[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 37, Number 24 (Monday, June 18, 2001)]
[Pages 914-918]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Address at Warsaw University

June 15, 2001

    Thank you very much. Mr. President, thank you very much for your 
gracious hospitality that you and your wife have shown

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Laura and me. Mr. Prime Minister, members of the government, 
distinguished members of the clergy, distinguished citizens, and this 
important friend of America, students, Mr. Rector, thank you very much 
for your warm greeting. It's a great honor for me to visit this great 
city, a city that breathes with confidence, creativity, and success of 
modern Poland.
    Like all nations, Poland still faces challenges, but I am confident 
you'll meet them with the same optimistic spirit a visitor feels on 
Warsaw's streets and sees in the city's fast-changing skyline. We find 
evidence of this energy and enterprise surrounding us right now in this 
magnificent building. And you can hear it in the air. Today's own--
Poland's orchestra called Golec's--[laughter]--is telling the world, 
``On that wheat field, I'm gonna build my San Francisco; over that 
molehill, I'm gonna build my bank.'' [Laughter] Americans recognize that 
kind of optimism and ambition because we share it.
    We are linked to Poland by culture and heritage, kinship and common 
values. Polish glassmakers built and operated the New World's first 
factory in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1608. Seeking the right to vote, 
those same Poles also staged the New World's first labor strike. They 
succeeded. [Laughter] It seems the Poles have been keeping the world 
honest for a long period of time.
    Some of the most courageous moments of the 20th century took place 
in this nation. Here, in 1943, the world saw the heroic effort and 
revolt of the Warsaw Ghetto, a year later the 63 days of the Warsaw 
Uprising, and then the reduction of this city to rubble because it chose 
to resist evil. Here communism was humbled by the largest citizens' 
movement in history and by the iron purpose and moral vision of a single 
man, Pope John Paul II. Here Polish workers, led by an electrician from 
Gdansk, made the sparks that would electrify half a continent. Poland 
revealed to the world that its Soviet rulers, however brutal and 
powerful, were ultimately defenseless against determined men and women 
armed only with their conscience and their faith. Here you have proven 
that communism need not be followed by chaos, that great oppression can 
end in true reconciliation, and that the promise of freedom is stronger 
than the habit of fear. In all these events, we have seen the character 
of the Polish people and the hand of God in your history.
    Modern Poland is just beginning to contribute to the wealth of 
Europe. Yet, for decades, you have contributed to Europe's soul and 
spiritual strength, and all who believe in the power of conscience and 
culture are in your debt.
    Today I have come to the center of Europe to speak of the future of 
Europe. Some still call this ``the East,'' but Warsaw is closer to 
Ireland than it is to the Urals. And it is time to put talk of East and 
West behind us.
    Yalta did not ratify a natural divide; it divided a living 
civilization. The partition of Europe was not a fact of geography; it 
was an act of violence. And wise leaders for decades have found the hope 
of European peace in the hope of greater unity. In the same speech that 
described an Iron Curtain, 
Winston Churchill called for ``a new unity in Europe from which no 
nation should be permanently outcast.''
    Consider how far we have come since that speech. Through trenches 
and shell-fire, through death camps and bombed-out cities, through 
gulags and food lines, men and women have dreamed of what my father 
called a Europe ``whole and free.'' This free Europe is no longer a 
dream. It is the Europe that is rising around us. It is the work that 
you and I are called on to complete. We can build an open Europe, a 
Europe without 
Hitler and Stalin, without Brezhnev and Honecker and Ceausescu and, yes, 
without Milosevic.
    Our goal is to erase the false lines that have divided Europe for 
too long. The future of every European nation must be determined by the 
progress of internal reform, not the interests of outside powers. Every 
European nation that struggles toward democracy and free markets and a 
strong civic culture must be welcomed into Europe's home.
    All of Europe's new democracies, from the Baltic to the Black Sea 
and all that lie between, should have the same chance for security and 
freedom--and the same chance to join the institutions of Europe--as 
Europe's old democracies have.
    I believe in NATO membership for all of Europe's democracy that seek 
it and are

