    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (1999, Book II)]
    [November 8, 1999]
    [Pages 2008-2014]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at Georgetown University
    November 8, 1999

        Thank you very much, Secretary Albright, for your introduction and your leadership. From the
    reception you just received, I would say you can come home at any time.
    But I hope you'll wait a while longer.
        Thank you, Father O'Donovan, for
    welcoming me back to Georgetown. Dean Gallucci, thank you. Mrs. Quandt, thank
    you so much for this lecture. And to the representatives of BMW, members
    of the diplomatic community, the many distinguished citizens who are
    here, and to Mr. Billington, Mrs.
    Graham, and others, and to all the young
    students who are here. In many ways, this day is especially for you.
        I too want to say a special word of thanks to Prime Minister
    Zeman of the Czech Republic and Prime Minister
    Dzurinda of Slovakia. They have come a long
    way to be with us today. They have come a long way with their people in
    the last decade, from dictatorship to democracy, from command and
    control to market economies, from isolation to integration with Europe
    and the rest of the world. It has been a remarkable journey. You and
    your people have made the most of the triumph of freedom after the cold
    war. We thank you for your example and for your leadership and your
    friendship, and we welcome you. Thank you.
        Today we celebrate one of history's most remarkable triumphs of
    human freedom, the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, surely
    one of the happiest and most important days of the 20th century.
        For the young people, the undergraduates who are here who were, at
    that time, 9 or 10 years old, it must be hard to sense the depth of
    oppression of the communist system, the sense of danger that gripped
    America and the world. I still remember all of our air-raid drills when
    I was in grade school, preparing for the nuclear war as if we got in
    some basement, it would be all right. [Laughter] It, therefore, may be
    hard to imagine the true sense of exuberance and pride that the free
    world felt a decade ago.
        So today I say to you, it is important to recall the major events of
    that period, to remember the role America was privileged to play in the
    victory of freedom in Europe, to review what we have done since, to
    realize the promise of

    [[Page 2009]]

    that victory, and most important of all, to reaffirm our determination
    to finish the job, to complete a Europe whole, free, democratic, and at
    peace, for the first time in all of history.
        Let's start by looking back a decade ago at Berlin. If the Soviet
    empire was a prison, then Berlin was the place where everyone could see
    the bars and look behind them. On one side of the wall lived a free
    people, shaping their destiny in the image of their dreams. On the other
    lived a people who desperately wanted to be free, that had found
    themselves trapped beyond a wall of deadly uniformity and daily
    indignities, in an empire that, indeed, could only exist behind a wall,
    for, ever if an opening appeared, letting ideas in and people out, the
    whole structure surely would collapse.
        In the end, that is exactly what happened in the fall of 1989.
    Poland and Hungary already were on the road to democracy. President
    Gorbachev of the Soviet Union had made clear that Soviet forces would
    not stand in their way. Then Hungary opened its borders to the West,
    allowing East Germans to escape. Then the dam broke. Berliners took to
    the street, shouting, ``We are one people.'' And on November 9th, a
    decade ago, the wall was breached. Two weeks later, the Velvet
    Revolution swept Czechoslovakia, started by university students, just
    like the undergraduates here, marching through Prague, singing the Czech
    version of ``We Shall Overcome.'' Then, in Romania, the dictator
    Ceausescu fell in the bloody uprising. A little more than a year later,
    the Soviet Union itself was no more. A democratic Russia was born.
        Those events transformed our world and changed our lives and shaped
    the future of the young people in this grand room today. Yes, the
    students of our era will still grow to live in a world full of danger,
    but probably, and hopefully, they will not have to live in fear of a
    total war in which millions could be killed in a single deadly exchange.
    Yes, America will still bear global responsibilities, but we will be
    able to invest more of our wealth in the welfare of our children and
    more of our energy in peaceful pursuits.
        You will compete in a global marketplace, travel to more places than
    any generation before you, share ideas and experiences with people from
    every culture, more and more of whom have embraced and will continue to
    embrace both democracy and free markets.
        How did all this happen? Well, mostly it happened because, from the
    very beginning, oppressed people refused to accept their fate; not in
    Poland in 1981, when Lech Walesa jumped over the wall at the Gdansk
    Shipyard and Solidarity first went on strike, or in Czechoslovakia,
    during the Prague Spring of 1968. I was there a year and a half later as
    a young student, and I never will forget the look in the eyes of the
    university students then and their determination eventually to be free.
        They did not accept their fate in Hungary in 1956, or even in St.
    Petersburg way back in 1920, when the sailors who had led the Soviet
    revolution first rose against their new oppressors. They did not accept
    their fate in any Soviet home where the practice of religion was
    preserved, though it was suppressed by the state, or in countless acts
    of resistance we have never heard of, committed by heroes whose names we
    will never know.
        The amazing fact is that all those years of repression simply failed
    to crush people's spirits or their hunger for freedom. Years of lies
    just made them want the truth that much more. Years of violence just
    made them want peaceful struggle and peaceful politics that much more.
    Though denied every opportunity to express themselves, when they were
    finally able to do it, they did a remarkable job of saying quite clearly
    what they believed and what they wanted: democratic citizenship and the
    blessings of ordinary life.
        Of course, their victory also would not have been possible without
    the perseverance of the United States and our allies, standing firm
    against the Iron Curtain and standing firm with the friends of freedom
    behind it. Fifty years ago, when all this began, it was far from certain
    that we would do that. It took determination: the determination of
    President Truman to break the blockade of the Soviet Union of Berlin, to
    send aid to Greece and Turkey, to meet aggression in Korea. It took the
    determination of all his successors to ensure that Soviet expansion went
    not further than it did.
        It took vision: the vision of American leaders who launched the
    Marshall plan and brought Germany into NATO, not just to feed Europe or
    to defend it but to unify it as never before, around freedom and
    democracy. It took persistence: the persistence of every President, from
    Eisenhower to Kennedy to Bush, to pursue policies for four decades until
    they bore fruit.

