    [Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 33, Number 46 (Monday, November 17, 1997)]
    [Pages 1781-1782]
    [Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

    <R04>
    Remarks at a Screening of Ken Burns' ``Lewis and Clark''

    November 10, 1997

        Thank you very much. Please be seated. Welcome to the White House.
    To Ken and to his daughters; Dayton Duncan and his family; Harry Pierce,
    the vice chair of GM; Elizabeth Campbell, founder of WETA; Michael
    Jandreau, the chairman of the Lower Brule Sioux tribe; and of course, a
    special word of welcome to Stephen Ambrose, whose magnificent book
    inspired this great film that Ken has done. To all the historians and
    actors who brought this story to life, you're all welcome here.
        I have looked forward to this night since February when Ken Burns
    came to screen his great film on Thomas Jefferson. That night I asked
    him to come back when the new film was done so we could set up Lewis and
    Clark artifacts in the foyer, the way Jefferson did. They're out there--
    actually, he had them here in the East Room at one point. But I hope
    you've had a chance to go out and see them, and if you haven't, I hope
    you will see them. They are the actual, real McCoy. And I wasn't sure at
    the time I said we would produce them whether we could or not, how many
    there were, and what they would look like. But I'm well pleased, and I
    hope that you will be when you get to see them.
        I also thought we ought to watch the film here in the East Room
    where the expedition really began. Meriweather Lewis lived and worked in
    the East Room when he was Jefferson's personal aide. Mr. Jefferson's
    office was just down the hall, and he actually had carpenters create two
    rooms for Lewis on the south side of the East Room here, where Abigail
    Adams used to hang her wash. There. [Laughter]
        Over dinner, Jefferson tutored his protege in geography and the
    natural sciences, broadening his horizons so that Lewis and Clark
    eventually could broaden the Nation's. It's not hard to see why Ken
    Burns embraced the Lewis and Clark story. The journey of

    [[Page 1782]]

    learning he embarks on with each new subject is really quite like Lewis'
    journey of discovery.
        And if Ken Burns is the filmmaking Meriwether Lewis, then perhaps
    Dayton Duncan is the wise William Clark of this project. Like Lewis and
    Clark, Ken and Dayton have been good friends for a decade before they
    started this recent journey and became even better friends along the
    way.
        Looking back with new perspective on the story of Lewis and Clark
    exemplifies what Hillary and I had in mind when we announced the White
    House Millennium Program in August. Celebrating our new millennium will
    be an international event, but we'll also mark it in a uniquely American
    way, by highlighting American creativity, innovation, and our insatiable
    desire to explore, as we're doing here tonight.
        Lewis and Clark were America's foremost explorers, not only mapping
    out the contours of a continent but also, in profound ways, the
    frontiers of our imagination. In that way, they are the forebears of
    those who have given us the recent Mars expedition, those who are
    building the international space station, those who are hunting for the
    mysteries of the human genome, those who are looking for answers to the
    challenge of global climate change.
        We are grateful that Ken and Dayton, that Stephen Ambrose, Gerard
    Baker, James Ronda, Gary Moulton, and others have helped to enrich our
    appreciation of Lewis and Clark. That is a very precious gift to future
    generations. Over the next 3 years, we hope to inspire many others to
    offer similar gifts in celebration of a new century and a new
    millennium. We want to encourage all Americans to participate in the
    millennium celebration in ways that help us to honor our past and
    imagine the future. And we'll launch a cultural showcase here at the
    White House to highlight our artists, our scholars, our visionaries.
        But I don't want to get ahead of ourselves. Tonight we're here to
    see ``Lewis and Clark.'' And for that I turn to the incomparable Ken
    Burns.

    Note: The President spoke at 7:10 p.m. in the East Room at the White
    House. In his remarks, he referred to Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan,
    coproducers of the film; author Stephen E. Ambrose; Gerard Baker,
    Superintendent, Little Bighorn National Battlefield Monument; and James
    P. Ronda and Gary E. Moulton, program advisers.