[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 32, Number 21 (Monday, May 27, 1996)]
[Pages 910-915]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at the United States Coast Guard Academy Commencement at Groton, 
Connecticut

May 22, 1996

    Thank you very much. Secretary Pena, Commandant Kramek--thank you 
for doing such an excellent job, Admiral,--Admiral Versaw, Commander 
Wiemer. To the United States Coast Guard Band, thank you today. To the 
members of this fine class, your families, and your friends, this is 
your day, and I am deeply honored to share it with you.
    I am especially indebted to the Coast Guard right now because there 
are four members of the White House Staff who are Coast Guard officers. 
Three of them are graduates of this Academy: Commander Peter Boynton, 
Lieutenant Matt Miller, Lieutenant Commander Bob Malkowski. The fourth 
is not a graduate of this Academy, but she is my Coast Guard military 
aide, and I'm very proud of her: Lieutenant Commander June Ryan. And she 
informed me that every Coast Guard officer was a supporter of this 
Academy. I am delighted to be here with all of you.
    I must say I only had one pause when I was invited to be your 
commencement speaker, and that's when I heard that the mascot for the 
Class of '96 is the guinea pig. [Laughter] Having been in that position 
more than once in my life--[laughter]--I was not particularly anxious to 
take on another one. [Laughter] But then I remembered what a wonderful 
reception that the Coasties gave the First Lady and our daughter, 
Chelsea, when they visited here 2 years ago. And I told the pilot to go 
on and hold course for New London.

[[Page 911]]

    I am honored to be here today. God has given us a beautiful day, and 
I hope you all enjoy it and remember it fondly for the rest of your 
lives.
    We gather before the Coast Guard cutter, Eagle, the largest tall 
ship flying the Stars and Stripes. On its decks and its riggings, you 
cadets were tested time and again to ready you for the important 
responsibilities you are about to assume as Coast Guard officers. I can 
look at you and tell that you are ready.
    The course you're on will not always be easy, but it will be 
exhilarating because you are serving at a time of extraordinary 
challenge and change, a time of new risks to our security but also real 
opportunities to make the future brighter for every American, especially 
the Americans of your generation and the generations to come.
    You will know this by the virtue of the work you will be doing week 
in and week out, along the 47,000 miles of America's coastline, lakes 
and rivers; from the frigid waters of the North Pacific and the North 
Atlantic to the balmy Caribbean; and far from home patrolling the 
Baltic, the Mediterranean, and the Black Sea with our allies.
    Consider the average Coast Guard week--something I hope the American 
people will get to do as a result of this appearance. Most of your 
fellow citizens have no idea the sweep, the scope, the importance of the 
work you do. But in the average week, you and your fellow sailors will 
seize drugs with a street value of $50 million, stop hundreds of illegal 
immigrants from reaching our shores, respond to 260 hazardous chemical 
spills, salvage property worth $17 million, conduct 1,250 search and 
rescue missions, and save the lives of nearly 100 people. That's an 
average week. That's a pretty good average, and the American people 
should be very, very proud of the United States Coast Guard.
    But since you're facing such a heavy load in the future, I think I 
should lighten it for now. So as Commander in Chief I hereby grant 
amnesty to all cadets marching tours or serving restrictions for minor 
offenses. [Laughter]
    To the members of this graduating class, from this day forward you 
will be guardians of America's security. There is no higher calling. And 
so, as you celebrate today, I ask you just to take a few moments with me 
to join in thinking about the future that you will help to shape for 
your fellow Americans and for the citizens of the world. What do you 
want the future to look like? What do we want the future to look like? 
How do we want America to enter the 21st century?
    Four years ago I said that the answer to that question for me is as 
straightforward as the path ahead is full of twists and turns. For me, 
America must enter the 21st century as a nation of opportunity for all 
and responsibility from all, a nation that is coming together, instead 
of drifting apart, a nation that remains the strongest force on Earth 
for peace, freedom and prosperity.
    For nearly 4 years our administration has pursued that vision with a 
strategy that involves making American people more secure, by leading a 
powerful movement now sweeping the globe for democracy and peace, by 
creating greater prosperity for our people, by opening markets abroad.
    And that strategy is working. Our military is stronger, our 
alliances are deeper, the danger of weapons of mass destruction and the 
other major threats to our security are receding. Conflicts long thought 
to be unsolvable are moving toward resolution. More markets than ever 
before are open to our goods and services. And more markets than ever 
before are open to the goods and services of other nations, as well.
    The mission before you is to build on these achievements, at a time 
when the world we live in is going through profound and fast-paced 
change, perhaps the fastest pace of change in all human history. In so 
many ways this change is clearly for the good, and you have been a part 
of it. Democracy and free markets are on the march; the laptops, the CD-
ROM's, the satellites that are second nature to all of you, send ideas, 
products, money, all across our planet in a matter of seconds. 
Political, economic, and technological revolutions are bringing us all 
closer together, and bringing with them extraordinary opportunities for 
all to share in humanity's genius for progress.
    But we know these same forces also pose new challenges. The end of 
communism has opened the door to the spread of weapons of mass 
destruction and lifted the lid on reli- 

