[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 32, Number 39 (Monday, September 30, 1996)]
[Pages 1843-1847]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks to the 51st Session of the United Nations General Assembly in 
New York City

September 24, 1996

    Mr. President, Mr. Secretary-General, heads of government, foreign 
ministers, ambassadors, your excellencies, distinguished guests: Three 
years ago, I had the honor of being the first American President born 
after the founding of the United Nations to address you. In its 51st 
year, the United Nations has not yet realized all its founders' 
aspirations, but the ideals of the U.N. Charter, peace, freedom, 
tolerance, prosperity, these now touch more people in more nations than 
ever before.
    Now we find ourselves at a turning point in history, when the blocs 
and barriers that long defined the world are giving way to an age of 
remarkable possibility, a time when more of our children and more 
nations will be able to live out their dreams than ever before. But this 
is also an age of new threats: threats from terrorists, from rogue 
states that support them; threats from ethnic, religious, racial, and 
tribal hatreds; threats from international criminals and drug 
traffickers, all of whom will be more dangerous if they gain access to 
weapons of mass destruction.
    The challenge before us plainly is twofold: to seize the 
opportunities for more people

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to enjoy peace and freedom, security and prosperity, and to move 
strongly and swiftly against the dangers that change has produced. This 
week in this place, we take a giant step forward. By overwhelming global 
consensus, we will make a solemn commitment to end all nuclear tests for 
all time.
    Before entering this hall I had the great honor to be the first 
leader to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. I did so with some 
pride with this pen, for this pen is the very one that President Kennedy 
used to help bring the Limited Test Ban Treaty to life 33 years ago.
    This Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty will help to prevent the nuclear 
powers from developing more advanced and more dangerous weapons. It will 
limit the ability of other states to acquire such devices themselves. It 
points us toward a century in which the roles and risks of nuclear 
weapons can be further reduced and ultimately eliminated.
    I want to thank all of those who helped to bring us to this day, 
especially the chairman of the Comprehensive Test Ban Negotiating 
Committee, Netherlands' Ambassador Ramaker, and the Government of 
Australia, which took the lead at the U.N. I thank the Secretary-General 
for the remarks he made this morning in establishing the criteria and 
standards and support of the United Nations as a depository of the 
treaty.
    The signature of the world's declared nuclear powers, the United 
States, China, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom, along with those 
of the vast majority of its nations, will immediately create an 
international norm against nuclear testing, even before the treaty 
formally enters into force.
    The CTBT is the shared work of hard negotiation. Some have 
complained that it does not mandate total nuclear disarmament by a date 
certain. I would say to them, do not forsake the benefits of this 
achievement by ignoring the tremendous progress we have already made 
toward that goal.
    Today there are no Russian missiles pointed at America and no 
American missiles pointed at Russia. Through the START treaties we are 
cutting our nuclear arsenals by two-thirds. Ukraine, Belarus, and 
Kazakstan are giving up the nuclear weapons left on their land after the 
Soviet Union dissolved. We are working with the New Independent States 
to improve security at nuclear facilities and to convert nuclear weapons 
to peaceful uses.
    The United States and other nuclear weapons states have embraced the 
South Pacific and African nuclear free zones. Now half the world's land 
area is nuclear free by international agreement. And the world community 
extended indefinitely the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
    Yet some of the very changes that have made this progress possible 
have also created new risks. The breakup of the Soviet Union left 
nuclear materials dispersed throughout the New Independent States. As 
barriers have come down around the world, the danger of nuclear 
smuggling has gone up. So even as we reduce the global stockpiles of 
weapons of mass destruction, we must also reduce the danger that lethal 
materials could wind up in the wrong hands, while developing effective 
defenses for our people if that should happen.
    The United States has six priority goals to further lift the threat 
of nuclear weapons destruction and the threat of weapons of mass 
destruction and to limit their dangerous spread:
    First, we must protect our people from chemical attack and make it 
harder for rogue states and terrorists to brandish poison gas by 
bringing the Chemical Weapons Convention into force as soon as possible. 
I thank the nations here that have ratified the Chemical Weapons 
Convention. I deeply regret that the United States Senate has not yet 
voted on the convention, but I want to assure you and people throughout 
the world that I will not let this treaty die and we will join the ranks 
of nations determined to prevent the spread of chemical weapons.
    Second, we must reduce the risk that an outlaw state or organization 
could build a nuclear device by negotiating a treaty to freeze the 
production of fissile materials for use in nuclear weapons. The 
Conference on Disarmament should take up this challenge immediately. The 
United States, Russia, France, and the United Kingdom already have 
halted production of fissile materials for weapons. I urge other nations 
to end the

