Presidential Documents - GPO Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents will be furnished by mail...

1

Weekly Compilation of

PresidentialDocuments

Monday, March 10, 1997

Volume 33—Number 10

Pages 271–318

WEEKLY COMPILATION OF

PRESIDENTIAL DOCUMENTS

Published every Monday by the Office of the Federal Reg-ister, National Archives and Records Administration, Washing-ton, DC 20408, the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Docu-ments contains statements, messages, and other Presidentialmaterials released by the White House during the precedingweek.

The Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents is pub-lished pursuant to the authority contained in the Federal Reg-ister Act (49 Stat. 500, as amended; 44 U.S.C. Ch. 15), under

regulations prescribed by the Administrative Committee of theFederal Register, approved by the President (37 FR 23607;1 CFR Part 10).

Distribution is made only by the Superintendent of Docu-ments, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402.The Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents will befurnished by mail to domestic subscribers for $80.00 per year($137.00 for mailing first class) and to foreign subscribers for$93.75 per year, payable to the Superintendent of Documents,Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402. Thecharge for a single copy is $3.00 ($3.75 for foreign mailing).

There are no restrictions on the republication of materialappearing in the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Docu-ments.

2

Contents

Addresses and Remarks

See also Meetings With Foreign LeadersArkansas, tornado damage in Arkadelphia—

281Child safety lock devices for handguns—284Coalition for America’s Children, public

service announcement—273Human cloning, prohibition on Federal

funding—278Michigan, joint session of legislature in

Lansing—290Radio address—271

Communications to Congress

Canada-U.S. second supplementary SocialSecurity agreement, message transmitting—276

Hong Kong-U.S. extradition agreement,message transmitting—284

International agreements, letter transmittingreport—300

Iran, message transmitting notice—288Iraq, letter reporting—313Trade agreements program, message

transmitting report—300

Communications to Federal Agencies

Child safety lock devices for handguns,memorandum—287

Educational excellence in math and science,memorandum—299

Prohibition on Federal funding for cloning ofhuman beings, memorandum—281

Executive Orders

Commission To Study Capital Budgeting—277

Interviews With the News Media

Exchanges with reportersArkadelphia, AR—281Oval Office—272, 278, 284

News conference, March 7 (No. 137)—300

Meetings With Foreign Leaders

Palestinian Authority, Chairman Arafat—272

Notices

Continuation of Iran Emergency—288

Proclamations

National Older Workers Employment Week—312

National Poison Prevention Week—289Save Your Vision Week—276Women’s History Month—275

Statements by the President

Balanced budget amendment, Senate action—283

Death of President Jagan of Guyana—299National economy—312Northern Ireland peace process, Belfast

talks—288

Supplementary Materials

Acts approved by the President—318Checklist of White House press releases—317Digest of other White House

announcements—316Nominations submitted to the Senate—317

271

Week Ending Friday, March 7, 1997

The President’s Radio AddressMarch 1, 1997

Good morning. Today I want to talk aboutwhat we must do to strengthen our effortto keep drugs away from our neighborhoodsand out of our children’s lives. First, we mustfight drugs before they reach our borders andkeep them out of America. This is a battlewe must fight together with other nations.

Every year the President is legally requiredto certify whether other nations are doingtheir part. Yesterday, I accepted Secretary ofState Madeleine Albright’s recommendationto certify Mexico, to certify that Mexico iscooperating with us in this fight.

Mexican President Zedillo is fighting atough, uphill battle against the drug cartelswhich corrupt Mexico’s law enforcementagencies. But President Zedillo has takenbrave action, firing more than 1,200 taintedofficials, extraditing criminals for the firsttime, passing tough laws, arresting his owndrug czar for corruption. In the past year,their seizures of marijuana, cocaine, and her-oin are up, drug-related arrests have in-creased, and eradication efforts have reachedrecord levels.

Make no mistake about it, Mexico has aserious drug problem. But Mexico’s leadersrecognize that problem, and they have thewill to fight it. We must do whatever we canto give them the means to succeed. Stampingout the drug trade is a long-term battle. Itwon’t be won overnight. We will continueto press our Mexican partners to take toughaction that will protect all our people fromdrugs.

Stopping drugs at their source is a criticalpart of the antidrug strategy I announcedearlier this week. My balanced budget paysfor the largest antidrug effort ever. Underthe leadership of our national drug czar,General Barry McCaffrey, who’s here withme at the radio address this morning, thisplan will crack down on drug dealers and

help parents teach their children just howdangerous drugs are. We must give our chil-dren the straight facts. They need to heara constant drumbeat from all of us: Drugsare wrong; drugs are illegal; drugs can killyou. The more children know about howdangerous drugs are, the less likely they areto use them.

Our drug strategy includes an unprece-dented national advertising campaign to getout the facts and shape the attitudes of youngpeople about drugs. And we must do moreto sever the dangerous connection betweenillegal drugs and violent crime.

Illegal drugs are involved with the vast ma-jority of violent crimes in America—drugdealers carrying guns, violent criminals ondrugs and out of control, gang wars overdrug-trafficking turf. One million Americansare arrested every year for breaking the druglaws. Two-thirds of all the men in State pris-ons have abused drugs regularly.

Unfortunately, most of the people whoenter jail as drug addicts leave jail still ad-dicted or about to become addicts again.When criminals on parole or ex-convicts outof jail go back on drugs, the chances are enor-mously high they will commit new crimes.According to some experts, 60 percent of allthe heroin and cocaine sold in America issold to people on bail, parole, or probation.Two-thirds of prisoners with a history of her-oin or cocaine use who are released withouttreatment are back on drugs within just 3months. We must break this cycle of crimeand drugs once and for all.

Last fall, Congress passed my proposal torequire drug testing and treatment for prisoninmates and convicts on parole. Our prisonsmust not be illegal drug markets, and anyonegiven a chance to go straight and live a betterlife must be absolutely drug-free. The bill Isigned said to the States, we want to continuehelping you build prisons, but if you wantthe money to do that, you must start drugtesting prisoners and parolees.

272 Mar. 1 / Administration of William J. Clinton, 1997

In December, I announced Justice De-partment guidelines to help States meet thisrequirement. The guidelines are straight-forward. By March 1, 1998, one year fromtoday, every State must submit to the Attor-ney General a clearly defined, comprehen-sive plan to test prisoners and parolees, totreat those who need it and punish those whogo back on drugs.

Today I’m announcing that I am sendingall 50 Governors a letter to make it clear thatGeneral McCaffrey and Attorney GeneralReno are prepared to help every State getthis job done. We’ll provide guidance and re-sources, experts, technical assistance, accessto new technology. We’ll give that to everyState that needs help in developing its plans.At the same time, this, too, should be per-fectly clear: Any State without a prisoner andparolee drug testing plan one year from todaywill lose Federal prison assistance until a planis submitted. We want to help States buildthe prison space they need, but we will nothelp to build prisons that tolerate drugs byturning a blind eye.

The Federal Government and State gov-ernments must work together as partners toget this done. It’s time to say to inmates, ifyou stay on drugs, you’ll stay in jail; if youwant out of jail, you have to get off drugs.It’s time to say to parolees, if you go backon drugs, you’ll go back to jail; if you wantto stay out of jail, stay off drugs.

We must fight drugs on every front, onour streets and in our schools, at our bordersand in our homes. Every American must ac-cept this responsibility. There is no more in-sidious threat to a good future than illegaldrugs. I’m counting on all of you to help uswin the fight against them.

Thanks for listening.

NOTE: The address was recorded at 4:28 p.m. onFebruary 28 in the Roosevelt Room at the WhiteHouse for broadcast at 10:06 a.m. on March 1.

Remarks Prior to Discussions WithChairman Yasser Arafat of thePalestinian Authority and anExchange With ReportersMarch 3, 1997

The President. Good morning. I’m gladto welcome Chairman Arafat here. This isour sixth meeting, and I’m hopeful that itwill be as productive as our previous oneshave. You will remember the last time hewas here, last fall, we were facing a very dif-ficult situation with regard to Hebron, andbecause of the efforts that he made in work-ing with the Israelis, an agreement wasreached, a timetable was established, andwe’re moving forward. And I’m hopeful thatwe can keep doing that. This is also a difficultmoment, but I think we can work throughit and go forward and I appreciate his comingto see me.

Middle East Peace ProcessQ. Mr. Chairman, are the new settlements

designed by the Israelis to make the annex-ation a fait accompli of east Jerusalem?

Chairman Arafat. Not only for Jerusalembut also for Bethlehem, because their targetis to squeeze and to isolate Jerusalem but,at the same time, to build the settlementsat the entrance of Bethlehem, to replace HarHoma, our capital—in the city of Bethlehemduring the 2,000 years of our celebration forour Jesus Christ.

Q. What are you going to do about it?Chairman Arafat. I am sure that His Ex-

cellency will push for—to prevent it.Q. Mr. President, what do you think about

the settlement?The President. Well, what I think about

the settlement is what I think about all theseissues. You know, the important thing is forthese people on both sides to be buildingconfidence and working together. And so Iwould prefer the decision not have beenmade, because I don’t think it builds con-fidence, I think it builds mistrust. And I wishthat it had not been made.

273Administration of William J. Clinton, 1997 / Mar. 3

Q. Mr. President, the Jerusalem EmbassyAct declares that the United States shouldrecognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Is Je-rusalem Israel’s capital, and does Israel havethe right to build within the municipalboundaries of Jerusalem?

The President. Well, you know, I’ve beenasked that question a lot, and I’m going togive you the same answer I always give. Ido not believe, now that the parties havereached the agreement they reached in 1993and they have made this the final status issue,that the United States can serve any usefulpurpose by saying, or especially by doing,anything which seems to prejudge whatshould be a final status issue between theparties. I think that would be a big mistake.

1996 Campaign FinancingQ. Vice President Gore, did you solicit

money in the White House, Mr. Gore, duringthe campaign?

Vice President Gore. I’ll talk with you alllater, not during this.

The President. Nice tie, Ron [RonFournier, Associated Press].

Q. Thank you. Got that in Arkansas.

Storms in ArkansasQ. Do you want to say anything about the

storms?Q. Are you going to Arkansas?The President. I’m going down tomorrow.

I’m very concerned about it. I talked overthe weekend to—I talked to the Governortwice and the mayor of Little Rock and Rep-resentative Malone in Arkadelphia. Youknow, it’s a bad situation. More people werekilled in 18 hours than in the 12 years I wasGovernor, I believe combined, in the torna-does.

Q. Did you know anybody that was hurtor killed?

The President. Not to my knowledge, al-though I did recognize a couple of peopleon television last night who had lost theirhomes. One man said—did you see that—where he had given away a couch to theGoodwill Industries, and whoever got thecouch had their home destroyed and thecouch was blown back into his house.[Laughter]

Q. You’re going down——

The President. I recognized three or fourpeople on television. But I’m going downthere. I’ll see tomorrow.

Chelsea Clinton’s BirthdayQ. You had a good birthday celebration?The President. Wonderful. Chelsea had

a good birthday. New York was good.

NOTE: The President spoke at 10:12 a.m. in theOval Office at the White House. In his remarks,he referred to Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansasand Mayor Jim Dailey of Little Rock. A tape wasnot available for verification of the content ofthese remarks.

Remarks at the Unveiling Ceremonyfor the Coalition for America’sChildren Public ServiceAnnouncementMarch 3, 1997

I want to thank all those who have beena part of this. Alex Kroll, thank you for whatyou said and for reminding us that we’reabout the business of helping parents, notdisrespecting the difficulties they face. Chris-tine Benero, thank you. Eva Kasten, the ex-ecutive vice president of the AdvertisingCouncil, thank you. I thank the BentonFoundation, the AT&T Foundation, thePackard Foundation. I’d like to thank thepeople in our administration probably mostdirectly involved in helping our children whoare here today, Secretary Riley, SecretaryShalala, and Harris Wofford, the head of theCorporation for National Service.

