failures if the system is failing them. We need
    the after-school programs, the summer school programs, the modern
    schools, all of our classrooms hooked up to the Internet, smaller
    classes that we want to bring with 100,000 teachers there. There are a
    lot of things we can do. But we don't get there unless we make it our
    priority.
        We need to deal with the fact that not everybody in our country has
    participated in our recovery. I'll give you some surprising examples. In
    the State of South Dakota, the unemployment rate is 2.8 percent. On the
    Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, the unemployment rate is
    73 percent. In the Mississippi Delta, we still have in my part of the
    country the poorest part of America, on the average, in the lower
    Mississippi Delta valley. In Appalachia, there are still places where,
    because of their physical isolation, there is no new enterprise and
    opportunity. In many of our inner cities from coast to coast that is so.
        But I'll give you another surprising thing. If you look at New York
    State and you take out New York City and the suburban counties in New
    York, the rest of New York ranks 49th in job growth since I've been
    President--if it were a separate State. That includes Albany, Rochester,
    Buffalo, Syracuse, big towns that you know about.
        I have proposed to double the number of the empowerment zones that
    the Vice President has managed so well over
    the last 6 years--which put intense effort into bringing cities back and
    rural areas back--and to pass something I call the new markets
    initiative, which would simply give people like you the same financial
    incentives to invest in poor areas in America we now give you to invest
    in poor areas in Latin America, in the Caribbean, in Africa, in China. I
    think that you should have those incentives.
        I think we have to do more to build a balance between family and
    work in the 21st century, when almost all parents, fathers and mothers,
    will be working. We have to find a way to extend health care to all of
    our children. We have to find a way to extend child care to working
    families who need it. Only about 10 percent--in spite of the fact that
    we have increased dramatically in my administration, only about 10
    percent of the people who are eligible for child care assistance
    actually get it.
        We need to have a real equal pay law for equal work for women and
    men. We've still got problems there. We need to pass the Patients' Bill
    of Rights. We need to continue to invest in biomedical research. We need
    to make a commitment that everybody who works 40 hours a week should not
    live in poverty. It's time to raise the minimum wage again. I feel very
    strongly about that.
        But the main point I want to make is this: We need an administration
    with a focus on trying to balance family and work so that our goal is
    that people can succeed at home and at work. The most important job of
    any society is raising children. It dwarfs the importance of any other
    job.
        So if people who are at work, either because they want to be or they
    have to be, are worried sick all day that their kids are in trouble,
    they're not going to be very productive workers. On the other hand, if
    people, because they're worried about it, don't go to work at all when
    they

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    want to and could, and could make a contribution to our society, we
    won't be as strong a country. We have got to be more deliberate and
    disciplined in creating a framework of support for people to succeed at
    home and at work.
        I can mention a lot of other things. Just let me mention a couple
    more issues that are really important. We need a commitment to build
    21st century communities that are both safe and livable. I told you the
    crime rate's at a 30-year low, and it is. And I'm proud of it. Murder
    rate's at a 32-year low. Does anybody in this audience tonight believe
    that America is safe enough? Of course not.
        So I say we should set ourselves a real goal. If we're the freest
    big country in the world, why shouldn't we be the safest big country in
    the world? Why shouldn't we say, if it worked to put 100,000 police on
    the street, and it gave us a 30-year low in the crime rate, I promise
    you, if you put 50,000 more out there concentrated in the high crime
    areas, we can drive this crime rate down more.
        If the Brady bill kept 400,000 people with criminal or mental health
    backgrounds from buying handguns, and didn't deprive one single hunter
    of a day of deer season or one single sports shooter of one contest,
    then we ought to close the loophole in the Brady bill and apply it to
    the urban flea markets and the gun shows and get some more people out
    there.
        We also ought to recognize that having 21st century communities
    means we have to find a way to preserve the environment and grow the
    economy. We're going to have to do more to provide green space in urban
    areas. More people need to live in cities where you get to drive through
    woods, like we did to come here tonight. And we can do that. We can do
    that. We have a whole agenda before the American people.
        One of the things that I'm proudest of as President is that under
    our administration, we have protected more land than any administration
    in the entire history of America except those of Franklin and Theodore
    Roosevelts, and I'm proud of that. But we have to do more of that.
        So the aging of America, the children of America, the continuing
    poverty challenge of America, balancing family and work, building 21st
    century communities, ensuring the long-term prosperity of America--you
    hear all these people running for President and they're promising all
    these tax cuts and all these spending programs, you just remember one
    thing. We got to the dance that we're enjoying today because we got rid
    of that awful deficit, and we had the first back-to-back surpluses in 42
    years. And that has given us low interest rates and a booming
    environment for entrepreneurs to succeed in. We now have a chance. If we
    stay within the parameters of the budget I sent to this Congress, we can
    actually pay off the debt of America and be debt-free within 15 years
    for the first time since Andrew Jackson was President in 1835.