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unsafeguarded production of these materials pending completion of the 
treaty.
    Third, we must continue to reduce our nuclear arsenals. When Russia 
ratifies START II, President Yeltsin and I are all ready to discuss the 
possibilities of further cuts as well as limiting and monitoring nuclear 
warheads and materials. This will help make deep reductions 
irreversible.
    Fourth, we must reinforce our efforts against the spread of nuclear 
weapons by stengthening the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. We should 
give the International Atomic Energy Agency a stronger role and sharper 
tools for conducting worldwide inspections. Our law enforcement and 
customs officials should cooperate more in the fight against nuclear 
smuggling. And I urge all nations that have not signed the NPT to do so 
without delay.
    Fifth, we must better protect our people from those who would use 
disease as a weapon of war, by giving the Biological Weapons Convention 
the means to strengthen compliance, including on-site investigations 
when we believe such weapons may have been used or when suspicious 
outbreaks of disease occur. We should aim to complete this task by 1998.
    Finally, we must end the carnage caused by antipersonnel landmines, 
the hidden killers that murder and maim more than 25,000 people a year. 
In May I announced a series of actions the United States would take 
toward this goal. Today I renew my appeal for the swift negotiation of a 
worldwide ban on the use, stockpiling, production, and transfer of 
antipersonnel landmines. Our children deserve to walk the Earth in 
safety.
    Thirty-three years ago, at the height of the cold war, President 
Kennedy spoke at American University in Washington. Peace was the topic 
of his address, but not an abstract ideal of peace. Instead, he urged us 
to focus on, quote, ``a more practical, attainable peace, based not on a 
sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human 
institutions, on a series of concrete actions and affirmative, effective 
agreements which are in the interests of all concerned.''
    It was in that same speech that he announced that talks would 
shortly begin in Moscow on a comprehensive test ban treaty. President 
Kennedy's vision exceeded the possibilities of his time, but his words 
speak to us still. As we sign our names to the Comprehensive Test Ban 
Treaty, the longest sought, hardest fought prize in arms control 
history, let us summon the confidence of earlier pioneers and set our 
sights on the challenges of the new century.
    Over the past 3 years, we have moved in the right direction in 
meeting those challenges. In Bosnia, where the war is over and just 10 
days ago its people went to the polls in peace, we have moved in the 
right direction. Now we must help Bosnia build a unified, democratic, 
and peaceful future. In Haiti, where the dictators are gone, democracy 
is back, and the exodus of refugees has ended, we have moved in the 
right direction. Now we must help the Haitian people seize the full 
benefits of freedom and forge a more prosperous future.
    In the Middle East and in Northern Ireland, there is progress toward 
lasting peace, and we are moving in the right direction. Now we must 
support continued progress between Israel and Palestinians, and we must 
broaden the circle of peace to include more of Israel's neighbors. We 
must help to give the children of Belfast a chance to live out normal 
lives.
    In the fact that democracy, open markets, and peace are taking hold 
around the world, we are moving in the right direction. Here in the 
Americas, every nation but one has raised freedom's flag. In Central 
Europe, in Russia, Ukraine, the other New Independent States, the forces 
of reform have earned all our respect and will continue to have the 
support of the United States. Now we must begin to welcome Europe's new 
democracies into NATO, strengthen NATO's partnership with Russia, and 
build a secure and undivided Europe.
    In Asia, South Korea, Japan, China, and America, working together 
persuaded North Korea to freeze its nuclear program under international 
monitoring. Now, in the wake of provocative actions by North Korea, we 
must pursue a permanent peace for all the Korean people.
    Our planet is safer because of our common efforts to close 
Chernobyl, to address the challenges of climate change, to protect the