But most of all, I want to thank BradleyPine and Lonzo Warren for coming here toshare their story. Their relationship is a pow-erful example of what could be done all overAmerica if we move from vague rhetoric tospecific action directed at helping and sup-porting all of our children. Just think of whatwould happen in this country if every singlechild who needed a mentor had one. Thinkof what would happen if every person outthere who is willing to volunteer to help,knew where to go and how to do it. The pub-lic service message we just saw, that Hillaryand I were honored to participate in, is sim-ply designed to remind every American thatthere are children out there who need our


support and to tell every American whowants to serve that there is a way to serveand we will help you do it.

We know that being a parent is the mostdifficult and important job in the world. Andwe know that everyone has to help. Hillaryhas been working on these children’s issuessince before I met her, a long time ago now,and I think that the book that she wrote didcapture the image of the village raising ourchildren. But it should not be allowed to ob-scure the fact that what that really meansis that each and every one of us has a per-sonal responsibility to do our part. And also,thanks to this effort, it will be easier for peo-ple to understand how to exercise that re-sponsibility.

I’m especially fond of the work that wehave done in this regard. We’ve done all wecould to encourage citizen service. We nowhave more than 50,000 young people workingin AmeriCorps, earning money to go to col-lege. Many, many of them are helping ourchildren in supportive ways.

Last summer, we launched our AmericaReads program to try to mobilize one millionvolunteer tutors in America to make sure thatby the year 2000 every single 8-year-old inthis country can read independently and willhave a chance to make the most of his orher education. Today I am pleased to an-nounce that Scholastic Books is donating onemillion books to help us reach that goal. Weneed more companies like Scholastic Booksto give more Americans the opportunity toserve.

In January, I was proud to stand right herewith President Bush and General Colin Pow-ell and former Secretary of Housing andUrban Development Henry Cisneros to an-nounce that we are convening the first everPresident’s summit of service in April inPhiladelphia, to bring together business, reli-gious, community leaders committed to sup-port citizen service with resources and volun-teers. With their help, I hope we can makethe plea we make in this public service an-nouncement a reality for tens of thousandsof more people in the United States.

This public service announcement is justwhat it seems to be. It seeks to help in mobi-lizing a volunteer force of Americans. It re-flects the wisdom that no impersonal bu-

reaucracy can ever replace the magic that wesaw here between Bradley and Lonzo or thefeeling that Lonzo expressed for his own fam-ily who are here with him today. What wecan do is to make it possible for more thingslike that to happen and to give our childrenthe basic supports they need to make it hap-pen. But in the end, we must make this vast,big complicated society of ours more of a so-ciety in which we all feel that we should vol-unteer and, like Bradley, we know we’regoing to be better off for doing it. We’ll getmore out of it than we give. We have to cre-ate the networks to facilitate that kind of vol-untarism.

The public service announcement, as yousaw, gives people a number to call, a website to visit, to learn about organizations intheir very own communities where they canvolunteer their time, to become a readingtutor or a math coach or a mentor to a childin need. Beginning today, anyone visiting theWhite House home page on the Internet willbe able to connect to the coalition’s web sitewith just a click of the mouse and find outwhat they can do to help.

The more people this message reaches, themore children will be helped. So far, someof our biggest television, cable, and radio net-works have committed to air this messageduring times when it will have the bestchance of inspiring the largest number ofpeople. Newsweek, the New York Times, andPeople magazine will also run the messagein their pages. And movie-goers will see itin theaters all over the country, thanks to pro-motion slide and cinema advertisers. This isa very good start. But let me encourage othermedia organizations around the country tohelp to make sure this message is heard byas many people as possible, to help to workwith us to encourage the spirit of service inAmerica, to strengthen our families, to im-prove the lives of our children one at a time.

Whenever you think about what else wecan do, just think of Bradley and Lonzo andmultiply it by millions and imagine the Amer-ica we can make together.

Thank you. God bless you.

NOTE: The President spoke at 12:17 p.m. in theEast Room at the White House. In his remarks,he referred to Alex Kroll, chairman, AdvertisingCouncil; Christine Benero, chair, Coalition for


America’s Children; Lonzo Warren, a 15-year-oldhigh school student from Hyattsville, MD, and hismentor, Bradley R. Pine.

Proclamation 6975—Women’sHistory Month, 1997March 3, 1997

By the President of the United Statesof America

A ProclamationThroughout the history of our Nation,

women have played a pivotal role in bringingabout positive change to every aspect ofAmerican life, and their achievements con-tinue to touch the lives of every single citizen.Women’s History Month honors the womenwho made these accomplishments possible,securing their rightful place in history amongthose who have made our country great. Thismonth, we celebrate these women’s lives—and renew our commitment to breakingdown the gender barriers that still exist.

Through their courage, foresight, andcommunity spirit over the years, Americanwomen have created a world of opportunityfor today’s heroines and role models—women such as Secretary of State MadeleineAlbright, the highest ranking woman to servein any presidential administration; Dr. Shan-non W. Lucid, who has performed five his-toric and complex Space Shuttle missionsduring 18 years with NASA and recentlybroke the American and women’s worldrecord for continuous time in space; OseolaMcCarty, who in 1995 donated the life sav-ings she had earned as a maid to fund schol-arships at the University of Mississippi; andJulie Su, the young attorney who first cameto prominence through her efforts to exposeillegal exploitation of Thai immigrants in aCalifornia sweatshop and who continues tohelp immigrants to secure proper medicalcare, employment, and the dignity they de-serve. The pioneers in women’s historywould be proud of today’s women pioneers.

As we approach the 21st century, we havereached another significant milestone in ourNation’s history: Women have approached analmost equal share in the labor force. Thus,it is more important than ever that we enable

women and men to meet their responsibil-ities at work and at home.

Women continue to break the glass ceiling,changing their status from employee to em-ployer. Today, women-owned businesses arecreating one out of every four jobs in theUnited States. From the classroom to theboard room, women now occupy every partof the work force, building the kinds of livesfor themselves and their families that are theheart of the American Dream.

Women’s History Month provides Ameri-cans with an opportunity to celebrate thecontributions of all the women who have en-riched our Nation, to honor their legacy, andto reflect upon what we can all do to enddiscrimination against women. I encourageall Americans to learn from, and share infor-mation about, women’s history in their work-places, classrooms, and family rooms. Asevery family has its own heroes, so does ourcountry. Only by studying the history ofAmerica’s women can we fully understandthe history of America.

Now, Therefore, I, William J. Clinton,President of the United States of America,by virtue of the authority vested in me bythe Constitution and laws of the UnitedStates of America, do hereby proclaim March1997, as Women’s History Month. I ask edu-cators, Government officials, and all citizensto observe this month with appropriate pro-grams, ceremonies, and activities, remem-bering not only this month but also everymonth the many different contributions thatwomen make every day.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto setmy hand this third day of March, in the yearof our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety-seven, and of the Independence of the Unit-ed States of America the two hundred andtwenty-first.

William J. Clinton

[Filed with the Office of the Federal Register,8:45 a.m., March 4, 1997]

NOTE: This proclamation was published in theFederal Register on March 5.


Proclamation 6976—Save YourVision Week, 1997March 3, 1997


A ProclamationOur eyes are our windows to the world.

They give us the freedom to gaze at a sunset,read a book, or drive a car. Our sight allowsus to jog along a garden pathway or enjoya panoramic view.

All of us need to care for our vision, butolder Americans in particular should beaware of their susceptibility to eye disease.As the ‘‘baby boom’’ generation ages, it iscritical that these Americans receive regulareye examinations from eye-care profes-sionals.

A thorough exam can lead to early detec-tion and control or cure of eye diseases suchas glaucoma, cataract, and diabetic retinop-athy. A professional eye exam can also diag-nose age-related macular degeneration(AMD), a leading cause of severe visual im-pairment and blindness in the United States.This common disease affects the retina, thepart of the eye that helps to produce sharp,central vision required for activities such asreading and driving. AMD causes a loss ofthis clear, central vision; in some cases, visionloss is rapid and dramatic. The risk of AMDdramatically increases after age 60. It is esti-mated that this disease already causes visualimpairment in approximately 1.7 million ofthe 34 million Americans now older than 65.As these numbers continue to grow, re-searchers are working to find the cause of,and develop treatment for, this debilitatingdisease.

People with AMD and its accompanyingvisual impairment often cannot perform dailyactivities such as reading the newspaper, pre-paring meals, or recognizing faces of friends.The inability to see well affects routine activi-ties and social interactions and can lead toa loss of independence.

However, low-vision services and devicescan greatly improve the quality of life for vis-ually impaired patients and help them main-tain their independence. Devices such ashand-held magnifiers, computer monitors

with large type, and large-print newspapersand books can help the visually impaired dra-matically improve their quality of life.

To remind Americans of the importanceof protecting their eyesight, the Congress, byjoint resolution approved December 30,1963 (77 Stat. 629; 36 U.S.C. 169a), has au-thorized and requested the President to pro-claim the first week in March of each yearas ‘‘Save Your Vision Week.’’

Now, Therefore, I, William J. Clinton,President of the United States of America,do hereby proclaim March 2 through March8, 1997, as Save Your Vision Week. Our eyesplay a vital role in our independence anddaily living and need to be examined regu-larly. Let us recognize the work done by vi-sion researchers across our Nation on AMDand other eye diseases and the efforts theyare making to enhance and retain our pre-cious sight. Education on good vision startswith us, and we should take progressive stepsto protect our eyes.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto setmy hand this third day of March, in the yearof our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety-seven, and of the Independence of the Unit-ed States of America the two hundred andtwenty-first.

William J. Clinton



Message to the CongressTransmitting the SecondSupplementary Canada-UnitedStates Social Security AgreementMarch 3, 1997

To the Congress of the United States:Pursuant to section 233(e)(1) of the Social

Security Act (the ‘‘Act’’), as amended by theSocial Security Amendments of 1977 (PublicLaw 95–216, 42 U.S.C. 433(e)(1)), I transmitherewith the Second Supplementary Agree-ment Amending the Agreement Between theGovernment of the United States of Americaand the Government of Canada with Respectto Social Security (the Second Supple-


mentary Agreement). The Second Supple-mentary Agreement, signed at Ottawa onMay 28, 1996, is intended to modify certainprovisions of the original United States-Can-ada Social Security Agreement signed at Ot-tawa March 11, 1981, which was amendedonce before by the Supplementary Agree-ment of May 10, 1983.

The United States-Canada Social SecurityAgreement is similar in objective to the socialsecurity agreements with Austria, Belgium,Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland,Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Nor-way, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland,and the United Kingdom. Such bilateralagreements provide for limited coordinationbetween the U.S. and foreign social securitysystems to eliminate dual social security cov-erage and taxation, and to help prevent theloss of benefit protection that can occurwhen workers divide their careers betweentwo countries.

The Second Supplementary Agreementprovides Canada with a specific basis to enterinto a mutual assistance arrangement withthe United States. This enables each Govern-ments’ Social Security agency to assist theother in enhancing the administration oftheir respective foreign benefits programs.The Social Security Administration has bene-fited from a similar mutual assistance ar-rangement with the United Kingdom. TheSecond Supplementary Agreement will alsomake a number of minor revisions in theAgreement to take into account otherchanges in U.S. and Canadian law that haveoccurred in recent years.

The United States-Canada Social SecurityAgreement, as amended, would continue tocontain all provisions mandated by section233 and other provisions that I deem appro-priate to carry out the provisions of section233, pursuant to section 233(c)(4) of the Act.

