[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 35, Number 32 (Monday, August 16, 1999)]
[Pages 1612-1616]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on Presenting the Presidential Medal of Freedom

August 11, 1999

    The President. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to 
the White House. A special welcome to Senator Robb, Congressman Scott, 
Congressman Sisisky, Secretary/Senator Bentsen's old colleagues in the 
Cabinet, and Mr. Rubin, welcome home. Secretary Kissinger, thank you for 
coming. Governor Rossello, thank you for coming. Mrs. Ford, we're 
honored to have you here.

Shootings at the North Valley 
Jewish Community Center

    Let me just say, before I begin the ceremony, Hillary has already 
said that like all Americans, we have prayed for the welfare of the 
children and their families and the entire community affected by the 
shootings in Los Angeles yesterday. Most of you probably know by now 
that the FBI received the gunman, who turned himself in, earlier today. 
I want to congratulate the law enforcement officials at all levels of 
government who quickly responded to the crime, identified the suspect, 
and kept the pressure on.
    We are a long way from knowing all the facts about this case, and 
therefore, I think all of us have to be somewhat careful about 
commenting. But what we have heard about the suspect and his motives is 
deeply disturbing. Nothing could be further from the values we honor 
here today. Therefore, I would just say, again, I can only hope that 
this latest incident will intensify our resolve to make America a safer 
place and a place of healing across the lines that divide us.

Presidential Medal of Freedom

    President Kennedy once said that a nation reveals itself not only by 
the people it produces but by the people it honors. Today we honor men 
and women who represent the best of America with the Presidential Medal 
of Freedom. Our Nation's Founders believed, as do we, that freedom is a 
gift of God, not only to be defended but to be used to improve the human 
condition, to deepen the reach of freedom, to widen the circle of 
opportunity, to strengthen the bonds of our national community.
    By words and deeds, the Americans we honor today have done just 
that. And in honoring them, we honor also the values and principles of 
our Nation's founding and our Nation's future. Today I am proud to begin 
with a man who once held the office I am now privileged to occupy and 
one who has more than earned this honor.
    From his earliest days as a student and athlete, President Gerald 
Ford was destined for leadership. He was an outstanding player on the 
Michigan football team in a segregated era. And his horror at the 
discrimination to which one of his teammates was subjected spawned in 
him a lifelong commitment to equal rights for all people, regardless of 
race.
    He served with distinction on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific in 
World War II. Thirty

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years later, as Republican leader of the House, and with the strong 
support of his colleagues in Congress in both parties, he was chosen to 
fill the vacancy in the Vice Presidency, which imposed on him 
subsequently the awesome responsibility of piloting our Nation through 
the stormy seas of Watergate.
    Steady, trustworthy, Gerald Ford ended a long, national nightmare. 
He also ended a long and bitter war. And he signed the Helsinki Treaty 
on Human Rights that sent a signal of hope to people throughout the 
world and hastened the fall of communism.
    When he left the White House after 895 days, America was stronger, 
calmer, and more self-confident. America was, in other words, more like 
President Ford himself.
    During 25 years in the House of Representatives, and as House 
Republican leader, he won respect from both sides of the aisle. It is 
not just his penchant for hard work or his acknowledged mastery of 
everything from budgets to foreign policy to defense, but the way he 
conducted himself, arguing his position forcefully on the House floor 
but, at the end of the debate, always reaching over to shake the hand of 
his opponents. Gerald Ford knew when to put politics aside and when to 
put the interests of our Nation first.
    The respect he commands has grown in the years since he left office, 
whether advising Presidents in the Oval Office or defending affirmative 
action or making the case for free trade on the editorial pages of our 
leading newspapers. His opinions are still very much sought after. I am 
immensely grateful for the wise counsel he has given me over the years.
    And I think I can speak for Hillary and for all Americans when I 
also express my appreciation and thanks to Betty Ford, a tremendous 
First Lady who has demonstrated dignity, strength, and resolve, and 
inspired those qualities in millions of others in the way she has shared 
her life with us.
    President Ford represents what is best in public service and what is 
best about America. Colonel, please read the citation.

[Lt. Col. Carlton D. Everhart, USAF, Air Force Aide to the President, 
read the citation, and the President and the First Lady presented the 
medal.]

