    [Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 35, Number 17 (Monday, May 3, 1999)]
    [Pages 710-711]
    [Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

    <R04>
    Remarks at a North Atlantic Treaty Organization Commemorative Ceremony

    April 23, 1999

        Mr. Secretary General, leaders of NATO, other distinguished foreign
    guests, my fellow Americans. It is a profound honor for the United
    States to welcome NATO back to Washington for its 50th anniversary, an
    occasion to honor NATO's past, to reaffirm its present mission in
    Kosovo, to envision its future.
        In 1949, in his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize, the American
    novelist, William Faulkner, acknowledged the fear of nuclear holocaust
    that then gripped the world. But he declared firmly that humanity will
    not merely endure, it will prevail. In that same year, 12 nations came
    here to pledge to vindicate that faith. They were North Americans and
    Europeans determined to build a new Europe on the ruins of the old
    through a mutual commitment to each other's security and freedom.
        In this auditorium, the French Foreign Minister, Robert Schuman,
    said that NATO's fundamental aim was not to win a war that would, after
    all, leave Europe ravaged but to avoid such a war, and I quote, ``by
    becoming, together, strong enough to safeguard the peace.'' He was
    right. No member of NATO has ever been called upon to fire a shot in
    anger to defend an ally from attack.
        The American Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, said that NATO would
    ``free the minds of men in many nations from a haunting sense of
    insecurity and enable them to work and plan with confidence in the
    future.'' And he was right. NATO bought time for the Marshall plan. It
    encouraged allies to pool their military and economic strength, instead
    of pitting it against their neighbors.
        The Prime Minister of Canada, Lester Pearson, predicted that the
    NATO Pact's achievement would ``extend beyond the time of emergency
    which gave it birth, or the geographical area which it now includes.''
    And he, too, was right. NATO gave hope to West Germany and confidence to
    Greece and Turkey. Ultimately, NATO helped break the grip of the cold
    war. Yesterday, Europe, divided by an arbitrary line, on one side, free
    people living in fear of aggression, on the other, people living in
    tyranny who wanted to be free. Today, thanks in no small measure to
    NATO, most of Europe is free and at peace.
        Today we are joined by the leaders of Poland, Hungary, and the Czech
    Republic, whose descent into darkness helped to spark NATO's creation.
    Today they are a part of NATO, pledged to defend what was too long
    denied to them. So we say to Prime Minister Orban, President Havel,
    President Kwasniewski: Welcome to NATO, welcome home to the community of
    freedom.
        As we look to the future, we know that for the first time in history
    we have a chance to build a Europe truly undivided, peaceful, and free.
    But we know there are challenges

    [[Page 711]]

    to that vision: in the fragility of new democracies; in the
    proliferation of deadly weapons and terrorism; and surely, in the awful
    specter of ethnic cleansing in Southeast Europe, where Mr. Milosevic--
    first in Croatia and Slovenia, then in Bosnia, now in Kosovo--has
    inflamed ancient hatreds to gain and maintain his power. He is bent on
    dehumanizing, indeed, destroying a whole people and their culture and,
    in the process, driving his own people to deep levels of distress.
        We're in Kosovo because we want to replace ethnic cleansing with
    tolerance and decency, violence with security, disintegration with
    restoration, isolation with integration into the rest of the region and
    the continent. We want Southeastern Europe to travel the same road as
    Western Europe half a century ago and Central Europe a decade ago.
        But we are fundamentally there because the Alliance will not have
    meaning in the 21st century if it permits the slaughter of innocents on
    its doorstep. This is not a question of territorial conquest or
    political domination but standing for the values that made NATO possible
    in the first place.
        This is the mission of NATO at the age of 50 on the edge of a new
    century, determined to reach forward into the future with a united
    continent, with a collective defense, remaining open to new members from
    the Baltics to the Black Sea, remaining committed to work with partners
    for peace and progress, including Russia and Ukraine, and others who are
    willing to work for the values and the future we dream of. This is the
    kind of alliance we come to this summit to reaffirm and to build for the
    future.
        Almost 100 years ago, President Theodore Roosevelt said something
    that could well be applied to a united Europe and to our united
    transatlantic Alliance today. Of America's coming of age in the world,
    he said, ``We have no choice as to whether we will play a great part in
    the world. That has been determined for us by fate, by the march of
    events. The only question is whether we will play it well or ill.''
        Our nations played our part well after World War II, from the Berlin
    airlift to the founding of NATO, to the restoration of hope and
    confidence in Western Europe. We played it well after the cold war, from
    the reunification of Germany to the enlargement of NATO, to the support
    we have offered democratic, open government in Russia and Ukraine, and
    the reach out we have done to other partners for peace. We played it
    well when we joined together to end the slaughter in Bosnia.
        Now, we rise, as we must, to this new and fundamental challenge to
    the peace and humanity of Europe. Our message is clear: Peace and
    humanity will prevail in Kosovo; the refugees will go home; they will
    have security; they will have their self-government; the last European
    dictatorship of the 20th century will not destroy Europe's long-awaited
    chance to live, at last, together in peace and freedom.
        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 1:10 p.m. at the Mellon Auditorium. In his
    remarks, he referred to Secretary General Javier Solana of the North
    Atlantic Treaty Organization; Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary;
    President Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic; President Aleksander
    Kwasniewski of Poland; and President Slobodan Milosevic of the Federal
    Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro). The transcript made
    available by the Office of the Press Secretary also included the remarks
    of Secretary General Javier Solana.