I also transmit for the information of theCongress a report prepared by the Social Se-curity Administration explaining the keypoints of the Second Supplementary Agree-ment, along with a paragraph-by-paragraphexplanation of the effect of the amendmentson the Agreement. Annexed to this reportis the report required by section 233(e)(1)of the Act on the effect of the Agreement,as amended, on income and expenditures of

the U.S. Social Security program and thenumber of individuals affected by theamended Agreement. The Department ofState and the Social Security Administrationhave recommended the Second Supple-mentary Agreement and related documentsto me.

I commend the United States-Canada Sec-ond Supplementary Social Security Agree-ment and related documents.

William J. Clinton

The White House,March 3, 1997.

Executive Order 13037—Commission To Study CapitalBudgetingMarch 3, 1997

By the authority vested in me as Presidentby the Constitution and the laws of the Unit-ed States of America, including the FederalAdvisory Committee Act, as amended (5U.S.C. App.), it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Establishment. There is estab-lished the Commission to Study CapitalBudgeting (‘‘Commission’’). The Commis-sion shall be bipartisan and shall be com-posed of 11 members appointed by the Presi-dent. The members of the Commission shallbe chosen from among individuals with ex-pertise in public and private finance, govern-ment officials, and leaders in the labor andbusiness communities. The President shalldesignate two co-chairs from among themembers of the Commission.

Sec. 2. Functions. The Commission shallreport on the following:

(a) Capital budgeting practices in othercountries, in State and local govern-ments in this country, and in the pri-vate sector; the differences andsimilarities in their capital budgetingconcepts and processes; and the perti-nence of their capital budgeting prac-tices for budget decisionmaking andaccounting for actual budget out-comes by the Federal Government;

(b) The appropriate definition of capitalfor Federal budgeting, including: useof capital for the Federal Governmentitself or the economy at large; owner-


ship by the Federal Government orsome other entity; defense and non-defense capital; physical capital andintangible or human capital; distinc-tions among investments in and forcurrent, future, and retired workers;distinctions between capital to in-crease productivity and capital to en-hance the quality of life; and existingdefinitions of capital for budgeting;

(c) The role of depreciation in capitalbudgeting, and the concept and meas-urement of depreciation for purposesof a Federal capital budget; and

(d) The effect of a Federal capital budgeton budgetary choices between capitaland noncapital means of achievingpublic objectives; implications formacroeconomic stability; and poten-tial mechanisms for budgetary dis-cipline.

Sec. 3. Report. The Commission shalladopt its report through majority vote of itsfull membership. The Commission shall re-port to the National Economic Council byMarch 15, 1998, or within 1 year from itsfirst meeting.

Sec 4. Administration. (a) Members of theCommission shall serve without compensa-tion for their work on the Commission. Whileengaged in the work of the Commission,members appointed from among private citi-zens of the United States may be allowedtravel expenses, including per diem in lieuof subsistence, as authorized by law for per-sons serving intermittently in the Govern-ment service (5 U.S.C. 5701–5707).

(b) The Department of the Treasury shallprovide the Commission with funding andadministrative support. The Commissionmay have a paid staff, including detaileesfrom Federal agencies. The Secretary of theTreasury shall perform the functions of thePresident under the Federal Advisory Com-mittee Act, as amended (5 U.S.C. App.), ex-cept that of reporting to the Congress, in ac-cordance with the guidelines and proceduresestablished by the Administrator of GeneralServices.

Sec. 5. General Provisions. The Commis-sion shall terminate 30 days after submittingits report.

William J. Clinton



NOTE: This Executive order was released by theOffice of the Press Secretary on March 4, andit was published in the Federal Register on March6.

Remarks Announcing theProhibition on Federal Funding forCloning of Human Beings and anExchange With ReportersMarch 4, 1997

The President. Good morning. I’m gladto be joined this morning by the Vice Presi-dent, Secretary Shalala, Dr. Harold Varmus,the head of NIH; Dr. Harold Shapiro, thepresident of Princeton and the Chairman ofour Bioethics Advisory Commission; and Dr.Jack Gibbons, the President’s Adviser onScience and Technology, all of whom knowa lot about and care a lot about this issuewe are discussing today.

The recent breakthrough in animal cloningis one that could yield enormous benefits,enabling us to reproduce the most productivestrains of crop and livestock, holding out thepromise of revolutionary new medical treat-ments and cures, helping to unlock the great-est secrets of the genetic code. But like thesplitting of the atom, this is a discovery thatcarries burdens as well as benefits.

Science often moves faster than our abilityto understand its implications. That is whywe have a responsibility to move with cautionand care to harness the powerful forces ofscience and technology so that we can reapthe benefit while minimizing the potentialdanger.

This new discovery raises the troublingprospect that it might someday be possibleto clone human beings from our own genetic


material. There is much about cloning thatwe still do not know. But this much we doknow: Any discovery that touches uponhuman creation is not simply a matter of sci-entific inquiry; it is a matter of morality andspirituality as well.

My own view is that human cloning wouldhave to raise deep concerns, given our mostcherished concepts of faith and humanity.Each human life is unique, born of a miraclethat reaches beyond laboratory science. I be-lieve we must respect this profound gift andresist the temptation to replicate ourselves.

At the very least, however, we should allagree that we need a better understandingof the scope and implications of this mostrecent breakthrough. Last week, I asked ourNational Bioethics Advisory Commission,headed by President Harold Shapiro ofPrinceton, to conduct a thorough review ofthe legal and the ethical issues raised by thisnew cloning discovery and to recommendpossible actions to prevent its abuse, report-ing back to me by the end of May.

In the meantime, I am taking further stepsto prevent human cloning. The Federal Gov-ernment currently restricts the use of Fed-eral funds for research involving human em-bryos. After reviewing these restrictions, ouradministration believes that there are loop-holes that could allow the cloning of humanbeings if the technology were developed.Therefore, today I am issuing a directive thatbans the use of any Federal funds for anycloning of human beings.

Effective immediately, no Federal agencymay support, fund, or undertake such activ-ity. Of course, a great deal of research andactivity in this area is supported by privatefunds. That is why I am urging the entirescientific and medical community, everyfoundation, every university, every industrythat supports work in this area to heed theFederal Government’s example. I’m askingfor a voluntary moratorium on the cloningof human beings until our Bioethics AdvisoryCommission and our entire Nation have hada real chance to understand and debate theprofound ethical implications of the latest ad-vances.

As we gain a fuller understanding of thistechnology, we must proceed not just withcaution but also with a conscience. By insist-

ing that not a single taxpayer dollar supportshuman cloning, and by urging a moratoriumon all private research in this area, we canensure that as we move forward on this issue,we weigh the concerns of faith and familyand philosophy and values, not merely ofscience alone. Thank you very much.

1996 Campaign FinancingQ. Mr. President, how do you think the

Vice President did in his rebuttal yesterday,and do you agree with him that you two arein a separate category in terms of fundraisingfrom Federal property?

The President. Well, I agree with—num-ber one, I thought he did very well, and Iagree with the statement he made, and Iagree that what he did was legal. But I alsoagree with the decision that he made.

I would remind you that we knew that hehad a very stiff challenge. We were fightinga battle not simply for our reelection but overthe entire direction of the country for yearsto come and the most historic philosophicalbattle we’ve had in America in quite a longtime over the direction of the budget, overour commitment to education, over whetherwe would dismantle large chunks of our envi-ronmental regulations and our public healthregulations. It was a significant thing forAmerica, and we knew that we were goingto be outspent and outraised, but we knewwe had to do everything we could to at leastbe competitive enough to get our messageout.

In fact, that is what happened. We wereoutspent and outraised by more than $200million, but thanks to the Vice President’sefforts and those of thousands of others anda million small donors, we were able to getour message out.

Q. But did you overdo it in a sense thatnow you’re regretting, obviously—you mustbe—all the things that have happened sincethen?

The President. The only thing I regret—and I regret this very much as I have said—is that a decision was made, which I did notapprove of or know about, to stop the rigor-ous review of checks coming in to the Demo-cratic Committee so that some funds wereaccepted which should not have been accept-ed. I regret that very much. And I have said


that I feel—as the titular head of the Demo-cratic Party, I feel responsible for that. Ithink all of us in the line of command are.And I was very proud of Governor Romerand Mr. Grossman and the entire Demo-cratic Committee. When they made a full ac-counting, they went over all the checks, theydid something as far as I know no party hasdone in modern history, and they gave backmoney that was not only clearly illegal butthat was questionable, and they’re going on.I regret that very much, because that nevershould have happened in the first place.

For the rest, I think the Vice Presidentsaid he thought that some changes were inorder, but I don’t regret the fact that weworked like crazy to raise enough money tokeep from being rolled over by the biggestjuggernaut this country had seen in a verylong time. And I think it would have beena very bad thing for the American people ifthat budget had passed, if their plans to dra-matically dismantle the environmental pro-tections and the public health protections thecountry had passed, and I am glad we stoodup to it. I’m glad we fought the battles of’95 and ’96, and I’m glad it came out theway it did. And we had to be aggressive andstrong within the law, and I’m very proudof what the Vice President did.

Q. Don’t you think it puts the Vice Presi-dent in a vulnerable——

Human CloningQ. Mr. President, what is the extent of

your order today? How much funds—do youknow how much funds were being spent to-ward this human cloning, if any?

The President. We attempted previouslyto have a ban on this, going back to ’94, Ibelieve. The nature of the new discoveryraised the prospect that the technology wasnot covered specifically by the nature of theban. So as far as I know, nothing is goingon in Government-funded research. I justwant to make sure that we keep it that way,because our research dollars are spread allacross the country in different institutions.

With regard to the private sector, let mesay that our staff here in the White Househas been in touch with a number of peoplein the biotech industry, and they seem to beglad that we called and anxious to participate

in a moratorium until we think through theimplications of this.

I mean, I imagine a lot of you, not as jour-nalists but in your own private homes, havesat around talking about this discovery in thelast few days. I know we have in our home.And I just think that we need the best mindsthat we can bring to bear and the distin-guished people on the bioethics advisorycommittee to think through this, tell us aboutwhat we may be missing about if there’s any-thing positive that could come from this, andalso think through the other implications.

How can we get the benefits of our deepdesire to find any possible cure for any mal-ady that’s out there without raising the kindof ethical implications that, in effect, we’rein the business where people are trying toplay God or to replicate themselves.

1996 Campaign FinancingQ. Mr. President, Democrats and Repub-

licans are bogged down in Congress overwhether to conduct hearings on the fundrais-ing issue. Do you want to see that happen,and would you so tell your Democrats, yourfellow Democrats up on the Hill?

The President. My understanding is thatthe Democrats have no objection whateverto the hearings. They just believe that theyought not to go on forever and that they don’tneed to—they’re disputing whether $61⁄2million needs to be spent. That’s somethingthat they need to work out among them-selves.

I certainly have no objection to hearings.I’ve always assumed that they would occur,but I think that the American people are en-titled to know that some prudence will beexercised in how much money is spent, be-cause there’s a lot of other things out thereto be done, and we have the public’s businessto get on with as well—a lot of other issuesthat need to be dealt with. And what I’mhoping that we can do is to just reconcilehow this is going to be dealt with and maybespend some of that money to properly fundthe Federal Election Commission so they cando the kind of audits they’re supposed to doand do the job that they actually have thepower to do on the books right now and geton with the big business, get on with bal-ancing the budget, get on with passing the


education program, get on with doing theother things that are out there for us to do.And so I’m going to do everything I can tofacilitate that.

But it is a decision for the Senate and forthe House—in the House—to decide howthese hearings will proceed and how they willbe funded. But I don’t think anybody objectsto having hearings. We want them to be fair.We want them to be bipartisan. We wantthem to be balanced. And as I understandit, the big fight in the Senate is, will therebe a date certain for ending, and will therebe a limit to how much is spent?