    [[Page 2010]]

        It took resources to bolster our friends and build a military that
    adversaries ultimately knew they could not match. It took faith to
    believe that we could prevail while avoiding both appeasement and war;
    that our open society would in time prove stronger than any closed and
    fearful society.
        It took conviction: the conviction of President Reagan, who said so
    plainly what many people on the other side of the Wall had trouble
    understanding, that the Soviet empire was evil and the wall should be
    torn down; the conviction of President Carter, who put us on the side of
    dissidents and kept them alive to fight another day.
        And it took leadership in building alliances and keeping them united
    in crisis after crisis and, finally, under President Bush, in managing
    skillfully the fall of the Soviet empire and the unification of Germany
    and setting the stage for a Europe whole and free.
        This was the situation, the remarkable situation that I inherited
    when I took office in 1993. The cold war had been won. But in many ways,
    Europe was still divided, between the haves and have-nots, between the
    secure and insecure, between members of NATO and the EU and those who
    were not members of either body and felt left out in the cold, between
    those who had reconciled themselves with people of different racial and
    religious and ethnic groups within their borders and those who were
    still torn apart by those differences.
        And so we set out to do for the Eastern half of Europe what we
    helped to do for the Western half after World War II: to provide
    investment and aid, to tear down trade barriers so new democracies could
    stand on their feet economically; to help them overcome tensions that
    had festered under communism; and to stand up to the forces of
    aggression and hate, as we did in the Balkans; to expand our
    institutions, beginning with NATO, so that a Europe of shared values
    could become a Europe of shared responsibilities and benefits.
        Since then, there have unquestionably been some setbacks, some small
    and some great. Under communism, most everyone was equally poor. Now,
    some people race ahead while others lag far behind. Former dissidents
    who once struggled for freedom are now politicians trying to create
    jobs, to fight corruption and crime, to provide basic security for
    people who are simply tired of having to struggle.
        Most terrible of all have been the wars in the former Yugoslavia,
    which claimed a quarter-million lives and pushed millions from their
    homes. But still, 10 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, most of
    Europe is unquestionably better off, as these two leaders so clearly
    demonstrate.
        Democracy has taken root, from Estonia in the north to Bulgaria in
    the south. Some of the most vibrant economies in the world now lie east
    of the old Iron Curtain. Russia has withdrawn its troops from Central
    Europe and the Baltics, accepted the independence of its neighbors and,
    for all its own problems, has not wavered from the path of democracy.
        The armed forces of most every country, from Ukraine to Romania all
    the way to Central Asia, now actually train with NATO. NATO has three
    new allies, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, three strong
    democracies that have stood with us in every crisis, from Iraq to Bosnia
    to Kosovo. Other new democracies are eager to join us as well, including
    Slovakia, and they know our alliance is open to all who are ready to
    meet its obligations. Eleven countries are beginning a process that will
    lead them to membership in the European Union.
        And just as important, because we and our allies stood up to ethnic
    cleansing in Bosnia and Kosovo, the century is not ending on a note of
    despair with the knowledge that innocent men, women, and children on the
    doorstep of NATO can be expelled and killed simply because of their
    ethnic heritage and the way they worship their God. Instead, it ends
    with a ringing affirmation of the inherent human dignity of every
    individual, with our alliance of 19 democracies strong and united,
    working with partners across the continent, including Russia, to keep
    the peace in the Balkans, with new hope for a Europe that can be, for
    the first time in history, undivided, democratic, and at peace. I hope
    all of you will be proud of what your country and its allies have
    achieved, but I hope you will be even more determined to finish the job,
    for there is still much to be done.
        On Friday, I will leave on a trip to Greece and Turkey, Italy and
    Bulgaria. This trip is about reinforcing ties with some of our oldest
    allies and completing the unfinished business of building that stable,
    unified, and democratic Europe. I believe there are three principal
    remaining challenges to that vision that we must meet

