    [Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 35, Number 17 (Monday, May 3, 1999)]
    [Pages 715-716]
    [Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

    <R04>
    Remarks at the NATO 50th Anniversary Summit Dinner

    April 23, 1999

        Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the White House and, again let me
    say, welcome to Washington and to the NATO Summit.
        Some of you know that I am quite a fan of music. And I found a
    little-known bit of history related to the founding of NATO 50 years
    ago. When the original North Atlantic Treaty was signed, the United
    States Marine Band, which was in the auditorium playing for us today,
    was in the auditorium then, playing a group of songs from George
    Gershwin's famous opera, ``Porgy and Bess.'' The two songs they played
    were, ``I Got Plenty of Nothing,'' and ``It Ain't Necessarily So.''
    Well, I think after 50 years we can still appreciate Gershwin, but the
    songs were poorly

    [[Page 716]]

    timed, because NATO has had plenty of substance, and its word has been
    necessarily so.
        In 1949, when we entered NATO, it signaled a radical departure in
    America's history, because we had been warned from the time of our first
    President, George Washington, against entangling alliances with other
    nations. But we learned the hard way, after World War I, that the
    warning was no longer valid in the 20th century.
        In the last 50 years, all of us have become more and more involved
    with events beyond our borders because we have seen increasingly how
    they affect the lives of people within our borders and how the values we
    espouse at home must be defended abroad. That is in large measure what
    we are trying to do in Kosovo, to protect the innocent families, the
    children, and to stand for the values that we have stood for as an
    organization for 50 years now.
        We owe a great debt of gratitude to our founders, to the generation
    of people after the Second World War who constructed a world of freedom
    that stood against tyranny and eventually helped to end the cold war. We
    can best pay that debt by standing up for those values today, including
    meeting our responsibilities to the children and the future of
    southeastern Europe in the terrible suffering of Kosovo.
        Mr. Secretary General, I want to say a special word of thanks to you
    for your steadfast leadership, for your continuing reminder to all of us
    that we must both do our duty and stay together as we do it. Tomorrow we
    will focus on Kosovo again, but we will also look to the larger issues
    of the 21st century. Again, I compliment you on your leadership, and I
    thank all of our colleagues for their input.
        We will look back on this summit, I think, and say, ``Well, it
    wasn't one of those traditional meetings, where we got to have a lot of
    fun and a lot of laughs, because we were so gravely concerned with the
    suffering of the people in the Balkans. But it was a profoundly
    important one because it reminded us of why we got started, what we have
    to do tomorrow, and what it is that gives our Alliance meaning in this
    present day.''
        I'd like to ask all of you to join me in a toast to Secretary
    General and Mrs. Solana, and to NATO and its future. Thank you.

    [At this point, a toast was offered.]

        Mr. Secretary General.

    Note: The President spoke at 8:30 p.m. in the East Room at the White
    House. In his remarks, he referred to Secretary General Javier Solana of
    the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and his wife, Conception. The
    transcript made available by the Office of the Press Secretary also
    included the remarks of Secretary General Solana.