    The President. A Texas farmhand by the age of 6, a bomber pilot by 
21, a Congressman by 27, an immensely successful businessman by 35, 
Lloyd Bentsen saw and did more in his youth than most see and do in an 
entire lifetime.
    During his second 35 years, he managed another whole lifetime of 
achievement and service as a distinguished United States Senator from 
Texas. He rose to become chairman of the Finance Committee, where he 
demonstrated his lifetime concern for the interest of business and labor 
and the poor and his conviction that America should advance all these 
together.
    Then, at the tender age of 71, when he had every right to settle 
back and enjoy the comforts of retirement, Lloyd Bentsen answered my 
call to take on perhaps the toughest challenge of his public life, to 
become Secretary of the Treasury at a time of grave economic difficulty 
for our Nation.
    He accepted that challenge with characteristic gusto. He became one 
of the strongest voices in America and in our administration for fiscal 
discipline and expanded international trade. He became an acknowledged 
world leader in financial and economic affairs. His work with Chairman 
Greenspan and Mr. Rubin and others on our economic team earned respect 
around the world. Under his leadership in 1993, when some of the rest of 
us had our doubts, we passed the economic plan that paved the way for 
what is now the longest peacetime expansion in our history.
    For a lifetime of exceptional service to his country, I am proud to 
bestow the Medal of Freedom on Lloyd Bentsen.
    Colonel, read the citation.

[Lieutenant Colonel Everhart read the citation, and the President and 
the First Lady presented the medal.]

    The President. Edgar Bronfman once said that, in forcing the world 
to face up to an ugly past, we help shape a more honorable future. That 
fairly describes his own personal mission over these last 20 years. As 
chairman of Seagram's, he's helped to build on his father's legacy and 
take the company to new heights. As President of the World Jewish 
Congress, he's traveled the world to expose

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the legacy of oppression of the Jewish people and to spur action on 
their behalf, winning freedom for Soviet Jews in the 1980's, demanding 
justice from financial institutions on behalf of Holocaust survivors in 
the 1990's, and, in between, supporting philanthropies that work to 
break down barriers between nations and lift the lives of disadvantaged 
young people. A life of remarkable citizen service.
    Colonel, read the citation.

[Lieutenant Colonel Everhart read the citation, and the President and 
the First Lady presented the medal.]

    The President. Evy Dubrow came to Washington more than 40 years ago, 
ready to do battle for America's garment workers, and do battle she did. 
When it came to the well-being of workers and their families, this tiny 
woman was larger than life. The Halls of Congress still echo with the 
sound of her voice, advocating a higher minimum wage, safer workplaces, 
better education for the children of working families. And in opposition 
to President Ford and me, she also was against NAFTA. [Laughter]
    No matter how divisive the issue, however, Evy always seemed to find 
a way to bring people together, to find a solution. As she put it, there 
are good people on both sides of each issue, and she had a knack for 
finding those people.
    By the time she retired 2 years ago, at the age of 80, she had won a 
special chair in the House Chamber, a special spot at the poker table in 
the Filibuster Room--[laughter]--and a special place in the hearts of 
even the most hard-bitten politicians in Washington; even more 
important, for decades and decades, she won victory after victory for 
social justice.
    Colonel, read the citation.

[Lieutenant Colonel Everhart read the citation, and the President and 
the First Lady presented the medal.]

    The President. Sister Isolina Ferre. For more than 20 years, in a 
poverty-stricken barrio in Puerto Rico, Sister Isolina Ferre started 
passing out cameras to children. She told them to photograph whatever 
they saw. The point of the project she later recalled, was not just to 
teach young people to take pictures but to teach them to take pride in 
themselves. That is what Sister Isolina does best, teaching people to 
see the best in themselves and in their communities and making sure they 
had the tools to make the most of the gifts God has given them.
    Armed only with her faith, she taught warring gangs in New York City 
to solve their differences without violence. In Puerto Rico, her network 
of community service centers, the Centro Sor Isolina Ferre, have 
transformed ravaged neighborhoods by helping residents to advocate for 
themselves. Her passionate fight against poverty, violence, and despair 
have earned her many awards and countless tributes from all around the 
world. Sister Isolina once said that a community grows only when it 
rediscovers itself. On behalf of the many communities you have helped to 
make that wonderful discovery, a grateful nation says thank you to you 
today.
    Colonel, please read the citation.

[Lieutenant Colonel Everhart read the citation, and the President and 
the First Lady presented the medal.]