[[Page 912]]

gious and ethnic conflicts. The growing openness we so cherish also 
benefits a host of equal opportunity destroyers: terrorists, 
international criminals, drug traffickers, and those who do environment 
damage that cross national borders.
    None of these problems has any particular respect for the borders of 
the nation you are sworn to defend. Because the cold war is over, some 
of these challenges are underestimated, and Americans that typically 
don't have much in common from the left to the right find themselves 
saying it is now time for us to retreat from our global leadership role.
    But we cannot withdraw into a fortress America. There is no wall 
high enough to keep out the threats to our security or to isolate 
ourselves from the world economy and other trends in the global society. 
There are some who say we should lead, all right, but they would deny us 
the resources to do so. To them I also ask, reconsider your position.
    One of the most important lessons of the last 50 years is that 
democracy and free markets are neither inevitable nor irreversible. They 
need our support, the power of our example, the resolve of our 
leadership. My job as President is to match the need for American 
leadership to our interests and to our values, to act where we can make 
a difference, to do so wisely, not reflexively, relying on diplomacy and 
sanctions when we can, force when we must, working with our allies 
whenever possible but alone when necessary, rejecting the call to 
isolationism, refusing to be the world's policeman.
    It also means, as the Secretary said earlier, form time to time 
making some decisions that are unpopular in the short run. But if you 
consider some of those, imagine the alternative. Imagine what the 
Persian Gulf would look like today if the United States had not stepped 
up with our allies in Desert Storm. Then 2 years ago, we had to do it 
again to stop Iraqi aggression. Imagine the ongoing reign of terror and 
the flood of refugees to our shore had we not backed diplomacy with 
force in Haiti. And by the way, you ought to be proud that it was a 
Coast Guard cutter that led our forces into Port-au-Prince Harbor on 
that mission.
    Imagine the shells and the slaughter we would still be seeing in 
Bosnia had we not brought our force to bear through NATO. Imagine the 
chaos that might have ensued had we not used our economic power to 
stabilize Mexico's economy. Imagine the jobs we would have lost if we 
hadn't taken the lead to expand world trade through GATT and NAFTA and 
over 200 specific agreements. In each case there was substantial, 
sometimes overwhelming, opinion against America's course. But because we 
followed the course, Americans are better off.
    For all the new demands on our troops and our treasure, the basic 
tools of leadership still require a powerful military and strong 
alliances. Those things allowed us to triumph through two world wars and 
a cold war. And for this new era we must first sharpen and strengthen 
these tools. Our military has never been more ready than it is today, 
prepared to fight and win on two major fronts at once, to deter 
aggression and to defeat it.
    Because of our military strength we can often achieve our objectives 
by ourselves or with our allies without a fight. In the last couple of 
years that's why Saddam Hussein pulled his forces back from Kuwait's 
border, why the military dictators stepped down in Haiti, and why, after 
a bombing but not a ground campaign, the Bosnian Serbs turned from the 
battlefield to the bargaining table. We still have the best trained, 
best equipped, best prepared fighting force in the world. It is being 
strengthened every day. It is also strengthened by strong alliances and 
cooperative action with like-minded nations.
    As we saw in the Gulf War, in Haiti, and now in Bosnia, there are a 
lot of other countries who share our goals and who are willing to share 
our burdens, through NATO, the United Nations, and other coalitions. The 
end of the cold war presented us with an historic opportunity to broaden 
our alliances, to build a peaceful and undivided Europe, to forge a 
stable community of nations in an increasingly open and democratic Asia, 
to draw our own hemisphere closer together in a shared embrace of 
democracy and free enterprise. We have seized those opportunities.
    In Europe we have reinforced our ties with our longtime friends and 
opened NATO's