And let me say this: Whatever the hearingsproduce, in the end, the only real questionis, will they produce campaign finance re-form? Whatever they produce, will theyproduce campaign finance reform? I still be-lieve that the only way for the Congress toreally deal with this and any questions fromthe past is to change the system. And we havethe McCain-Feingold bill out there. It’s agood vehicle. I have endorsed it. I wouldhappily sign it the way it is, but they maywant to debate that in some way or another.But the main thing that I want to say againis that there is no excuse for not voting onand passing a good bipartisan campaign fi-nance reform bill this year. There is no ex-cuse. That is the main issue.

Thank you.

NOTE: The President spoke at 9:25 a.m. in theOval Office at the White House.

Memorandum on the Prohibition onFederal Funding for Cloning ofHuman BeingsMarch 4, 1997

Memorandum for the Heads of ExecutiveDepartments and Agencies

Subject: Prohibition on Federal Funding forCloning of Human Beings

Recent accounts of advances in cloningtechnology, including the first successfulcloning of an adult sheep, raise importantquestions. They potentially represent enor-mous scientific breakthroughs that couldoffer benefits in such areas as medicine andagriculture. But the new technology also

raises profound ethical issues, particularlywith respect to its possible use to clone hu-mans. That is why last week I asked our Na-tional Bioethics Advisory Commission tothoroughly review the legal and ethical issuesassociated with the use of this technology andreport back to me in 90 days.

Federal funds should not be used forcloning of human beings. The current restric-tions on the use of Federal funds for researchinvolving human embryos do not fully assurethis result. In December 1994, I directed theNational Institutes of Health not to fund thecreation of human embryos for research pur-poses. The Congress extended this prohibi-tion in FY 1996 and FY 1997 appropriationsbills, barring the Department of Health andHuman Services from supporting certainhuman embryo research. However, these re-strictions do not explicitly cover human em-bryos created for implantation and do notcover all Federal agencies. I want to makeit absolutely clear that no Federal funds willbe used for human cloning. Therefore, Ihereby direct that no Federal funds shall beallocated for cloning of human beings.

William J. Clinton

Remarks on Surveying TornadoDamage in Arkadelphia, Arkansas,and an Exchange With ReportersMarch 4, 1997

The President. Ladies and gentlemen,first let me say that I very much appreciatethe work that has been done here. I knowthis has been a very difficult thing, but I havebeen so impressed by the local officials, thevolunteers, the police and fire personnel, theArmy Reserve, the other military people.You’ve got a lot to be proud of.

I want to thank Governor Huckabee—andI see Mrs. Huckabee over there in a RedCross jacket—for what they have done, andCongressman Jay Dickey, who came downwith me today. I want to thank all the Arkan-sans who are part of our operation. In addi-tion to James Lee Witt, I know that MackMcLarty and Bruce Lindsey and Craig Smithcame down with me today. And we have alot of people here representing our variousagencies. Rodney Slater has been here since


Sunday, and as I was walking up and downthe streets, I heard several people say, ‘‘Well,I don’t want you to fix my building, but Iwould like a new road in some place or an-other in Clark County.’’ [Laughter] So we’lldo our best to behave on that.

I also have the new Director of the SmallBusiness Administration here, Aida Alvarez,who served in the Housing and Urban Devel-opment Department with me. And we’regoing to be working with Judge Runyan andMayor Kolb and Senator Ross and Rep-resentative Malone and all the other localleaders here to try to help you get back ontrack.

You know, James Lee said this, but whenI became President, one of the things thatI wanted to do—and I never thought my na-tive State would need it, but I wanted tomake sure that when disaster strikes any-where in America, the United States Govern-ment would do its part and would be therepromptly and would stay for the long hauland would be concerned and be able to dealwith problems that may look small in Wash-ington but are as big as anything in life topeople who face them when a disasterstrikes.

And I can’t say enough about the work he’sdone. But I have to tell you, you know—he mentioned this—we’ve seen 500-yearfloods in the Middle West like nothing I’dever seen. We’ve seen flooding in the South-east. We’ve worked on the aftermath of ahurricane in Florida. We saw the PacificNorthwest washed out. We’ve seen fires andfloods and earthquakes in California. Butnothing has quite affected me the way thishas today, and I think it’s because I’ve beencoming to Arkadelphia for more than 40years.

We flew over College Station in SalineCounty coming down here, and I spent anenormous amount of time in those placeswhen I was Governor. And I look into theeyes of so many people here today, and Iwish there were more I could say and do.But I can tell you this: I’ll make you a littleprediction, within 2 years, what we’re lookingat today will look better than it did beforethe storm hit because of all of you, and we’regoing to do what we can to help you.

Let me just go over some details here. I’vegot a few notes—everybody makes fun—when I was Governor I never used notes,but now my memory is failing me, so I neednotes. [Laughter] The disaster declaration Isigned on Sunday provides for emergencyaid, temporary housing, grants, and low inter-est loans. FEMA has set up an 800 number,and the people that are eligible for financialhelp will be getting it beginning just in thenext couple of days. I think that since JamesLee’s been there, we’ve turned these checksaround pretty quick. So I think thereshouldn’t be people in too much of a tight,within a matter of just a few days.

The Department of Defense is alreadyhelping, as all of you know, in clearing debris.The SBA can provide long-term, low-interestloans. I know for a lot of small-business peo-ple that seems like a losing proposition now,but I think if you look at the terms you willfind them very helpful. I also know that thelocal banks here have gone out of their wayto try to be helpful already and have sentvery positive signals out in this community.

Let me just mention two other things,mostly for other parts of the State. Todaywe’re making farmers also eligible in the af-fected counties for emergency low-interestloans. And as I told the Governor comingdown, the Labor Department will be provid-ing some funds to the State which will enablepeople who have lost their jobs temporarilyor—I hope not, but if it should happen—permanently because of this tornado, to behired to help and be part of the cleanup sotheir families won’t be without an incomeand so we can speed up the cleanup. AndI hope that will be helpful.

The third thing I’d like to say is that we’relooking here at a long-term process. I am,I must say, terrifically impressed with all thefolks I’ve seen out here cleaning up, all thepeople from the utilities and the contractorsand the football teams. I was walking downthe street, I said, ‘‘I believe there’s morebrawn per square inch in this town todaythan any other place in America.’’ We’ve gotmore physical strength here, and I’ve beenvery impressed.

But you look around at this destruction.It’s going to be a long-term rebuilding proc-ess, not only for the individuals who lost their


businesses but for this community. And a lotof thought has to go into this. Each and everyperson who lost a business will have to de-cide, ‘‘Well, what am I going to do? Am Igoing to rebuild here or not? Or, if I’m goingto rebuild, am I going to do it somewhereelse?’’ And the county has to decide whatto do about the courthouse site. A lot of deci-sions have to be made.

And we have decided that what we shoulddo is to put together a task force representingall the different departments in the FederalGovernment that could be of any help, thatwill be able to work with you over the longrun. I don’t want you to think that the Fed-eral Government comes down here, there’san emergency, sends out a few checks, andthen we walk away. So we’re going to setup a long-term task force. We will be withyou all the way. And again I will say, I predictthat within a couple of years, Arkadelphia willbe back stronger than ever and you will likewhat you see here. You will have to plan yourown future. You will have to execute it. Butwe want to stay with you.

Let me also tell you that these storm cen-ters—and you already know this, but I haveto say this to people in other States who’vebeen afflicted—if you’ve been looking at thetelevision you have seen people literally bur-ied in avalanches of water in Ohio, in Ken-tucky, and in West Virginia. Today I’m de-claring a major disaster in Kentucky andOhio because of the floods that are there,and we will begin to immediately help them.The Vice President and Mr. Witt are goingto go to those two States tomorrow to viewthe damage and to report back to me.

The final thing I’d like to say is that whenI heard about this, the first thing that struckme was not only the physical devastation butthat the number of people who died herein the space of about 18 hours are equal—almost equal to the number of people whodied from tornadoes in the entire 12 yearsthat I had the honor of being Governor ofArkansas. And so Hillary and I said a prayerfor those people and their families, and Iwould just like to ask that all the rest of uswho were unscathed by this, keep those folksin mind, as well as those who were injuredand those who lost everything they had.They’re all going to need our help.

There are people here who have comefrom other States already to help. And if wekeep the right spirit and all of you keep thelight in your eyes that I saw today when per-son after person after person said, ‘‘Well,we’ll get over this. This is Arkansas. We knowhow to behave. We know what to do.’’ Youdo know what to do, and I’ll be honored tohelp you every step of the way. And I thankyou for giving me the chance to share thiswith you today. As difficult as it is, I verymuch wanted to be here, and I’m glad Icame.

Thank you.

1996 Campaign FinancingQ. Mr. President, a couple of questions

on other topics. One question, apparentlythere is some effort on the Hill to get thelegislation—Trent Lott and others havecalled for an independent counsel. Is that ap-propriate at this time?

The President. It’s a legal question.Q. OK, one other question——The President. I have nothing else to say.Q. Did the White House ever get a heads

up from DOJ or from the FBI on the Chi-nese——

The President. I want to refer—ask them.Ask the White House. They’re the appro-priate person you’re supposed to ask.

Q. Did you?The President. No.

NOTE: The President spoke at 2:35 p.m. In hisremarks, he referred to Gov. Huckabee’s wife,Janet; Clark County Judge Grady Runyan; MayorMike Kolb of Arkadelphia; and Arkansas StateSenator Mike Ross.

Statement on Senate Action on theBalanced Budget AmendmentMarch 4, 1997

I am pleased that the Senate has heededthe warnings of eminent economists and con-stitutional experts from across the politicalspectrum, and defeated the balanced budgetconstitutional amendment.

At the same time, let me be clear: WhileI oppose a constitutional amendment, I amcommitted to achieving the bipartisan goalof balancing the budget by 2002. Last year,


I sent Congress a plan to balance the budget,and I submitted a balanced budget plan againa few weeks ago.

The constitutional amendment could havecaused or worsened recessions, permitted aminority of legislators to hold the Nation’screditworthiness hostage, involved unelectedjudges in spending and tax policy, and threat-ened Social Security and other vital benefits.

Now that the amendment vote has takenplace, I call on Congress to join me in passinga plan to balance the budget by 2002 whileprotecting our values, strengthening edu-cation, and providing targeted tax relief toworking families.

At the end of Congress’ last session, wesaw several instances of productive bipartisancooperation. I hope that we can continue thisspirit of bipartisanship and make progress forthe American people by reaching agreementon a balanced budget plan this year. All ittakes is their votes and my signature.

It’s time to do the real work of balancingthe budget.

Message to the CongressTransmitting the Hong Kong-UnitedStates Extradition AgreementMarch 3, 1997

To the Congress of the United States:With a view to receiving the advice and

consent of the Senate to ratification as a trea-ty, I transmit herewith the Agreement Be-tween the Government of the United Statesof America and the Government of HongKong for the Surrender of Fugitive Offend-ers signed at Hong Kong on December 20,1996 (hereinafter referred to as ‘‘the Agree-ment’’). In addition, I transmit for the infor-mation of the Senate, the report of the De-partment of State with respect to the Agree-ment. As a treaty, this Agreement will notrequire implementing legislation.

This Agreement will, upon entry intoforce, enhance cooperation between the lawenforcement communities of the UnitedStates and Hong Kong, and will provide aframework and basic protections for extra-ditions after the reversion of Hong Kong tothe sovereignty of the People’s Republic ofChina on July 1, 1997. Given the absence

of an extradition treaty with the People’s Re-public of China, this Treaty would providethe means to continue an extradition rela-tionship with Hong Kong after reversion andavoid a gap in law enforcement. It will there-by make a significant contribution to inter-national law enforcement efforts.