    The President. I wonder whether any of the assembled parents, 
family, and friends in the audience at the law school graduation at 
Howard University in 1933 knew that they were watching history in the 
making?
    Among the many talented people who graduated that day, two men stood 
side by side, one the valedictorian, the other salutatorian. Separated 
in class rank by a mere point or two, they were united in their 
determination to hasten our Nation to a day when equal opportunity was 
the birthright of every American.
    One of these men was the late Thurgood Marshall. We're honored to 
have his wife here with us today. The other was the man it is our 
privilege to honor today, Oliver White Hill. Together, these two struck 
a fatal blow against the injustice embedded in our Nation's law, the 
disgraceful doctrine of separate but equal, that kept Americans apart 
and held too many Americans back for far too long.
    In the 45 years since the Supreme Court handed down its landmark 
decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which both Thurgood

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Marshall and Oliver Hill were active in, Oliver Hill has barely had time 
to catch his breath. Throughout his long and rich life, he has 
challenged the laws of our land and the conscience of our country. He 
has stood up for equal pay, better schools, fair housing, for everything 
that is necessary to make America, truly, one, indivisible, and equal.
    The presence in this audience today of so many people who have 
devoted their lives to the cause of civil rights is ample evidence to 
the absolutely irreplaceable role he has played over these many decades. 
Our Nation is in his debt.
    Colonel, read the citation.

[Lieutenant Colonel Everhart read the citation, and the President and 
the First Lady presented the medal.]

    The President. Max Kampelman was probably not the first young man to 
work his way through college who made ends meet by skipping meals. But 
surely he is one of the few people who ever served his country in World 
War II by agreeing to stop eating altogether. [Laughter] He volunteered 
to participate in a military experiment on the effects of starvation, 
hoping to help doctors find new ways to treat returning POW's and 
concentration camp survivors, bespeaking a lifelong passion to alleviate 
the suffering of the victims of human rights abuses.
    Forty years later, after a career spent advising public officials at 
the highest level, he would again help his country to fight oppression 
in Europe. As head of the United States delegation overseeing the 
Helsinki Act, his unflinching words kept human rights at the center of 
East-West relations. An uncommonly gifted negotiator, he won crucial 
arms control agreements.
    Together, these efforts helped to set in motion the collapse of 
communism and the beginning of a new era of democracy. He has excelled 
as a diplomat, a philanthropist, a humanitarian. He has served both 
Republican and Democratic Presidents well. In so doing, he has been a 
quintessential American citizen.
    Colonel, read the citation.

[Lieutenant Colonel Everhart read the citation, and the President and 
the First lady presented the medal.]

    The President. I wish we all had been there with Edgar Wayburn when 
he first laid eyes on the spectacular vistas of the land north of San 
Francisco, for then we could have experienced the wilderness from his 
unique and wonderful perspective. As it is, millions of Americans and 
visitors from other lands have been able to experience our great 
American wilderness because of Edgar Wayburn.
    From the broad shores of Point Reyes, where we spent our second 
anniversary, to the sharp peaks of the Alaska range, to the majestic 
heights of the California redwoods, Edgar Wayburn has helped to preserve 
the most breathtaking examples of the American landscape. In fact, over 
the course of the more than half a century, both as president of the 
Sierra Club and as a private citizen, he has saved more of our 
wilderness than any other person alive. And I might add, his wife, who 
is here with us today, has been his colleague every step of the way in 
that endeavor. Those who have been involved in these struggles with him 
credit his success to his persistence and to his profound conviction as 
a physician and a conservationist that our physical health depends upon 
the health of our environment.
    As we look toward a 21st century in which the world and the United 
States must combat new challenges to our environment, and especially the 
challenge of climate change, we will need Edgar Wayburn as a model and a 
guide. And we should be very grateful that we have him.
    Colonel, read the citation.

[Lieutenant Colonel Everhart read the citation, and the President and 
the First Lady presented the medal.]

    The President. The ancient Greeks used to bestow various honors upon 
citizens who performed outstanding service--everything from laurel 
crowns, the equivalent of our Medal of Freedom, to a lifetime of free 
dinners at state expense. [Laughter] I have not yet won bipartisan 
agreement in the Congress for that to be attached to the Medal of 
Freedom, but I can invite you to join us in the State Dining Room for a 
reception.
    Ladies and gentlemen, if hearing these life stories doesn't make us 
all prouder to be

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Americans, I don't know what would. I thank these people for the lives 
they have lived and the light they have shined.
    Again, we welcome them and all of you to the White House and ask you 
to join us in the State Dining Room.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 3:15 p.m. in the East Room at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to former Secretary of the Treasury 
Robert E. Rubin; former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger; Gov. 
Pedro Rossello of Puerto Rico; former First Lady Betty Ford; alleged 
gunman Buford O. Furrow; Cecilia A. Suyat, widow of Supreme Court 
Justice Thurgood A. Marshall; and Mr. Wayburn's wife, Peggy. The 
transcript made available by the Office of the Press Secretary also 
included the remarks of the First Lady.