    [[Page 2011]]

    across the Atlantic and, I might say, one great challenge we must meet
    at home.
        The first is the challenge of building the right kind of partnership
    with Russia, a Russia that is stable, democratic, and cooperatively
    engaged with the West. That is difficult to do because Russia is
    struggling economically. It has tens of thousands of weapons
    scientists--listen to this--it has tens of thousands of weapons
    scientists making an average of $100 a month, struggling to maintain the
    security of a giant nuclear arsenal. It has mired itself again in a
    cruel cycle of violence in Chechnya that is claiming many innocent
    lives.
        We should protect our interests with Russia and speak plainly about
    actions we believe are wrong. But we should also remember what Russia is
    struggling to overcome and the legacy with which it must deal. Less than
    a generation ago, the Russians were living in a society that had no rule
    of law, no private initiative, no truth-telling, no chance for
    individuals to shape their own destiny. Now they live in a country with
    a free press, with almost a million small businesses, a country that
    should experience next year its first democratic transfer of power in a
    thousand years.
        Russia's transformation has just begun. It is incomplete. It is
    awkward. Sometimes it is not pretty, but we have a profound stake in its
    success. Years from now, I don't think we will be criticized, any of us,
    for doing too much to help. But we can certainly be criticized if we do
    too little.
        A second challenge will be to implement, with our allies, a plan for
    stability in the Balkans, so that region's bitter ethnic problems can no
    longer be exploited by dictators and Americans do not have to cross the
    Atlantic again to fight in another war. We will do that by strengthening
    democracies in the region, promoting investment and trade, bringing
    nations steadily into Western institutions, so they feel a unifying
    magnet that is more powerful than the internal forces that divide them.
        I want to say that again--I am convinced that the only way to avoid
    future Balkan wars is to integrate the countries of Southeastern Europe
    more with each other and then more with the rest of Europe. We have to
    create positive forces that pull the people toward unity, which are
    stronger than the forces of history pulling them toward division,
    hatred, and death.
        We must also push for a democratic transition in Serbia. Mr.
    Milosevic is the last living relic of the
    age of European dictators of the Communist era. That era came crashing
    down with the Wall. He sought to preserve his dictatorship by
    substituting Communist totalitarianism with ethnic hatred and the kind
    of mindless unity that follows if you are bound together by your hatred
    of people who are different from you. The consequences have been
    disastrous--not only for the Bosnians and the Kosovars but for the Serbs
    as well.
        If we are going to make democracy and tolerance the order of the day
    in the Balkans, so that they, too, can tap into their innate
    intelligence and ingenuity and enjoy prosperity and freedom, there can
    be no future for him and his policy of manipulating human differences
    for inhuman ends.
        A third challenge is perhaps the oldest of them all, and in some
    ways, perhaps the hardest: to build a lasting peace in the Aegean Sea
    region, to achieve a true reconciliation between Greece and Turkey, and
    bridge the gulf between Europe and the Islamic world.
        When I am in Greece, I'm going to speak about the vital role Greece
    is playing and can play in Europe. The world's oldest democracy is a
    model to the younger democracies of the Balkans, a gateway to their
    markets, a force for stability in the region. The one thing standing
    between Greece and its true potential is the tension in its relationship
    with Turkey.
        Greece and Turkey, ironically, are both our NATO Allies, and each
    other's NATO Allies. They have served together with distinction in the
    Balkans. Their people helped each other with great humanity when the
    terrible earthquakes struck both lands earlier this year. This is a
    problem that can be solved. Eventually, it will be solved. And I intend
    to see that the United States does everything we possibly can to be of
    help. When I go to Turkey, I will point out that much of the history of
    the 20th century, for better or worse, was shaped by the way the old
    Ottoman Empire collapsed before and after World War I, and the decisions
    that the European powers made in the aftermath.
        I believe the coming century will be shaped in good measure by the
    way in which Turkey, itself, defines its future and its role today and
    tomorrow, for Turkey is a country at the crossroads of Europe, the
    Middle East, and Central Asia. The future can be shaped for the better