The provisions in this Agreement followgenerally the form and content of extraditiontreaties recently concluded by the UnitedStates. In addition, the Agreement containsseveral provisions specially designed in lightof the particular status of Hong Kong. TheAgreement’s basic protections for fugitivesare also made expressly applicable to fugi-tives surrendered by the two parties beforethe new treaty enters into force.

I recommend that the Senate give earlyand favorable consideration to the Agree-ment and give its advice and consent to itsratification as a treaty.

William J. Clinton


NOTE: This message was released by the Officeof the Press Secretary on March 5.

Remarks on Signing theMemorandum on Child Safety LockDevices for Handguns and anExchange With ReportersMarch 5, 1997

The President. Good morning. I’d like towelcome here Senators Biden and Boxer,Durbin and Feinstein, Kohl; CongressmenConyers, Schumer, and CongresswomanCarolyn McCarthy; along with Deputy Attor-ney General Jamie Gorelick, Treasury’sUnder Secretary for Enforcement Ray Kelly;our friends Jim and Sarah Brady; and mem-bers of the law enforcement community. DidI leave anyone from Congress out? Senators?[Inaudible] Did I get everybody? Good.

Four years ago, we made a commitmentto take our streets back from crime and vio-lence with a comprehensive plan: first, to put100,000 community police officers on ourstreets, to put new, tough penalties on thebooks, to steer young people away fromcrime and gangs and drugs, to keep guns out


of the hands of criminals with the assaultweapons ban and the Brady bill. Last weekI announced that the Brady bill has alreadystopped 186,000 felons, fugitives, and stalk-ers from purchasing handguns.

Repeatedly I have said that fighting thescourge of juvenile crime and violence willbe my top law enforcement priority in thenext 4 years. Two weeks ago, I submitted toCongress my antigang and youth violencestrategy. One of this bill’s key provisions willrequire gun dealers to provide safety lockswith every handgun they sell, to prevent un-authorized use by teenage criminals and toprotect children too young to know whatthey’re doing.

Today I announced a series of new stepswe must take immediately to protect our chil-dren, our neighbors, and our police officersfrom tragedies caused by firearms in thewrong hands. First, we must keep guns outof the hands of children.

The Centers for Disease Control reportthat nearly 1.2 million children return fromschool to a home with no adult supervisionbut with a loaded and unlocked firearm. Easyaccess means deadly consequences. Childrenand teenagers cause over 10,000 uninten-tional shootings every year. Guns cause onein every four deaths of teenagers age 15 to19. Last month the Centers for Disease Con-trol reported that the rate of children frombirth to age 14 who are killed by firearmsin America is nearly 12 times higher thanin 25 other industrialized countries com-bined.

America cannot tolerate this. Until Con-gress makes child safety locks the law of theland, we must do everything we can to pre-vent unauthorized firearms use.

I want to make sure the Federal Govern-ment is doing its part. Each year the FederalGovernment issues thousands of handguns tolaw enforcement agents. Unfortunately, weknow all too well that even firearms issuedto law enforcement are sometimes tragicallymisused. Today I am directing that everyFederal agency shall require child safetylocking devices with every handgun issued.The directive I’m about to sign requiresevery department and every agency to de-velop a plan to accomplish this commonsensesafety measure and to implement it as soon

as possible. And Congress should pass myproposal to require these locks with everyhandgun in the very near future. If it’s goodenough for law enforcement, it’s goodenough for all our citizens.

The second step we’re taking today willmake it harder for people to come to Amer-ica, purchase weapons, and commit crimesagainst Americans. We were all shocked tolearn of the foreign gunman who shot sevenpeople on top of the Empire State Building,killing one of them and then killing himself.He apparently bought this gun after livingin a Florida motel for just 3 weeks. Federallaw requires legal aliens to live at least 90days in a State before they are allowed topurchase a handgun. But the application tobuy a gun does not even ask how long anapplicant has lived at his or her current ad-dress.

As a first step to reduce illegal handgunpurchases by foreigners, today I’m announc-ing that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco andFirearms will immediately require applicantsto certify that they have been residents forat least 90 days in the State where they aretrying to buy a gun. But this is not enough.I call on Congress to pass the bill sponsoredby Senators Kennedy and Durbin and Con-gressman Schumer that will prohibit all for-eign visitors from buying or carrying guns inthe United States.

Finally, as we work to make all our peoplesafer, we must never forget our special obli-gation to police officers, like those who arewith me today, who risk their lives to protectus all. It is long past time for Congress tolisten to America’s law enforcement officersand ban cop-killer bullets once and for all.

I have sent this legislation to Congresstwice before, and they failed to act. Theyshould not delay this effort again. We don’tneed to study this issue any more to deter-mine what specific materials can be used tomake armor-piercing bullets. We need a sim-ple test and a straightforward ban. If a bulletcan tear through a bulletproof vest like a hotknife through butter, it should be against thelaw, and that is the bottom line. These bulletsare designed for one purpose only, to kill po-lice officers. They have no place on ourstreets.


Three simple steps to make our children,our streets, and our law enforcement officerssafer: Child safety locks on handguns, newrules to prevent foreign criminals from buy-ing guns in the United States, a straight-forward ban on cop-killer bullets. I will domy part. I thank the Members of Congresswho are here, especially for their leadership,and I ask the Congress to act on this impor-tant legislation.

Now, let me sign this order here, and thenI’ll answer any questions you have.

[At this point, the President signed the memo-randum.]

Thank you.

Police FirepowerQ. The police were outgunned in Los An-

geles. Do you think there’s also a problemwith police departments not having enoughfirepower?

The President. There could be, but Ithink the real problem is—the way we soughtto deal with that is by dealing with the assaultweapons ban. I think most police depart-ments will be adequately armed if we canget the assault weapons out of the hands ofthe criminals and if we have tougher enforce-ment of the Brady bill. It’s—186,000 blockedsales is no small number, even in a big coun-try like ours—186,000. That’s pretty impres-sive.

1996 Campaign FinancingQ. What do you think of the Republicans

suggesting they’ll vote tomorrow in the Sen-ate on insisting there be an independentcounsel on campaign financial fundraising?

The President. Well, I think, you know,there is a law on that. It’s a legal question.It shouldn’t be a political one.

Cop-Killer Bullet LegislationQ. Mr. President, why would you think

now that things in the Congress would beany different this time around for cop-killerbullets or for some of these other measuresthan before?

The President. Because of the clear dem-onstration of public support. Keep in mindthat this Congress, which had originally comeinto office with a commitment to repealthe—I mean, the last Congress, the Congress

of ’95–’96, which came to Congress with acommitment to repeal the assault weaponsban and weaken or repeal the Brady bill, ac-tually agreed with me to strengthen theBrady bill at the end of the last session ofCongress in late 1996.

So I think there has been a sea changein the shift of attitude in the Congress asthe American people have crystallized theiropinions on these issues and made it known.

Furthermore, I think there will be broadsupport—even broader support for the childsafety locks. I would be surprised if you don’thave a lot of the gunowners groups—if theydidn’t support this, it would surprise me. Imean, this is consistent with a lot of thethings that they have said in the past, so Ithink we would have a good chance on that.And on the cop-killer bullets, I think that—you asked my hope, my hope is based onthe action that this Congress took at the lastsession where they voted with us to extendthe impact of the Brady bill.

Subpoena of Lippo Group DocumentsQ. Mr. President, with the new subpoenas

coming out on the Lippo connection to theWhite House, are you satisfied that there’sbeen no undue influence by outside influ-ence on—by outside countries on either yourWhite House or on your former—your verygood friend Web Hubbell?

The President. I have no reason to believethat there has been. But I think that every-body should comply with the information,and we have. And you know, Mr. Burtonasked us yesterday I think for some informa-tion relating to the allegation of an attemptby the Chinese to influence the Americanelection. And when we have made that—when—we said in our letter to the JusticeDepartment that we assumed anything thatwe got would be given to the House and Sen-ate Intelligence Committees because wedidn’t want to raise any questions, we justwant to get to the bottom of that. And so,they have it, and whatever is appropriate forthem to share with Mr. Burton, they can.

I just think we——Q. Is Burton grandstanding?The President. I don’t want to get into

that. But I believe that the House and Senatecommittees—Intelligence Committees—


have anything that we had. And so they canshare it with them as is appropriate.

Q. Do you have any reason to believe therewas influence——

The President. No.Q. ——attempted influence?The President. I do not, but I think we

have to get—you know, there’s an investiga-tion. As I said, the charge is serious; we needto get to the bottom of it. But I have noreasons to believe—I have no personal evi-dence, but that’s not the issue. The issue isthis charge has been made, it’s—anytime youallege that another government attempted toinfluence an American election, that’s a seri-ous thing and has to be looked into. But Ihave no personal evidence, but I want theinvestigation to proceed, and I want the Jus-tice Department to get to the bottom of it.And I expect that they will.

NOTE: The President spoke at 10:33 a.m. in theOval Office at the White House. In his remarks,he referred to former White House Press Sec-retary James S. Brady, who was wounded in the1981 assassination attempt on President RonaldReagan, and Mr. Brady’s wife, Sarah, head ofHand Gun Control, Inc.

Memorandum on Child Safety LockDevices for HandgunsMarch 5, 1997

Memorandum for the Heads of ExecutiveDepartments and AgenciesSubject: Child Safety Lock Devices forHandguns

Every day, firearms claim the lives of toomany children. Firearms cause 12 percent offatalities among American children andteens, and one of every four deaths of teen-agers ages 15 to 19. These numbers rep-resent not only violent crimes, but also tragicgun accidents. Firearms are now the fourthleading cause of accidental deaths amongchildren ages 5 to 14. Moreover, firearmshave become the primary method by whichyoung people commit suicide.

According to a Centers for Disease Con-trol study released earlier this month, therate of firearm deaths among children up to

14 years old is nearly 12 times higher in theUnited States than in 25 other industrializedcountries combined. The Center also esti-mates that nearly 1.2 million unsupervisedchildren return from school to a home thathas a loaded or unlocked firearm.

Recently, my Administration sent to theCongress our ‘‘Anti-Gang and Youth Vio-lence Act of 1997,’’ draft legislation that in-cludes a provision requiring all Federal Fire-arms Licensed dealers to provide a safetylock device with every firearm sold. Safetylock devices will help to reduce the unau-thorized use of handguns by a child at playor a teen who wants to commit a crime. Justas important, safety lock devices can also helpdeter gun theft.

I have urged the Congress to move thislegislation quickly. In the meantime, theFederal Government can serve as an exampleof gun safety for the Nation by taking an im-portant step to reduce handgun accidentsand protect our children from injury anddeath.

Every year, the Federal Government is-sues thousands of handguns to our law en-forcement agents. While some agencies havealready adopted a policy of distributing safetylocks for these handguns, this policy shouldbe universally adopted across the FederalGovernment. That is why I direct you to de-velop and implement a policy requiring thata safety lock device—as defined in our draftlegislation—be provided with any and everyhandgun issued by your agency to law en-forcement officers. You should ensure thatall Federal law enforcement officers are in-formed of this policy and that all issued safetylock devices are accompanied by instructionsfor their proper use.

All Americans have a responsibility to en-sure that guns do not fall into the hands ofour children. Your response to this directivewill help ensure that this does not happen.Taking this simple step can have a dramaticimpact on saving the lives of our children.You should proceed as quickly as possible tocarry out this directive.