[[Page 913]]

doors to new democracies, beginning with the Partnership For Peace. We 
have worked to support Russia's transition to democracy and a free 
market economy. Another national election will soon be held there. More 
than 60 percent of Russia's economy has moved from the heavy grip of the 
state into the hands of its people. The cooperation between our troops 
in Bosnia proves that we can have a strong partnership with Russia and 
with Europe. The main battleground for the bloodiest century in history, 
Europe, is finally coming together in peace.
    We also have vital strategic and economic interests in Asia, the 
fastest growing part of the world economically. They require new efforts 
to maintain stability. I recently returned from a trip to Korea and 
Japan, reaffirming our security relationship with Japan, launching a new 
initiative to make peace on the Korean Peninsula, committing to maintain 
100,000 troops in North Asia, and reaffirming our determination to 
engage China in developing a productive security dialog.
    These are the things that you will have to carry out. By living up 
to the legacy of American leadership, being steady and strong in the 
judgments necessary to advance our interests and our values, keeping our 
military ready, deepening our alliances, we will meet the challenges of 
your time.
    But there is more to be done for America to keep moving forward and 
to pass on an even safer and more prosperous world to our children as we 
enter this new century and a new millennium. First, we must continue to 
seize the extraordinary opportunity to reduce the threat of weapons of 
mass destruction. We have set the most far-reaching arms control and 
nonproliferation agenda in history, and I am determined to pursue it and 
complete it. Already, there are no Russian missiles pointed at our 
cities or our citizens. We are cutting our arsenals by two-thirds from 
their cold war height. Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazahkstan have been 
convinced to give up their nuclear weapons.
    Our diplomacy backed with force persuaded North Korea to freeze its 
nuclear program. We have now secured the indefinite and unconditional 
extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Sometimes I wonder if 
people what that is. Now, I know you do. [Laughter] I wish I could give 
you a citation. [Laughter]
    But we have other things to do. We must continue to help people who 
will work with us to safeguard nuclear materials and destroy those 
nuclear weapons so they don't wind up in the wrong hands. We have got to 
stop an entire new generation of nuclear weapons by signing a 
comprehensive test ban treaty this year. We have to ban chemical weapons 
by ratifying the chemical weapons convention now.
    All of these things are focused on reducing the threat of weapons of 
mass destruction. But we also have to be prepared to defend ourselves in 
the extremely unlikely event that these preventive measures fail. That's 
why we're spending $3 billion a year on a strong, sensible, national 
missile defense program based on real threats and pragmatic responses. 
Our first priority is to defend against existing or near-term threats, 
like short- and medium-range missile attacks on our troops in the field 
or our allies. And we are, with upgraded Patriot missiles, the Navy 
Lower and Upper Tier and the Army THAAD.
    The possibility of a long-range missile attack on American soil by a 
rogue state is more than a decade away. To prevent it, we are committed 
to developing by the year 2000 a defensive system that could be deployed 
by 2003, well before the threat becomes real.
    I know that there are those who disagree with this policy. They have 
a plan that Congress will take up this week that would force us to 
choose now a costly missile defense system that could be obsolete 
tomorrow. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that this cost will 
be between $30 and $60 billion.
    Those who want us to deploy this system before we know the details 
and the dimensions of the threat we face, I believe, are wrong. I think 
we should not leap before we look. I believe this plan is misguided. It 
would waste money. It would weaken our defenses by taking money away 
from things we know we need right now. It would violate the arms control 
agreements that we have made and these agreements make us more secure. 
That is the wrong way to defend America.

[[Page 914]]