    [[Page 2012]]

    if Turkey can become fully a part of Europe, as a stable, democratic,
    secular, Islamic nation.
        This, too, can happen if there is progress in overcoming differences
    with Greece, especially over Cyprus, if Turkey continues to strengthen
    respect for human rights, and if there is a real vision on the part of
    our European allies, who must be willing to reach out and to believe
    that it is at Turkey where Europe and the Muslim world can meet in peace
    and harmony, to give us a chance to have the future of our dreams in
    that part of the world in the new millennium.
        Now the last challenge is one we can only meet here at home. We have
    to decide, quite simply, to maintain the tradition of American
    leadership and engagement in the world that played such a critical role
    in winning the cold war and in helping us to win the peace over this
    last decade.
        Think about it: We spent trillions of dollars in the cold war to
    defeat a single threat to our way of life. Now we are at the height of
    our power and prosperity. Let me just ask you to focus on this and
    measure where we are as against what has been happening in the debate
    about maintaining our leadership. We have the lowest unemployment rate
    in this country in 30 years, the lowest welfare rolls in 30 years, the
    lowest crime rates in 30 years, the lowest poverty rates in 20 years,
    the first back-to-back budget surpluses in 42 years, and the smallest
    Federal Government in 37 years. In my lifetime, we have never had--
    ever--as a people, the opportunity we now have to build the future of
    our dreams for our children.
        In the early 1960's, we had an economy that closely approximated
    this, but we had to deal with the challenge of civil rights at home and
    also the Vietnam war abroad. Today, we are not burdened by crisis at
    home or crisis abroad, and the world is out there, looking to see what
    we are going to do with the blessings God has bestowed upon us at this
    moment in time.
        Everything else I said will either happen or not happen without
    American involvement unless we make up our minds that we are going to
    stay with the approach to the world that has brought us to this happy
    point in human history. That is the most important decision of all.
        Now, what are we doing? Well, first, our military budget is growing
    again to meet new demands. That has to happen. But I want to point out
    to all of you, it is still, in real terms, $110 billion less than it was
    when the Berlin Wall fell. Everyone agrees that most of that money
    should be reinvested here at home. But don't you think just a small part
    of the peace dividend should be invested in maintaining the peace we
    secured and meeting the unmet challenges of the 21st century?
        Look at all the money we spent at such great cost over the last 50
    years. The amazing fact is we are not spending a penny more today to
    advance our interest in the spread of peace, democracy, and free markets
    than we did during the 1980's. Indeed, we are spending $4 billion less
    each year.
        I think it's worth devoting some small fraction of this Nation's
    great wealth and power to help build a Europe where wars don't happen,
    where our allies can do their share and we help them to do so; to seize
    this historic opportunity for peace between Arabs and Israelis in the
    Middle East; to make sure that nuclear weapons from the former Soviet
    Union don't fall into the wrong hands; to make sure that the nuclear
    scientists have enough money to live on and to feed their families by
    doing constructive, positive things so they're not vulnerable to the
    entreaties of the remaining forces of destruction in the world; to
    relieve the debts of the most impoverished countries on Earth, so they
    can grow their economies, build their democracies, and be good, positive
    partners with us in the new century; and to meet our obligations to and
    through the United Nations, so that we can share the burden of
    leadership with others, when it obviously has such good results.
        I think most Americans agree with this. But some disagree, and it
    appears they are disproportionately represented--[laughter]--in the
    deciding body. Some believe America can and should go it alone, either
    withdrawing from the world and relying primarily on our military
    strength or by seeking to impose our will when things are happening that
    don't suit us.
        Well, I have taken the stand for a different sort of approach--for a
    foreign affairs budget that will permit us to advance our most critical
    priorities around the world. That's why I vetoed the first bill that
    reached my desk, why I'm pleased that Democrats and Republicans in
    Congress worked together last week on a strong compromise that meets
    many of our goals. But we're not finished yet. We still must work to get
    funding for our United Nations obligations