William J. Clinton


Statement on the Belfast TalksMarch 5, 1997

As the Belfast talks on the future of North-ern Ireland recess today for the British andlocal election campaigns, I want to empha-size the strong support of the United Statesfor these historic negotiations. They offer anunparalleled opportunity for the NorthernIreland political parties and the British andIrish Governments to achieve a just and last-ing settlement to the conflict that has haunt-ed the people of Northern Ireland for toolong. Violence can have no place in thisdemocratic process. For the talks to be inclu-sive, as they are intended to be, the IRA mustdeclare and implement an unequivocalcease-fire.

Under the skilled chairmanship of SenatorGeorge Mitchell and his colleagues, the talkshave made useful progress. When the talksreconvene in June, it is important that theymove quickly into substantive negotiations.I hope the participants will return toStormont on June 3 determined to work cre-atively to make real progress. If they do, theywill have my full support for the negotiationsand their eventual outcome.

NOTE: The statement referred to George J.Mitchell, Special Assistant to the President forNorthern Ireland.

Notice—Continuation of IranEmergencyMarch 5, 1997

On March 15, 1995, by Executive Order12957, I declared a national emergency withrespect to Iran pursuant to the InternationalEmergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C.1701–1706) to deal with the threat to the na-tional security, foreign policy, and economyof the United States constituted by the ac-tions and policies of the Government of Iran,including its support for international terror-ism, efforts to undermine the Middle Eastpeace process, and acquisition of weapons ofmass destruction and the means to deliverthem. On May 6, 1995, I issued ExecutiveOrder 12959 imposing more comprehensivesanctions to further respond to this threat.

Because the actions and policies of theGovernment of Iran continue to threaten thenational security, foreign policy, and econ-omy of the United States, the national emer-gency declared on March 15, 1995, must con-tinue in effect beyond March 15, 1997.Therefore, in accordance with section 202(d)of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C.1622(d)), I am continuing the national emer-gency with respect to Iran. Because theemergency declared by Executive Order12957 constitutes an emergency separatefrom that declared on November 14, 1979,by Executive Order 12170, this renewal isdistinct from the emergency renewal of Oc-tober 1996. This notice shall be publishedin the Federal Register and transmitted tothe Congress.

William J. Clinton



NOTE: This notice was published in the FederalRegister on March 6.

Message to the Congress on IranMarch 5, 1997

To the Congress of the United States:Section 202(d) of the National Emer-

gencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622(d)) provides forthe automatic termination of a national emer-gency unless, prior to the anniversary dateof its declaration, the President publishes inthe Federal Register and transmits to theCongress a notice stating that the emergencyis to continue in effect beyond the anniver-sary date. In accordance with this provision,I have sent the enclosed notice, stating thatthe Iran emergency declared on March 15,1995, pursuant to the International Emer-gency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C.1701–1706) is to continue in effect beyondMarch 15, 1997, to the Federal Register forpublication. This emergency is separate fromthat declared on November 14, 1979, in con-nection with the Iranian hostage crisis andtherefore requires separate renewal of emer-gency authorities.


The factors that led me to declare a na-tional emergency with respect to Iran onMarch 15, 1995, have not been resolved. Theactions and policies of the Government ofIran, including its support for internationalterrorism, efforts to undermine the MiddleEast peace process, and its acquisition ofweapons of mass destruction and the meansto deliver them, continue to threaten the na-tional security, foreign policy, and economyof the United States. Accordingly, I have de-termined that it is necessary to maintain inforce the broad authorities that are in placeby virtue of the March 15, 1995, declarationof emergency.

William J. Clinton


Proclamation 6977—National PoisonPrevention Week, 1997March 5, 1997


A ProclamationThis year, as we observe National Poison

Prevention Week, we highlight two achieve-ments: the effectiveness of child-resistantpackaging required by the U.S. ConsumerProduct Safety Commission (CPSC) and thelifesaving work of the Nation’s poison controlcenters. These public health efforts have re-duced childhood poisoning deaths from 450deaths in 1961 to 50 deaths in 1993. How-ever, according to the American Associationof Poison Control Centers, over one millionchildren each year are exposed to potentiallypoisonous medicines and household chemi-cals.

Virtually all poisonings are preventable,and we must continue to inform parents,grandparents, and caregivers how to preventchildhood poisonings. The Poison PreventionWeek Council, a coalition of 39 national or-ganizations determined to stop accidentalpoisonings, distributes valuable informationused by poison control centers, pharmacies,public health departments, and others to

conduct poison prevention programs in theircommunities.

Simple safety measures—such as correctlyusing child-resistant packaging and keepingpotentially harmful substances locked awayfrom children—can save lives. And if a poi-soning occurs, a poison control center canoffer quick and lifesaving intervention.

The CPSC requires child-resistant packag-ing for many medicines and householdchemicals. A recent CPSC study showed thatevery year approximately 24 children’s livesare saved by child-resistant packaging for oralprescription medicines. The CPSC recentlytook action to ensure that child-resistantpackaging will be easier for adults to use aswell. This, in turn, will increase the use ofchild-resistant packaging, preventing morepoisonings.

To encourage Americans to learn moreabout the dangers of accidental poisoningsand to take more preventive measures, theCongress, by joint resolution approved Sep-tember 26, 1961 (75 Stat. 681), has author-ized and requested the President to issue aproclamation designating the third week ofMarch of each year as ‘‘National Poison Pre-vention Week.’’

Now, Therefore, I, William J. Clinton,President of the United States of America,do hereby proclaim March 16 through March22, 1997, as National Poison PreventionWeek. I call upon all Americans to observethis week by participating in appropriateceremonies and activities and by learninghow to prevent accidental poisonings amongchildren.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto setmy hand this fifth day of March, in the yearof our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety-seven, and of the Independence of the Unit-ed States of America the two hundred andtwenty-first.

William J. Clinton




Remarks to a Joint Session of theMichigan Legislature in Lansing,MichiganMarch 6, 1997

Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr.Speaker, Governor. Thank you all for thatwonderful welcome in this magnificent cap-itol. I’m delighted to be here today with somany of your State officials—LieutenantGovernor Binsfeld; your State board of edu-cation president, Kathleen Strauss. I don’tknow if Frank Kelley met Theodore Roo-sevelt, but he did meet me when I becameattorney general. [Laughter] And some daysI feel about that old. I want to thank themayor of Lansing, Mayor Hollister, for meet-ing me at the airport, and all the other Stateofficials and dignitaries who are here—Rep-resentative Sikkema, thank you, sir; and Sen-ator Cherry and Senator Posthumus.

I want to thank the Members of Congressand others who flew down here with metoday—your former Governor, Jim Blan-chard and his wife, Janet; Congressman Din-gell; your Congresswoman from here, Con-gressman Debbie Stabenow; RepresentativeLevin; Representative Kilpatrick; Represent-ative Conyers; Representative Stupak; Rep-resentative Camp; and RepresentativeHoekstra and Representative Barcia. Did Iget them all? [Laughter] Nine, we only hadnine here. I could only muster nine, butthat’s a quorum—[laughter]—even in theState legislature—of the Michigan delega-tion. I thank them for coming down.

Thank you, Wendell Anthony, for your in-vocation, and thank you for making me feelso welcome.

When I came in, the Speaker and I werelooking up at this magnificent ceiling, andI noticed that the seal of the State of Michi-gan was right next to the seal of my homeState of Arkansas. And maybe one reason forthat is that the Congress approved us cominginto the Union at the same time.

I was reading also the account of TheodoreRoosevelt coming here 90 years ago. I knowyou have partisan differences today. Youmight be interested to know that 90 yearsago there were 32 Republicans and noDemocrats in the Senate. [Laughter] If youclap too much, I’ve got a great closing line—

Governor, you’ll get mad at it. [Laughter]There were 95 Republicans and 5 Democratsin the House. And it was the aftermath ofthe Civil War.

I say this because our two States have beenentwined in an interesting way over thecourse of time. We were allowed togetherinto the Union because Michigan was a freeState and Arkansas was a Southern slaveState, and Michigan became the party—ad-hering to the party of Abraham Lincoln, offreedom, and the party of Theodore Roo-sevelt, which the Governor explained. Andmost of us Democrats are pretty proud ofthose folks, too. They represent the best inAmerica.

Then, after the Great Depression, Michi-gan basically became the home of tens ofthousands of people from my State who sim-ply could not make a living anymore on thefarm, and the factories of Michigan gave peo-ple from Arkansas, black and white together,the chance to come up here and build a de-cent middle class life and educate their chil-dren and be a part of what was then Ameri-ca’s future. So anybody from my roots mustbe exceedingly grateful to the people ofMichigan and the history and the heritageof Michigan.

When Theodore Roosevelt was here, hewas going to Michigan State to address thegraduates there, just as I did a couple of yearsago. And I might say the president of Michi-gan State is here, and I told him today thathe gave me a picture of Theodore Roosevelt’saddress to the graduates at Michigan State,and it now hangs on my office wall at theWhite House at the entrance to my little pri-vate office off the Oval Office, and I lookup there and see Teddy Roosevelt speakingevery day that I go to work.

Before that, he came here, and when hespoke here I suppose the place looked aboutlike it does now, thanks to your magnificentrenovation, and I applaud you for doing this.People all over America should rememberit’s worth investing a little money to protectyour roots and your heritage, and the beautyand meaning of what we were, as well as whatwe hope to be.

In 1907 when Teddy Roosevelt came herewe were at the dawn of the industrial era.This building had been wired for electricity


only 2 years before he showed up. And whenPresident Roosevelt left here to go to thecollege campus, he got in a newfangled con-traption called a Reo automobile. I read thenewspaper article from your local paper from1907 this morning, and it said that it wassomething of a risk for him to get into thecar, but it was probably the wave of the fu-ture, who knew what would turn out. [Laugh-ter]

Then, like a good politician, I read thatwhen he was at Michigan State, at the cam-pus, he learned that there were, in fact, twodifferent car manufacturers competing withone another in Lansing, so he took the otherone back. [Laughter] He took a Reo out andan Olds back.

That was a rare moment. Just think whathappened from that moment to this one.Think about the century that that momentand this one spans—all but 10 years of thiscentury—and why it became the AmericanCentury, what a big part of it Michigan was.Building a great middle class, offering ahaven to people from all over America andto immigrants who would come here fromother lands to work, to make their way.Building an industrial power that could pre-vail in two World Wars and overcome a GreatDepression. Building an ethical power thatcould live up to the meaning of its Constitu-tion in the civil rights revolution and expand-ing opportunities to young people to vote andto women to fully participate in the life ofAmerica. Just think what has happened inthe 20th century.

When Roosevelt was here in 1907, it wasa rare moment. We were moving on to thestage as a world power. Everyone recognizedit. We had by then been a nation for morethan 100 years, and everybody knew therewas something unique about America, a freedemocracy where people could vote and de-cide and make their judgments. And it wasgrowing and being nourished. We were ex-ceedingly prosperous by the standards of thetime.

And Roosevelt knew that you had to makethe most of peace and prosperity and leader-ship, and he did. And so did his successor,Woodrow Wilson. And because of them to-gether and the work they did with like-mind-ed members of both parties, we built an era

that set the framework for America’s leader-ship, growth, and prosperity, and the explo-sion of people into the middle class, whichbecame the hallmark of Michigan’s great-ness.

When I was a kid in Arkansas our per cap-ita income was barely half the national aver-age. We all knew if you could find your wayup here and got a job, you could still makea good living. That all began at the beginningof this century. It is a very rare thing fora country to have peace and prosperity andthe possibility of shaping its own future.Abraham Lincoln said in the Civil War, ‘‘Mypolicy is to have no policy. I’m controlledby events.’’ If I said that, I would be ridi-culed, rightly so. But he was controlled byevents. He did have a policy; it was to keepthe Union together and then to liberate usfrom the scourge of slavery. But he was con-trolled by events.