        Now, if we do that, if we do that, what does it mean? Does it mean
    there will never be another recession? Of course not. But it means no
    matter what, interest rates will be lower, that means more jobs, higher
    incomes, more new businesses, cheaper home mortgages, car loans, and
    college loan payments. Because we have paid the debt down $140 billion
    in the last 2 years, because the aggregate debt is over 1\1/2\--listen
    to this--trillion dollars less than the experts said it would be when I
    became President, that amounts to a tax cut and lower mortgage payments
    of $2,000 a year to the average family, $200 a year in car interest
    payments, $200 a year in college loan payments to the average family in
    America.
        We don't want to forget what got us here. The Democrats are the
    progressive party. We like to invest money in people. We like to help
    people, and we ought to. But we have to do it within a framework that
    says it is this economy that has been our best social program, those
    19\1/2\ million new jobs, every year a new record in new businesses
    started, creating an environment in which people like a lot of the great
    entrepreneurs here present have been able to be so successful.
        So I say we ought to set a big goal. Let's get ourselves out of debt
    over the next 15 years, and then we'll have more money than we know what
    to do with. And our children and grandchildren can look forward to a
    generation of prosperity.
        You mentioned the world earlier, and how concerned you were. I
    believe that America has special responsibilities that are, if anything,
    even greater now that the cold war's over. And it bothers me that the
    majority in Congress don't want to pay our U.N. dues; that they so
    blithely walked away from a Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty that
    our nuclear allies Britain

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    and France and 150 other countries had signed; that they wouldn't even
    let us offer the safeguards that answered the problems they said were
    there with the treaty; that it was just a political issue.
        It bothers me that they passed a foreign assistance package that not
    only had no money to meet America's commitments that I made pursuant to
    a 25-year bipartisan involvement in the Middle East peace process,
    nothing for the Wye peace accord, to finance it and do our part, when
    we're at a very critical juncture in the Middle East talks, and I'm
    about to go off to Oslo to meet with Prime Minister Barak and Chairman Arafat; nothing
    to continue the denuclearization program started by Georgia's Senator
    Sam Nunn and Dick Lugar of Indiana, the Nunn-Lugar program, which has done more to
    make the world safe than anything else we've done lately, because it
    destroys nuclear weapons in Russia--no money for that--no money for
    America to join everybody from His Holiness the Pope to the European Union to Japan in providing debt relief to
    the poorest countries in the world in the year 2000, so they can begin
    to grow and buy our products--some of them really think that the only
    thing we've got to do is build a bigger bomb and a bigger wall and we'll
    be fine, because the cold war's over. I think that is nuts.
        You know, we went in and won a war in Kosovo so that people could go
    home and not be butchered because of their ethnic and religious
    background. But when we left, the European Union and our other Allies
    are bearing the lion's share of the costs and the burden in Kosovo now.
    We helped to end a terrible, brief, bitter conflict in East Timor, after
    the people there voted for independence, and stopped another ethnic
    slaughter. But when we left, our friends from Australia, New Zealand,
    Malaysia, and other places went in and did the lion's share of the work.
    They needed us to help them get in there, but they did it. We get
    something out of cooperating with other people in the world. And if we
    stop it and we don't want to pay our fair share, then someday we'll be
    confronted with crisis after crisis after crisis where we've either got
    to go alone or watch while nothing happens.
        Every President since Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman endorsed
    the idea of the United Nations, has understood that America would be
    more influential if we were a good neighbor and a good partner, and did
    a responsible job of paying our fair share. And I think it's important.
        And the last point I want to make is the most important of all. If I
    had to leave the Presidency tomorrow--as much as I have worked on all
    the things we just talked about: the economy, the family, the
    environment, the children, the seniors--and I could give America one
    gift, my one gift would be to give America the ability to be one
    America, to bridge all of the divides.
        It is so ironic that we're celebrating the explosion of technology,
    the explosion of biology, the solving of the mystery of the human
    genome. We look ahead to all these unbelievable things happening, and
    the biggest problem of the world is the oldest problem of human society.