    [[Page 2013]]

    and authorization to allow the use of IMF resources for debt relief.
        This is a big issue. It has captured public attention as never
    before. I mean, just think about it: This initiative for debt relief for
    the millennium is being headlined by the Pope and Bono, the lead singer for U2.
    [Laughter] That is a very broad base of support for this initiative.
    [Laughter] Most of the rest of us can be found somewhere in between
    that--our pole-star leaders there.
        But it's not just a political issue. It is the smart thing to do. If
    you go to Africa, you see what competent countries can do to get the
    AIDS rate down, to build democratic structures, to build successful
    economies and grow. But we have to give them a chance. And the same is
    true in Latin America, in the Caribbean, in other places. This is a big
    issue.
        I hope the bipartisan agreement we reached over the weekend on the
    foreign affairs budget is a good sign that we are now moving to
    reestablish and preserve the bipartisan center that believes in
    America's role in the new post-cold-war world.
        In the coming year, we have an ambitious agenda that also deserves
    bipartisan support. We have about 100 days to meet the ambitious
    timetable the leaders of the Middle East have set for themselves to
    achieve a framework agreement. We have to secure the peace in the
    Balkans. We have to ease tensions between India and Pakistan. We have to
    help Russia to stabilize its economy, resolve the conflict in Chechnya,
    and cheer them on as they have their first democratic transfer of power,
    ever.
        We have to bring China into the World Trade Organization, while
    continuing to speak plainly about human rights and religious freedom. We
    have to launch a new global trade round, enact the African and Caribbean
    trade bills, press ahead with debt relief, support the hopeful
    transitions to democracy in Nigeria and Indonesia, help Colombia defeat
    the narcotraffickers, contain Iraq, and restrain North Korea's missile
    program. We have to continue to do more to fight terrorism around the
    world. And we must do what is necessary--and for the young people here,
    I predict for 20 years this will become a national security issue--we
    have to do more to reverse the very real phenomenon of global warming
    and climate change.
        To meet those challenges and more, we simply must hold on to the
    qualities that sustained us throughout the long cold war, the wisdom to
    see that America benefits when the rest of the world is moving toward
    freedom and prosperity, to recognize that if we wait until problems come
    home to America before we act, they will come home to America.
        We need the determination to stand up to the enemies of peace,
    whether tyrants like Milosevic or terrorists like those who attacked our
    Embassies in Africa. We need faith in our own capacity to do what is
    right, even when it's hard, whether that means building peace in the
    Middle East or democracy in Russia or a constructive partnership with
    China. We need the patience to stick with those efforts for as long as
    it takes and the resources to see them through. And most of all, we need
    to maintain the will to lead, to provide the kind of American leadership
    that for 50 years has brought friends and allies to our side, while
    moving mountains around the world.
        Years from now, I want people to say those were the qualities of
    this generation of Americans. I want them to say that when the cold war
    ended, we refused to settle for the easy satisfaction of victory, to
    walk home and let our European friends go it alone. We did not allow the
    larger prize of a safer, better world to slip through our fingers. We
    stood and supported the Germans as they bravely reunified, and supported
    the Europeans as they built a true union and expanded it. We stood
    against ethnic slaughter and ethnic cleansing. We stood for the right
    kind of partnership with Russia. We acted to try to help Christian and
    Jewish and Muslim people reconcile themselves in the Middle East, and in
    the bridge represented by Turkey's outreach to Europe. I want them to
    say that America followed through, so that we would not have to fight
    again.
        A few months ago, my family and I went to a refugee camp full of
    children from Kosovo. They were chanting their appreciation to the
    United States, thanking America for giving them a chance to reclaim
    their lives. It was an incredibly moving event, with children who have
    been traumatized far beyond their ability even to understand what has
    happened to them but who know they have been given a chance to go home
    now.
        Years from now, I believe the young people in this audience will
    have a chance to go to Europe time and time again, and you will,
    doubtless, meet some of those children or

    [[Page 2014]]

    maybe some of the young people who actually tore down the Berlin Wall or
    marched in the Velvet Revolution. They will be older then. I hope they
    will say, ``When I was young I sang America's praises with my voice, but
    I still carry them in my heart.'' I think that will be true if America
    stays true. That is what we ought to resolve to do on the anniversary of
    this marvelous triumph of freedom.
        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 3:27 p.m. in Gaston Hall at Georgetown
    University, as part of the Herbert Quandt Distinguished Lecture series.
    In his remarks, he referred to Father Leo J. O'Donovan, president, and
    Robert L. Gallucci, dean, School of Foreign Service, Georgetown
    University; Johanna Quandt, widow of Herbert Quandt; James H.
    Billington, Librarian of Congress; Katherine Graham, chairman of the
    executive committee, the Washington Post; Prime Minister Milos Zeman of
    the Czech Republic; Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda of Slovakia; and
    President Slobodan Milosevic of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
    (Serbia and Montenegro).