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ready to share the responsibility that NATO brings. The question of when 
may still be up for debate within NATO; the question of whether should 
not be. As we plan to enlarge NATO, no nation should be used as a pawn 
in the agendas of others. We will not trade away the fate of free 
European peoples: No more Munichs; no more Yaltas. Let us tell all those 
who have struggled to build democracy and free markets what we have told 
the Poles, ``From now on, what you build, you keep. No one can take away 
your freedom or your country.''
    Next year NATO's leaders will meet in Prague. The United States will 
be prepared to make concrete, historic decisions with its Allies to 
advance NATO enlargement. Poland and America share a vision. As we plan 
the Prague summit, we should not calculate how little we can get away 
with but how much we can do to advance the cause of freedom. The 
expansion of NATO has fulfilled NATO's promise, and that promise now 
leads eastward and southward, northward and onward.
    I want to thank Poland for acting as a bridge to the new democracies 
of Europe and a champion of the interests and security of your 
neighbors, such as the Baltic States, Ukraine, Slovakia. You are making 
real the words, ``For your freedom and ours.''
    All nations should understand that there is no conflict between 
membership in NATO and membership in the European Union. My Nation 
welcomes the consolidation of European unity and the stability it 
brings. We welcome a greater role for the EU in European security, 
properly integrated with NATO. We welcome the incentive for reform that 
the hope of EU membership creates. We welcome a Europe that is truly 
united, truly democratic, and truly diverse, a collection of peoples and 
nations bound together in purpose and respect and faithful to their own 
roots.
    The most basic commitments of NATO and the European Union are 
similar: democracy, free markets, and common security. And all in Europe 
and America understand the central lesson of the century past: When 
Europe and America are divided, history tends to tragedy; when Europe 
and America are partners, no trouble or tyranny can stand against us.
    Our vision of Europe must also include the Balkans. Unlike the 
people of Poland, many people and leaders in southeast Europe made the 
wrong choices in the last decade. There, communism fell, but dictators 
exploited a murderous nationalism to cling to power and to conquer new 
land. Twice NATO had to intervene militarily to stop the killing and 
defend the values that define a new Europe.
    Today, instability remains, and there are still those who seek to 
undermine the fragile peace that holds. We condemn those, like the 
sponsors of violence in Macedonia, who seek to subvert democracy. But 
we've made progress. We see democratic change in Zagreb and Belgrade, 
moderate governments in Bosnia, multiethnic police in Kosovo, the end to 
violence in southern Serbia. For the first time in history, all 
governments in the region are democratic, committed to cooperating with 
one another, and predisposed to join Europe.
    Across the region, nations are yearning to be a part of Europe. The 
burdens and benefits of satisfying that yearning will naturally fall 
most heavily on Europe, itself. That is why I welcome Europe's 
commitment to play a leading role in the stabilization of southeastern 
Europe. Countries other than the United States already provide over 80 
percent of the NATO-led forces in the region. But I know that America's 
role is important, and we will meet our obligations. We went into the 
Balkans together, and we will come out together. And our goal must be to 
hasten the arrival of that day.
    The Europe we are building must include Ukraine, a nation struggling 
with the trauma of transition. Some in Kiev speak of their country's 
European destiny. If this is their aspiration, we should reward it. We 
must extend our hand to Ukraine, as Poland has already done with such 
determination.
    The Europe we are building must also be open to Russia. We have a 
stake in Russia's success, and we look for the day when Russia is fully 
reformed, fully democratic, and closely bound to the rest of Europe. 
Europe's great institutions, NATO and the European Union, can and should 
build partnerships

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with Russia and with all the countries that have emerged from the 
wreckage of the former Soviet Union.
    Tomorrow I will see President Putin and express my hopes for a 
Russia that is truly great, a greatness measured by the strength of its 
democracy, the good treatment of minorities, and the achievements of its 
people. I will express to President Putin that Russia is a part of 
Europe and, therefore, does not need a buffer zone of insecure states 
separating it from Europe. NATO, even as it grows, is no enemy of 
Russia. Poland is no enemy of Russia. America is no enemy of Russia.
    We will seek a constructive relationship with Russia for the benefit 
of all our peoples. I will make the case, as I have to all the European 
leaders I have met on this trip, that the basis for our mutual security 
must move beyond cold war doctrines. Today, we face growing threats from 
weapons of mass destruction and missiles in the hands of states for whom 
terror and blackmail are a way of life. So we must have a broad strategy 
of active nonproliferation, counterproliferation, and a new concept of 
deterrence that includes defenses sufficient to protect our people, our 
forces, and our Allies, as well as reduced reliance on nuclear weapons.
    And finally, I'll make clear to President Putin that the path to 
greater prosperity and greater security lies in greater freedom. The 
20th century has taught us that only freedom gets the highest service 
from every citizen, citizens who can publish, citizens who can worship, 
citizens who can organize for themselves, without fear of intimidation 
and with the full protection of the law.
    This, after all, is the true source of European unity. Ultimately, 
it's more than the unity of markets. It is more than the unity of 
interests. It is a unity of values.
    Through a hard history with all its precedents of pain, Europe has 
come to believe in the dignity of every individual, in social freedom 
tempered by moral restraint, in economic liberty balanced with humane 
values. ``The revolutions of 1989,'' said Pope John Paul II, ``were made 
possible by the commitment of brave men and women inspired by a 
different, and ultimately more profound and powerful, vision, the vision 
of man as a creature of intelligence and free will, immersed in a 
mystery which transcends his own being and endowed with the ability to 
reflect and the ability to choose and thus capable of wisdom and 
virtue.''
    This belief successfully challenged communism. It challenges 
materialism in all its forms. Just as man cannot be reduced to a means 
of production, he must find goals greater than mere consumption. The 
European ideal is inconsistent with a life defined by gain and greed and 
the lonely pursuit of self. It calls for consideration and respect, 
compassion and forgiveness, the habits of character on which the 
exercise of freedom depends. And all these duties and all these rights 
are ultimately traced to a source of law and justice above our wills and 
beyond our politics, an author of dignity, who calls us to act worthy of 
our dignity.
    This belief is more than a memory; it is a living faith. And it is 
the main reason Europe and America will never be separated. We are 
products of the same history, reaching from Jerusalem and Athens to 
Warsaw and Washington. We share more than an alliance; we share a 
civilization. Its values are universal, and they pervade our history and 
our partnership in a unique way. These transatlantic ties could not be 
severed by U-boats. They could not be cut by checkpoints and barbed 
wire. They were not ended by SS-20s and nuclear blackmail. And they 
certainly will not be broken by commercial quarrels and political 
debates. America will not permit it. Poland will not allow it.
    This unity of values and aspiration calls us to new tasks. Those who 
have benefited and prospered most from the commitment to freedom and 
openness have an obligation to help others that are seeking their way 
along that path. That is why our transatlantic community must have 
priorities beyond the consolidation of European peace.
    We must bring peace and health to Africa, a neighbor to Europe, a 
heritage to many Americans, a continent in crisis, and a place of 
enormous potential. We must work together to shut down the arms 
trafficking that fuels Africa's wars, fight the spread of AIDS that may 
make 40 million children into orphans, and help all of Africa share in 
the trade and promise of the modern world.