    We're still scared of people who aren't like us. And when you strip it
    all away, that's what's going on in Northern Ireland; that's what's
    going on in the Middle East; that's what's going on in the Balkans;
    that's what's going on in the tribal wars in Africa; and that's what you
    see when Matthew Shepard gets killed in Wyoming, or James Byrd gets torn
    apart in Texas, or the little Jewish kids get shot at going to the
    community center, and the Filipino postalworker gets murdered in
    California, or the Korean Christian gets shot coming out of church in
    Indiana, right after the African-American basketball coach gets murdered
    walking on the street in Chicago.
        What happened to all these people? We still can't form a society
    where no one hates anybody else because they're different. And it all
    starts with fear, which leads to distance, which leads to looking down
    on people, which leads to eventually dehumanizing them, which then
    justifies violence against them.
        So if I could leave this country with one gift, it would be the gift
    of just being one America. Because people are smart in this country. We
    nearly always get it right when we've got enough time. That's why we're
    still around here after 200 years, you know, we eventually get it
    figured out. And the reason--so the second reason that I hope you will
    say, if people ask you why you're here, say, ``You know, they had some
    good ideas, and they've got a good record, the Democrats do,'' first
    thing; secondly, ``They want to take on the big challenges for the 21st
    century, and so do I, and I agree with them on what they are.''

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        The third thing I want to point out, just briefly, is that the new
    Republican Party wanted a tax cut that's so big, it would have spent all
    the non-Social Security surplus and there would have been no money to do
    any of this I talked about. We wanted a tax cut, too, but one that would
    be consistent with paying off the debt and investing in the education of
    our children and dealing with the aging of America.
        The second thing I want to say is, it may be popular in the South,
    but I think it's wrong. I don't think it's so popular anymore. Even the
    new Republican Party is for whatever the NRA says they ought to do on
    these gun fights. Now, you know, I once had a lifetime membership in the
    NRA. I've even got my jacket here. I'm sure they revoked it somewhere
    now. [Laughter] But you listen--hadn't anybody missed a day of deer
    season on what I've done, nobody, and nobody's been knocked out of one
    sporting contest for what I've advocated. But there are people alive
    today because of these background checks. We did the right thing.
        So we differ. We're for the Patients' Bill of Rights, and they're
    against it. We believe our education program ought to include 100,000
    teachers, and we ought to build or modernize 6,000 schools. I was just
    in Philadelphia today where the average school building is 65 years old.
    In New York City, 40 percent of school buildings are over 70 years old,
    and they still are heated by coal. There are places in this country
    where we cannot hook up the rooms to the Internet because they cannot be
    wired. I was in Florida, in a little town, the other day; there were 12
    housetrailers out behind the elementary school in a little town where
    the kids were going to school. This is an important issue.
        In our budget, we not only don't spend the Social Security surplus,
    we extend the life of Social Security and Medicare. Their budget doesn't
    add a day to the life of Social Security and Medicare. They're opposed
    to our initiatives on the environment. You know what they've done in
    foreign policy; we've talked about it earlier. So we have profound
    differences.
        And I hope tomorrow you'll say, ``You know, whether I voted Democrat
    or Republican over the last 20 years, looking at the next 10, I agree
    with the Democrats. Those are three pretty good reasons to have been
    here. I like the record; I like the agenda; I agree with them on the
    differences.''
        But if you don't remember anything else, just remember this. We're
    all pretty lucky or we wouldn't be sitting under this tent tonight. The
    good Lord has been good to us. And most all of us would like for people
    to believe we were born in a log cabin we built ourselves, but the truth
    is we've all had a lot of luck and a lot of kindness and a lot of gifts.
    And with all the turmoil, the person in this room I believe has made the
    greatest sacrifices for our country is Max Cleland, and I think he would tell you even he feels lucky to be
    here and be with us.
        So if you don't remember anything else, just remember this. I'm not
    running for anything. I'm 53 years old; I've had the best life I could
    imagine. I will never be able to give this country enough to repay what
    has been given to me. But if I could give you anything, you would
    remember this--believe me, this is the only chance in my lifetime we
    have ever had to build the future of our dreams for our children, and we
    dare not pass it by.
        Thank you, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 8:20 p.m. at a private residence. In his
    remarks, he referred to dinner hosts Larry and Carol Cooper; Andy
    Tobias, treasurer, and Fran Katz, national finance director, Democratic
    National Committee; State Democratic Party Chair David Worley; former
    Representative Buddy Darden; former Senator Sam Nunn; State Senator
    Charles Walker; Fulton County Commissioner Michael Hightower; State
    Attorney General Thurbert E. Baker; baseball Hall of Famer Henry (Hank)
    Aaron; former Gov. Zell Miller and current Gov. Roy E. Barnes of
    Georgia; Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Israel; Chairman Yasser Arafat of
    the Palestinian Authority; and Pope John Paul II.