When the Depression came on and Presi-dent Roosevelt called for an era of bold ex-perimentation, he was controlled by eventsto some extent. He couldn’t say, the majorissue in America is the climate or even edu-cation or anything else. He was controlledby events, and the war did that. And to someextent, the cold war did that for us. WhenSputnik went up and we got into the spacerace and wound up winning it, we were al-most forced into it. Now we have peace andprosperity on the edge of an era of unimagi-nable possibility.

We just finished 4 years where our coun-try, for the first time during one administra-tion, has produced 111⁄2 million jobs. Michi-gan, the unemployment rate has dropped,and the Governor said your welfare rolls aredown 30 percent. You see this kind ofprogress, this energy, this movement, thispossibility in America—dramatic new ad-vances in science and technology occurring.This is a rare time.

What happens to people, usually, whenthey are prosperous and unthreatened? Well,they usually get complacent, and then theynormally find some reason to fall out withone another, usually over something incred-ibly petty, just in the nature of human events.And I come here to say to you today, wehere in America and you here especially inMichigan who have done so much for so


long, we cannot afford to do that. We owesomething better to our children. We havebeen given this unique opportunity, the samesort of opportunity we had when your prede-cessors were listening to Theodore Roosevelthere 90 years ago, except one on an evengrander scale. And we have to make the mostof it. We have to build America in the newcentury. And we also have to know that wehave to do it as one America.

I am gratified that Governor Engler saidwhat he did about the education programtoday. I am gratified that this bipartisan Statelegislature has given me such a warm wel-come, for we have to forge a new partnershipfor a new time.

While the era of big Government is trulyover—the Federal Government now has285,000 fewer people working for it than itdid on the day I took the oath of office—the era of big challenges for our Nation isnot over. And now, we know that nationalleadership can and must point the way, butthe real responsibility is one we all share.

Especially, there are two areas I want todiscuss today—educational excellence, highstandards for all students; and welfare re-form, breaking the cycle of dependency foreveryone capable of independence in Amer-ica—for these issues are at the core of whatit means to prepare America for the 21st cen-tury, giving all Americans not only the oppor-tunity but the tools they need to make themost of their own lives in this new globalknowledge economy.

The Governor referred to this in his re-marks. When I gave the State of the UnionAddress, I said that during the cold war, be-cause our national security was threatenedby communism, politics stopped at the wa-ter’s edge. Today, our national security de-pends upon our ability to develop the capac-ities of all of our people, so politics shouldstop at the schoolhouse door.

Between 1992 and 2000—think of this—89 percent of the new jobs created in thiseconomy will require more than high schoollevels of literacy and math skills. But onlyhalf the people entering the work force areprepared for these high-paying jobs, eventhough about 80 percent of them are highschool graduates. Our schools are still turningout millions of young people who simply are

not equipped for the new world of work.That is why our number one priority mustbe to make our system of public educationthe best in the world, and you must believewe can do this.

A few years ago, almost 8 years ago now,I had the honor of joining the other Gov-ernors then serving with President Bush atthe University of Virginia to write the na-tional education goals. I still think they’repretty good goals. If you ask me what theconsequences would be if they were imple-mented, we could say bluntly that it wouldmean that every 8-year-old would be able toread independently, every 12-year-old couldnow log on to the Internet, every 18-year-old could go to college, and every adultAmerican could keep on learning for a life-time. That is what I want to be the realityin this country.

In the State of the Union Address, I laidout a 10-point plan, a call to action for Amer-ican education that describes the steps I be-lieve we must all take, beginning with theyoungest children, expanding and improvingearly childhood learning. The First Lady andI will be having a conference on early child-hood learning and the brain to try to dealwith these enormously significant new find-ings over the last couple of years, what weknow about not only when children learn buthow they learn and what happens if we don’tdo for them what they should do.

An enormous percentage of the capacityof the brain to absorb information to operateis developed in the first 4 years. I’ll just giveyou one statistic: The average child thatgrows up in a family with two parents caringfor that child, even if they both work, thathave reasonably good educations and dealwith the basic developmental tasks, will givethat child 700,000 positive interactions in thefirst 4 years. The average child being raisedby a single parent with low self-esteem andlow self-confidence and no training inparenting will get 150,000 positive inter-actions and spend roughly 7 times as muchtime before a television doing nothing, in thefirst 4 years. This has enormous con-sequences for the way we become. So we’regoing to talk about that.

We have to open the doors of collegewider than ever. If 90 percent of the jobs


require more than a high school educationand the 1990 census shows that the onlygroup of younger workers whose incomeswent up instead of down after you adjust forinflation were those that had at least 2 yearsof some kind of training after high school,we ought to make the 13th and 14th yearsof education just as universal by the year2000 as a high school education is today.

I know that for years Michigan has beenin the forefront of that, helping people tosave for college. I have a proposal to providetax credits for the cost of a typical communitycollege for 2 years, and tax deductions upto $10,000 a year for the tuition cost in anypost-high school education, and an expandedIRA that can be used for the same purpose.We have to do this.

We also have to give more of our workersthe ability to keep on learning for a lifetime.For 4 years, through a Democratic Congressand a Republican Congress, I have beengiven equal opportunity to fail to pass the‘‘GI bill’’ for American workers. But it seemsto me to be a simple idea. I just want totake the 70-odd programs that were devel-oped with the best of intentions over theyears, for this training program, that trainingprogram, and the other one, put them in abig fund, and when a worker becomes eligi-ble for help through unemployment orunderemployment, send them a skills grantand let them take it to the local communitycollege or the nearest education institution.They can find out for themselves what theyneed to do to improve their education. Wedon’t need all that stuff in the middle ofthem, between them and the money. Sendthem the money, let them get the education.I hope you will help me pass that in the Con-gress. I think it is a good thing.

I want to help for the very first timethrough an innovative program to use Fed-eral funds to lower the interest rates on localbond issues to help schools with enormousbuilding problems to repair their broken in-frastructure or build new facilities when theyare doing their part. This is a very importantthing.

We have the largest number of school-children—as Secretary Riley never lets meforget—we have the largest number ofschoolchildren in history in our schools this

year, the first time we’ve ever had a biggergroup than the baby boom generation. I havebeen to schools where the buildings werefalling down. My wife was in a school thisweek where some of the floors were closed,and the kids were going to school on somefloors and couldn’t go into other floors orother rooms because they didn’t comply withthe building codes. I have been into otherschools with beautiful old school buildingssurrounded by temporary facilities to holdthe children.

So I think it’s an appropriate thing for usto do, not to try to take over this functionand not to try to substitute for people assum-ing responsibility, but when there’s a terribleproblem and people are doing their ownwork, if we can, by a prudent and limitedinvestment, lower the cost of that so thatmore people can afford to do more construc-tion and repair, I think we should.

I’m also strongly committed—the VicePresident and I have been working on thisvery hard—to getting every classroom andevery library in the country hooked up to theInternet by the year 2000. And I want tothank your Congresswoman, DebbieStabenow, for the work that she’s done insupporting that.

Secretary Riley has awarded Michigan agrant of $8.6 million for the technology lit-eracy challenge to help your classrooms moveinto the 21st century, and I ask all of youto support that. There is enormous willing-ness in the private sector to help us get thisdone, and it can revolutionize—just think ofit—if we can hook up every classroom andevery library to the Internet by the year 2000,for the first time in the history of the countryever—ever—children in the poorest district,the richest districts, the middle class districts,all of them will have access to the same learn-ing in the same way in the same time.

And those of you who have children orknow children who are already proficient inusing the Internet, it’s a stunning thing. Theother day, my daughter picked a topic to doa research paper on, and she said, ‘‘Dad, canyou get me a couple of books on this outof the library?’’ I came home with four books,and she had eight citations she had gottenoff the Internet—eight articles and things.


So my labors were one-third of her researchproject.

This is an incredible thing. If we make thisavailable to all children, it will change in abreathtaking way what people can become,what our children can imagine themselvesbecoming. And I ask you to help us do that.

I thank you, Governor, for what you saidabout our support for greater discipline andsafety and character education in the schools.I have proposed funding 1,000 new commu-nity school programs across the country tohelp our schools stay open after school, onthe weekends, in the summertime, to try togive those children who need some positiveplace to go, some support, some help to stayout of trouble, a place to do that.

I have studied very carefully this problemof rising juvenile crime when overall crimehas been going down dramatically in Amer-ica. And the communities that are reversingthat trend, that had juvenile crime goingdown are the places that make sure that allthose kids have something positive to say yesto, even as they’re being told to say no tothe wrong things. So I want the schools tobe able to do that in every community whereit’s needed in the United States.

We have to make sure that we do every-thing we can to help our classroom teachersbe the best they can be. For years, educatorsworked to establish nationally accepted cre-dentials for excellence in teaching throughthe National Board for Professional TeachingStandards, which is headquartered here inDetroit, Michigan.

Now, Michigan has the third highest num-ber of board-certified master teachers in thecountry, and that’s a good thing. But thereare still only a few hundred who have beenboard-certified. My new budget will enable100,000 teachers all across America to seekcertification as master teachers. And our goalshould be to have one certified master teach-er in every single school in America. Thatwill make more master teachers we need forthose schools, and I hope we can do it.

As has already been said today, I do be-lieve that we need a strong system of publiceducation that gives parents and commu-nities more freedom and flexibility. I thinkwe should work together to give parentsmore choices for what public schools their

children attend all across America. I thinkwe should help teachers, parents, museums,and others to create new public charterschools.

I have proposed to double the budget ofthe program so that we can increase by ten-fold the number of charter schools we haveby the year 2000, to create—[applause]—andI think it’s important to emphasize what wewant. We want high standards, schools thatare open to all children regardless of theirbackgrounds. We want an example of ac-countability which will then spread to allother public schools. But we want to say tothem, you can stay open only as long as youdo a good job. That’s what the charter means;that’s what a charter is.

Ultimately, what we want to do is to provethat we have a model here that can be usedeverywhere else. It is simply not true thatif you have a few public schools that all therest of them can’t be good, if some of themare good that they all can’t be good. Thatis not true. It is not true that because it’sa public institution we can’t achieve excel-lence everywhere. If that were true, we’dhave some good Army units and some badArmy units. And we’d be afraid to go to war,and you wouldn’t sleep well at night. Isn’tthat right?

So you do not have to accept the feelingthat you know this wonderful principal, andif only everybody else could be that way. Thatis simply not true. Leadership can be taught,leadership can be trained, and 90 percent ofthe children in this country plus—99 percentof them—can learn what they need to knowto succeed and triumph in the modern world.They can do it, and we have to do it. [Ap-plause]

Now that you’ve clapped, I will say theyare capable of it, but they don’t know it today.Let’s face the fact. The truth is that 40 per-cent of the fourth graders in this country stillcannot read a book on their own. In Germanyor Singapore, students learn 15 to 20 mathsubjects in depth every year. Typically in theUnited States, we run over 30 or 35 everyyear in a superficial way. Then we have thesecomparative tests. They normally win, espe-cially since they stay in school longer thanwe do, day-in and day-out, year-in and year-out.


But without these skills, children will notbe able to develop the capacity to think andto reason and to analyze complex problems.All these skills will be essential to succeedingin the world of the 21st century in jobs thathave not been invented or even imagined yet.

Now, what do we have to have? We havegot to have high standards, high expectations,and high levels of accountability. That is whyI have challenged our Nation to meet thesenational standards in the basics, not FederalGovernment standards but national stand-ards, representing what every child, wher-ever he or she lives, however poor, rich, ormiddle class he or she is, must know to dowell in the world of the 21st century. AndI think we should begin by having every Statetest every fourth grader in reading and everyeighth grader in math by 1999 to make surethese basic standards are met.