    The right way to defend America includes eliminating weapons of mass 
destruction, stopping their spread, and building a smart missile defense 
system. It also includes continuing the fight against the increasingly 
interconnected forces of destruction like terrorism, organized crime, 
and drug trafficking.
    Believe me, no one is immune to their danger, and you will see them 
more in your career, not the people of Tokyo where the sarin gas attack 
in the subway injured thousands of commuters, the people of Latin 
America or Southeast Asia where drug traffickers wielding imported 
weapons have murdered hundreds of innocent people, not the people of 
Israel where hatemongers have blown up buses full of children, nor the 
people of the former Soviet Union and Central Europe where organized 
criminals are undermining new democracies, and of course, not the people 
of our United States, where homegrown terrorists blew up the Murrah 
Federal Building in the heart of America and foreign terrorists tried to 
topple the World Trade Center, where drug traffickers poison our 
children and bring untold violence to our streets.
    As Coast Guard officers, you will be on the front lines of this 
struggle against these forces of destruction, especially drugs. With 
every seizure, like last summer's record haul of 12 tons of cocaine from 
a Panamanian fishing vessel, you are literally saving the lives of 
American citizens. Today I pledge this to you: With our military and law 
enforcement agencies, you will have the tools you need to get the job 
done.
    We must cooperate as never before with countries around the world, 
sharing information, providing military support, pursuing anticorruption 
efforts, shutting down front companies and money laundering operations, 
opening more FBI training centers. We have to keep up the funding, the 
personnel, the training for our law enforcement agencies. We have to 
keep the heat on states that sponsor terrorism or violate international 
law with tough sanctions like the one the international community has 
imposed on Iraq since the Gulf War.
    And I'd like to take this occasion to congratulate the Coast Guard, 
which recently completed its 10,000th boarding in the Persian Gulf in 
support of those sanctions. Thank you and congratulations.
    Since the forces of destruction never give up, we must never give 
in. And your job will be to help America remain vigilant and victorious. 
We also have to continue to advance the fight for peace and democracy 
faster than before. Nothing can strengthen our security more in the long 
run. When people are free and at peace, they are less likely to resort 
to violence or to abuse the rights of their fellow citizens. They are 
more likely to join with us in common cause.
    We see this so clearly here in our own hemisphere where the powerful 
movement to democracy has produced unparalleled cooperation in dealing 
with drugs and illegal immigrants and has brought freedom to every 
single country in our hemisphere but one.
    We see the promise of peace in Northern Ireland where negotiations 
are set to begin next month. We see it in the Middle East where a 
comprehensive, lasting settlement is within reach. In the last 3 years 
alone, Israel and its Palestinian and Jordanian neighbors have committed 
to peace, and they're making good on their commitments, including just a 
few weeks ago, Chairman Arafat fulfilling his pledge to rid the 
Palestinian Charter of all references to the destruction of Israel.
    We know that many difficult issues remain to be resolved between 
Israel and Syria, between Israel and Lebanon. We know there will be 
problems from time to time, as there was in the tragic fighting along 
the border between Israel and Lebanon, which I am grateful has been 
resolved now. We know that, most importantly, every step along the path 
to peace, the enemies of peace will show their own desperation with 
bullets and bombs.
    So I say this to the people of Israel: We've been with you every 
step of the way for the last 3 years. As Israel takes further risks for 
peace in the future, it can count on further manifestations of American 
support. We must be with you every step of the way until there is a 
comprehensive, lasting peace in the Middle East. Now is not the time to 
turn back, and the United States must do its part.
    Finally, we must never forget that the true measure of our country's 
well-being and our

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security not only includes physical safety but economic prosperity as 
well. Decades from now people will look back at this period and see the 
most far-reaching changes in the world trading system in 50 years, since 
the end of World War II. Changes that are making a dramatic difference 
in the lives of ordinary people through the negotiations that produced 
the GATT and NAFTA agreements, through the persuasion we had in working 
with Japan on 21 separate agreements. Barriers to our products have come 
down and our exports have gone up, creating more than one million new 
jobs in the last 3 years alone.
    We still have a lot of to do in the Asia-Pacific region and in other 
areas of the world. We have to extend free and fair trade on every 
continent. We have the best workers and the best products in the world. 
If we give them a fair deal with free trade, they will bring even 
greater prosperity home to America.
    Members of the Class of 1996, I want to leave you with this one 
final thought as you go forward: This new era calls on all of us to rise 
to more different and difficult challenges than in the past. I know the 
rewards of serving on the front lines of change may seem distant and 
uncertain from time to time, but you will succeed if you remember always 
to measure your success by one simple standard: Have you made the lives 
of the American people safer? Have you made the future of our children 
more secure? That must remain our guiding principle for the years ahead.
    If it does, we will enter the 21st century with a military whose 
fighting edge is sharper than ever; with a peaceful, undivided Europe 
and a stable, prosperous Asia; with fewer nuclear weapons in the world's 
arsenals and tough new agreements to control chemical and biological 
weapons; with terrorists, organized criminals, and drug traffickers on 
the run, not on the rampage; with more barriers to American products 
coming down; with more people than ever living with the blessings of 
peace and democracy.
    For 50 years now, our country has been the world's leading force for 
freedom and progress around the world, and it has brought us real 
security and prosperity here at home. If we continue to lead, if we 
continue to meet the peril and seize the promise of this new era, that 
proud history will also be your future and the future of your children.
    Good luck, and God bless you, and God bless America.

Note: The President spoke at 11:34 a.m. at Nelson W. Nirchman Field. In 
his remarks, he referred to Adm. Robert Kramek, Commandant, U.S. Coast 
Guard; Rear Adm. Paul E. Versaw, Superintendent, U.S. Coast Guard 
Academy; Commander R.O. Bill Weimer, who gave the invocation; and 
Chairman Yasser Arafat of the Palestinian Authority.