[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 32, Number 16 (Monday, April 22, 1996)]
[Pages 684-685]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at a Luncheon Hosted by Prime Minister Hashimoto in Tokyo

April 18, 1996

    Prime Minister and Mrs. Hashimoto, the distinguished Japanese 
citizens here present, and my fellow Americans: Let me begin, Mr. Prime 
Minister, by thanking you for hosting this luncheon, and thanking the 
Emperor and Empress for the magnificent state visit, and all the people 
of Japan for making Hillary and me and the Secretary of State, the 
Secretary of Commerce, and our entire delegation feel so very welcome 
here.
    Over the last 50 years the United States and Japan have built a 
remarkable partnership for peace and security, for prosperity, and for 
freedom. We devoted ourselves at this meeting to planning for the next 
50 years of that partnership, reaffirming our security ties, talking 
about a Common Agenda to lead the world to a period of greater peace and 
prosperity.
    But I want to say at this luncheon that I fully realize that the 
work that each of you has done to bring our people closer together, day-
in and day-out, over the years and decades has made possible the 
progress that we have achieved these last 2 days.
    As the Prime Minister noted, the friendship between our peoples 
began well over a century ago. The first known Japanese citizen to live 
in the United States was a young sailor named Nakahama Manjiro. He was 
shipwrecked in 1841, rescued by an American whale boat, sent to school 
in Massachusetts. Now, Mr. Prime Minister, some of our delegation think 
it's a pretty good thing to be sent to school in Massachusetts. 
[Laughter]
    Ten years later, he returned to Japan and became one of the few 
Japanese-English interpreters in this country. Then he was chosen to 
accompany the first Japanese diplomatic delegation to the United States 
in the spring of 1860. President Buchanan hosted these Japanese envoys 
with a state banquet. Tens of thousands of Americans turned out to see 
them in Baltimore and Philadelphia, hundreds of thousands of Americans 
filled the streets of New York City as their parade went by, and our 
great poet Walt Whitman memorialized this event in a poem called ``A 
Broadway Pageant.''
    Today, our contacts are more common so they don't attract so much 
notice, but they are very important. We see them in the Japanese 
students who attend our universities, in the American schoolchildren the 
Emperor

[[Page 685]]

and Empress met when they came to the United States, who spent half of 
each day learning Japanese. We see it in your great gift to American 
baseball, Hideo Nomo, and in Americans like Terry Bross, who come to 
Japan to play baseball. We see it in the Fulbright program that 
celebrates its 50th anniversary this year and more than four decades 
here in Japan.

    We see it in the business leaders who come from America to Japan to 
work and in the fine Japanese business leaders who come to the United 
States and establish plants and put our people to work. We see it in the 
friendships which have developed over time.

    One such friendship was celebrated last night when a delegation of 
Americans, headed by our former United Nations Ambassador, Andrew Young, 
and Mrs. Coretta Scott King, the widow of Dr. Martin Luther King, came 
here and met with Japanese friends to honor the life and the service of 
the late Secretary of Commerce, Ron Brown, and other Americans who 
perished in that terrible crash in Bosnia just a few days ago. And I 
thank you on their behalf for that friendship.

    As I said to the Diet a few moments ago, because of the power of our 
economies and the depth of our devotion to freedom and democracy, Japan 
and the United States must forge a partnership for leadership in the 
21st century. But we should all remember that if we are to succeed as 
partners and as allies, we must first be friends. It is that friendship 
which I honor today and which I dedicate myself to strengthening.

    I ask now that we join in a toast to the Prime Minister and Mrs. 
Hashimoto and to the people of Japan.

Note: The President spoke at 12:20 p.m. at the Hotel New Otani. A tape 
was not available for verification of the content of these remarks.