[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 30, Number 22 (Monday, June 6, 1994)]
[Pages 1206-1207]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks Greeting the American Community at the United States Embassy in 
Rome

June 3, 1994

    Thank you very much, Ambassador and Mrs. Bartholomew, Ambassador 
Flynn, Mr. Secretary, Hillary, ladies and gentlemen. We are delighted to 
be here. I want to join my wife in saying I'm sure that many of you will 
be elated when we leave tomorrow because we have caused you so much 
extra work. But on behalf of all the American people, I want to thank 
those of you who work at our Embassies in Rome and the Vatican, our 
mission to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, our consulates, 
our military personnel here, for all the work you do always, and 
especially to make this trip a success.
    I'll be back in a month for the G-7 meeting in Naples. And the Prime 
Minister said that they had a little deficit problem here, too, and if I 
kept coming back, we'd have to start paying taxes and contribute in 
Italy--[laughter]--to the economic recovery here as well.
    I do want to tell you that back at home things are turning around. 
The economy is picking up. Unemployment is down. We have plain evidence 
that our country is in a process of renewal. We're treating a lot of 
problems seriously we've ignored for a long time. Whether it's 
international trade or the education and training of our work force or 
the most serious approach on crime in a generation, the American people 
are beginning to come to grips with the challenges before us.
    We still have a lot of work to do. We're trying our best. And I 
believe we're going to be very successful in our attempt to pass a 
comprehensive health reform bill this year. Our European friends find it 
difficult to believe that the United States is the only advanced nation 
in the world that can't find a way to provide health coverage to all of 
its people. So we're going to do that this year.
    And we're going to deal with a lot of our other challenges. There is 
a sense of possibility of movement, that those of us in public service 
are part of a partnership to make America what it ought to be as we move 
into the 21st century. But there is also an awareness at the end of the 
cold war that we can no longer do what America has so often done in the 
past, which is to withdraw from the world and to make a clear 
distinction between our policies abroad and our policies at home. Now we 
know they are two sides of the same coin, and they must be part and 
parcel of our commitment to renew our country and to move with 
confidence and success with our friends and neighbors into the 21st 
century.
    I can say that I have been deeply moved by the reception we've 
received here in Italy. I agree with what Ambassador Flynn said about my 
meeting with the Holy Father yesterday. And I must say that all the 
conversations we've had with the officials of the Italian Government 
have been very satisfactory from my point of view.
    So I think we've got a lot of good things coming up. I look forward 
to coming back next month. I can't wait to come back, even if I do 
become a taxpaying, quasi-citizen of Italy. [Laughter]
    I thank you again for all your enormous effort and work. You have 
made us very, very

[[Page 1207]]

proud of the United States by your efforts. Thank you so much.

Note: The President spoke at 2:58 p.m. In his remarks, he referred to 
U.S. Ambassador to Rome Reginald Bartholomew, his wife Rose-Anne, and 
U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See Raymond Flynn.