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    We must work toward a world that trades in freedom, a world where 
prosperity is available to all through the power of markets, a world 
where open trade spurs the process of economic and legal reform, a world 
of cooperation to enhance prosperity, protect the environment, and lift 
the quality of life for all.
    We must confront the shared security threats of regimes that thrive 
by creating instability, that are ambitious for weapons of mass 
destruction, and are dangerously unpredictable. In Europe, you're closer 
to these challenges than the United States. You see the lightning well 
before we hear the thunder. Only together, however, can we confront the 
emerging threats of a changing world.
    Fifty years ago all Europe looked to the United States for help. Ten 
years ago Poland did, as well. Now we and others can only go forward 
together. The question no longer is, what others can do for Poland but 
what America and Poland and all of Europe can do for the rest of the 
world.
    In the early 1940s, Winston Churchill saw beyond a World War and a 
cold war to a greater project: ``Let the great cities of Warsaw and 
Prague and Vienna banish despair even in the midst of their agony,'' he 
said. ``Their liberation is sure. The day will come when the joy bells 
will ring again throughout Europe and when victorious nations, masters 
not only of their foes but of themselves, will plan and build in 
justice, in tradition, and in freedom a house of many mansions where 
there will be room for all.'' To his contemporaries who lived in a 
Europe of division and violence, this vision must have seemed 
unimaginable. Yet, our fathers, yours and mine, struggled and sacrificed 
to make this vision real. Now it is within our grasp.
    Today, a new generation makes a new commitment, a Europe and an 
America bound in a great alliance of liberty, history's greatest united 
force for peace and progress and human dignity. The bells of victory 
have rung. The Iron Curtain is no more. Now we plan and build a house of 
freedom, whose doors are open to all of Europe's peoples and whose 
windows look out to global challenges beyond. Our progress is great; our 
goals are large; and our differences, in comparison, are small. And 
America, in calm and in crisis, will honor this vision and the values we 
share.
    Poland, in so many ways, is a symbol of renewal and common purpose. 
More than half a century ago, from this spot, all one could see was a 
desert of ruins. Hardly did a single unbroken brick touch another. This 
city had been razed by the Nazis and betrayed by the Soviets. Its people 
were mostly displaced. Not far from here is the only monument which 
survived. It is the figure of Christ falling under the cross and 
struggling to rise. Under him are written the words, ``Sursum corda'', 
``Lift up your hearts.'' From the determination in Polish hearts, Warsaw 
did rise again, brick by brick. Poland has regained its rightful place 
at the heart of a new Europe and is helping other nations to find their 
own.
    ``Lift up your hearts'' is the story of Poland. ``Lift up your 
hearts'' is the story of a new Europe. And together, let us raise this 
hope of freedom for all who seek it in our world.
    God bless.

Note: The President spoke at 5:45 p.m. in the library. In his remarks, 
he referred to President Aleksander Kwasniewski and Prime Minister Jerzy 
Buzek of Poland; Jolanta Kwasniewski, wife of President Kwasniewski; 
Piotr Wegielski, rector, Warsaw University; Lech Walesa, former 
President of Poland and Solidarity movement leader; and President 
Vladimir Putin of Russia.