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world's forests and oceans. Now we must uphold our duty as custodians of 
our environment so that our children will inherit an even healthier 
planet.
    All of us must continue our historic efforts to build a better, more 
global trading system for the 21st century. We have made remarkable 
progress, but there is more to do in opening markets, in creating 
millions of new jobs for all our people.
    In this time of challenge and change, the United Nations is more 
important than ever before because our world is more interdependent than 
ever before. Most Americans know this. Unfortunately, some Americans, in 
their longing to be free of the world's problems and perhaps to focus 
more on our own problems, ignore what the United Nations has done, 
ignore the benefits of cooperation, ignore our own interdependence with 
all of you in charting a better future. They ignore all the United 
Nations is doing to lift the lives of millions by preserving the peace, 
vaccinating children, caring for refugees, sharing the blessings of 
progress around the world. They have made it difficult for the United 
States to meet its obligations to the United Nations. But let me 
reassure all of you, the vast majority of Americans support the United 
Nations, not only because it reflects our own ideals but because it 
reinforces our interests. We must continue to work to manifest the 
support that our people feel.
    For the 51st year in a row, the United States will be the largest 
financial contributor to the U.N. We are paying our dues, and I am 
committed to paying off our accumulated obligations. However, we also 
support the process of reform, which has done great work in reforming 
and streamlining the bureaucracy and reining in the budget, and it 
should continue.
    We also believe that all of us, the nations of the world working 
together, must do more to fight terrorism. Last year I asked the nations 
assembled here to commit to a goal of zero tolerance for aggression, 
terrorism, and lawless behavior. Frankly, we have not done that yet. 
Real zero tolerance means giving no aid and no quarter to terrorists who 
slaughter the innocent and drug traffickers who poison our children and 
to do everything we can to prevent weapons of mass destruction from 
falling into the wrong hands.
    Real zero tolerance requires us to isolate states that refuse to 
play by the rules we have all accepted for civilized behavior. As long 
as Iraq threatens its neighbors and people, as long as Iran supports and 
protects terrorists, as long as Libya refuses to give up the people who 
blew up Pan Am 103, they should not become full members of the family of 
nations.
    The United States is pursuing a three-part strategy against 
terrorists: abroad, by working more closely than ever with like-minded 
nations; at home, by giving our law enforcement the toughest 
counterterrorist tools available and by doing all we can to make our 
airports and the airplanes that link us all together even safer.
    I have requested more than $1 billion from our Congress to meet 
these commitments, and we are implementing the Vice President's aviation 
security plan to make those traveling to, from, and within the United 
States more secure.
    There are other steps we must take together. Last year, I urged that 
together we crack down on money laundering and front companies; shut 
down gray markets for guns, explosives, and false documents; open more 
law enforcement centers around the world; strengthen safeguards on 
lethal materials. In each of these areas, we have made progress, through 
the U.N., at the Summit of Peacemakers in Sharm-al Sheikh, at the Paris 
terrorism conference, and individually.
    Now we should adopt the declaration on crime and public security I 
proposed last year. It includes a no-sanctuary pledge, so that we can 
say with one voice to the terrorists, criminals and drug traffickers: 
You have no place to run, no place to hide.
    I call on every member to ratify 11 international conventions that 
would help prevent and punish terrorism and to criminalize the use of 
explosives in terrorist attacks. To every nation whose children fall 
prey to drugs, and every nation that makes those drugs, we must do more 
to reduce demand and to take illegal drugs off the market and off the 
streets.
    The United States will do its part. Next week I will target more 
than $100 million worth of defense equipment, services, and

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training to Mexico, Colombia, and other South American and Caribbean 
countries. These resources will help our friends stop the flow of drugs 
at the source. Now I ask every nation that exports the chemicals needed 
to make illicit drugs to create an informal group whose members will 
work to deny these chemicals to drug producers. We must not let more 
drugs darken the dawn of the next century.
    Our duty to fight all these forces of destruction is directly linked 
to our efforts to reduce the threat of weapons of mass destruction. We 
all know we are not immune from this. We saw it when our friends in 
Japan were subject to the murderous power of a small vial of sarin gas 
unleashed in a Tokyo subway. We know a small lump of plutonium is enough 
to build a nuclear bomb. We know that more dangerous people have access 
to materials of mass destruction because of the rapid movement and open 
borders of this age. The quest to eliminate these problems from the 
world's arsenals and to stop them from spreading has taken on a new and 
powerful urgency for all of us.
    So let us strengthen our determination to fight the rogue states, 
the terrorists, the criminals who menace our safety, our way of life, 
and the potential of our children in the 21st century. Let us recommit 
ourselves to prevent them from acquiring weapons of mass destruction. 
Let us work harder than ever to lift the nuclear backdrop that has 
darkened the world's stage for too long now. Let us make these solemn 
tasks our common obligation, our common commitment. If we do, then 
together we will enter the 21st century marching toward a better, safer 
world, the very better, safer world the United Nations has sought to 
build for 51 years.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 10:03 a.m. in the General Assembly Hall. In 
his remarks, he referred to United Nations General Assembly President 
Razali bin Ismail; Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali; and Jaap 
Ramaker, Netherlands Ambassador to the Conference on Disarmament.