We already have widely accepted rigorousstandards in both reading and math andwidely used tests that are based on thesestandards. They’re just not given to everyoneor designed to be given to everyone. Michi-gan and more than 40 other States have par-ticipated in a test called the National Assess-ment of Education Progress. The educationcommittee members in the audience call itthe NAEP test. It measures a State’s overallperformance against a high national standardof excellence.

Just last week we released the annual as-sessment of math performance and it shows,across the country, that our 4th-, 8th-, and12th-graders are doing better. And as theGovernor said, Michigan’s score is among themost improved in the Nation.

Tens of thousands of students across thecountry have also taken the Third Inter-national Math and Science Survey, a test thatreflects world-class standards our childrenmust meet in math and science. The head-quarters for that test is just down the roadat Michigan State. And I want to thank Dr.William Schmidt at Michigan State for hisleadership of this important study. I thinkhe’s here with us today. Where are you, Dr.Schmidt? He’s here somewhere. Thank youvery much, sir.

If you saw the State of the Union Address,you know there are a group of children innorthern Illinois that took this test in 20

school districts north of Chicago, and theyfinished tied for first in science and tied forsecond in math, I think. Very impressive.

Unfortunately, these tests also don’t pro-vide scores for individuals, they simply meas-ure how an entire area or group of peopleare doing. What we need are exams that willliterally measure the performance of eachand every student in each and every school.That way, parents and teachers will knowhow every child is doing compared to otherstudents in other schools, other States, andother countries. And most important of all,they will know how the child is doing com-pared to what you need to know to go for-ward.

And I want to make it clear what the dif-ference is. It doesn’t matter if your childmakes the highest grade in the class if no-body gets over the standards bar. Conversely,in this sense it doesn’t matter if your childmakes the lowest grade in the class if every-body gets over the standards bar. That’s thedifference. We have a lot of these standard-ized tests. We need tests that test to thestandards, that say whether you have crossedthe threshold of what you must know to dowell in the world of tomorrow.

That’s why I’m presenting a plan to helpthe States meet and measure these standards.Over the next 2 years, the Department ofEducation will support the development ofnew tests for the fourth grade reading andthe eighth grade math, to show how everystudent measures up to high and widely ac-cepted standards. They’ll be developed byindependent experts in consultation withleading math and reading teachers. The Fed-eral Government will not require them, butthese tests will be made available to everyState that chooses to administer them. Thatis the significance of the announcement thatthe Governor made. I want to create a cli-mate in which no one can say no, in whichit’s voluntary but you are ashamed if youdon’t give your kids the chance to do this.

Together, we are saying this. This is nota partisan issue. There is no Democratic orRepublican way to teach. There is no Mary-land or Michigan way to learn. Reading isreading; math is math. No school board orState legislature can rewrite the rules of alge-bra in Alaska to make them different than


they are in Arkansas. It cannot be done.Every State must put politics aside, work ina bipartisan fashion, test our children in thesame rigorous way. Politics should stop at theschoolhouse door.

This will not be easy. Some of our childrenwon’t do very well at first. We don’t needto make them feel like failures; we need tomake them understand we’re doing this sowe can know how to measure their success.If they don’t do very well at first, it’s probablymore our fault than theirs. And a lot of it,I will say again, is because when we see peo-ple in difficult circumstances, sometimes outof the goodness of our heart, we exercise ourcompassion by expecting less of them. Andwe are selling their future right down thedrain every time we do it.

I can tell you, over the last several years—you know, I was a Governor a long time—I served with Governor Engler; I served withGovernor Blanchard; I served with GovernorMilliken. I have been all over this countryto schools. I have seen schools in areas withhigh murder rates, where it was unsafe toget in the school, where there were no guns,no knives, no dope, no dropout, and testscores were above the State average. I couldgo through example after example after ex-ample. And every time I see one, I get morehopeful and more angry, because if you canhave one good school where the kids arelearning against all the odds and all the obsta-cles, then you know when you leave thatschool there is no excuse for that not happen-ing everywhere. This will help that happeneverywhere. This will help that happen ev-erywhere.

Let me make a comment now about oneother part of this education program that Ithink is very important, and that’s our Amer-ica Reads program. We announced it herein Michigan last August in Wyandotte, whenI was there on my train trip. And I did itwith the help of two elementary school stu-dents, Justin Whitney and ElizabethSchweyen. We announced the AmericaReads challenge. We set a goal mobilizinga million volunteer tutors to help every 8-year-old learn to read independently. We’regoing to use 11,000 of our AmeriCorps vol-unteers to mobilize and train the army, we’regoing to get at least 100,000 college students

to help, and I might say in the last budgetwe added 200,000 more work-study slots, andthere’s another 100,000 in this budget, sowe’ll go to a million kids on work-study, andI want 100,000 of that extra 300,000 to helpteach our children to read. And I’m pleasedthat 16 Michigan college presidents have al-ready pledged to provide their fair share ofthose students.

I don’t know if you remember what wedid that hot August day, but Elizabeth andJustin read ‘‘The Little Engine That Could’’to me, and I said I want every child to beable to do this and say, ‘‘Here’s this book,and I can read this all by myself.’’

Today Elizabeth and Justin are here withus, and I would like to ask them to standup. Where are they? They’re out there.There they are. Thank you. I will do whatI can to help your young people be readyto be tested. I am asking the Departmentof Education and the National Science Foun-dation to identify and coordinate resourcesthroughout the Federal Government andthrough the nonprofit sector that can be usedto help students to meet the math standards.I want to help young people learn morescience as well and to make the Governmenta resource.

The Federal Government has some of theworld’s most esteemed laboratories and re-search institutions. We ought to make sureevery high school math and science teacherhas easy access to the work of these labora-tories and the experts there through theInternet, and we’re going to do our best toset up that kind of system and make it avail-able to all of your teachers so they can inturn make it available to your students. Wecan do this. We can do this.

We can also meet the challenge of welfarereform, and I can’t leave here without talkingto you about it for a couple of minutes, be-cause I want to make it clear where we arenow, and this is something else we’ve got todo together. In the last 4 years, the welfarerolls went down by 21⁄2 million people, thelargest drop in the history of the country.Now, how did that happen? And Michiganhad a reduction of 30 percent, above the na-tional average. How did that happen?

We know that about half the drop was theresult of the economy producing 111⁄2 million


jobs. We know about 30 percent to a thirdof it was the result of the fact that 43 of ourStates had vigorous welfare reform experi-ments, and the ones that were statewide, likeyours, had better results. We know that therewere some result from the fact that we in-creased child support collections, working to-gether to get really tough within the Statesand across State lines. Child support collec-tions went up by 50 percent in the last 4years, and we know that helped some peopleto get off welfare.

Now we have a new law, and the new lawsays there should be time limits for how longa person could be on welfare; there shouldbe time limits for how long a person couldbe on welfare consecutively—2 years beforegetting a job. There are tough work require-ments. We leave the medical aid and foodaid to poor children and their families inplace. We increased the aid going in childcare at the Federal level, and then we givethe States the flexibility to decide how to de-sign the program to move people from wel-fare to work and support them at an appro-priate level in the meantime.

Now, that’s what it does. I signed the bill,and I thought it was the right thing to do.But I also want you to know that we haveto do now something else; we have to makeit work. That law was not the end of welfarereform; it was the beginning. It gave thisproblem to you. You remember what that oldcountry musician Chet Atkins said: ‘‘You gotto be careful what you ask for in this oldlife, you might get it.’’ And so now you haveit.

Now, we have been telling poor peoplethey have to be more responsible. ‘‘If youcan work, you have to work. You’ve got tosucceed at home as parents and in the workforce.’’ Now we have a responsibility. You’retelling people they’ve got to go to work; we’vegot to make sure there’s a job there for themif they go to work.

Let me say precisely what this means, be-cause I want to be precise. I think it’s veryimportant that since the States have respon-sibility here, every State needs to know ex-actly how many jobs have we got to createin Michigan only for people to move fromwelfare to work, how many jobs in Arkansas,how many jobs in Arizona, how many jobs.

And how many jobs would that mean we’dhave to do by county, and how are we goingto do this.

Basically, if you look at the law’s require-ments and the fact that it’s phased in, therequirement for States to put a certain num-ber of people at work, you will have to—as a nation, we will have to create about an-other million, a little bit less, maybe 900,000jobs for welfare recipients only, and moveapproximately another 21⁄2 million people offwelfare in the next 4 years to meet the re-quirements of the law.

Now, in the last 4 years, we did it with43 of the 50 States having welfare reformexperiments but only some of them werestatewide. But we also had 111⁄2 million jobs.We never had that many before. Maybe we’lldo it again. I’d like that a lot, and I’ll workon it hard. But no one can predict with anycertainty what will happen.

So you must imagine, how will we makeit more attractive—and we don’t have themoney to have big public service employ-ment. I do have some money in my budgetto give to the urban areas especially and toisolated rural areas with high impact unem-ployment to help them do work that needsto be done anyway in their cities. But thatwon’t get the job done. Most of this will haveto be done by private employers.

Our plan will give tax credits of up to 50percent of the salary up to $10,000 a yearfor people that hire people right off the wel-fare roll and do not replace someone else,they hire them for a real new job. It willgive other incentives for businesses to hirepeople off welfare, and incentives for jobplacement firms and for States to createmore jobs for welfare recipients. You’ll getmore money if you create more jobs forthem. And if your past is any indication, you’llbe one of those that will be claiming the in-centives, and that’s a good thing. And it doesprovide more money for training and forchild care and in our budget for the newtransportation bill, more money for transpor-tation, because that’s a big issue in a lot ofplaces for moving people from welfare towork.

But you are going to have to get help. Andthe private employer community and thecommunity nonprofits community and the


religious community, they’re all going to haveto help. You also have the option to do some-thing else: You can, totally at your own dis-cretion, let people take some or all of thewelfare check and you can give it to the em-ployer as an employment and training sub-sidy. And some States are going to have todo that because their training dollars are in-adequate so they’re going to have to dependon on-the-job training. Missouri is doing thisnow in the Kansas City area; Florida hasadopted a version of it; a number of otherStates have. I urge you to look at that. I thinkit’s a legitimate thing to give a private em-ployer, for a limited period of time, a subsidyfor training and for hiring people who areotherwise very hard to hire.

That’s another point I want to make. Keepin mind, about half the welfare caseload getsoff on their own. It’s the other half that wehave to liberate from permanent depend-ency, and it’s harder for them to get into thework force and harder for them to stay andharder for them to learn the basic things. Andso we’re going to have to go out to our em-ployers and say, ‘‘Hey, we want to help you.’’Or in the case of the churches and the non-profits, the tax credit is not worth anythingto them because they don’t pay taxes anyway.But the wage subsidy would be worth some-thing to them to get them to enlist.

So, you know, I have really collected—howmany employers are there in America withmore than 100 employees? How many non-profits are there? How many religious institu-tions are there with more than 100 membersin the congregation or more than 200 mem-bers? Every State needs this information.Every community needs this information,and those folks need to be hit up to do theirpart, especially if you ever heard anybody inyour local neighborhood cussing the welfaresystem who works people. Go back and say,‘‘Okay, we got rid of it. Now what are yougoing to do? What are you going to do? Weneed your help.’’

The last thing I wanted to say is—and thismay be a moderate problem in Michigan, willbe a huge problem in some States—I signedthe welfare reform bill, but I said when Isigned it I thought we made a mistake toeliminate all aid to legal immigrants. Now,when an immigrant comes to America, they

say—they have to promise that they won’ttry to get on welfare, and they won’t takeany public money. That is true. But it’s alsotrue it takes 5 years to become a citizen;meanwhile you work and you pay taxes. Andin a country like ours that lets in a significantnumber of immigrants—in your largest coun-ty now, you have people from over 140 dif-ferent racial and ethnic groups—bad thingsare going to happen to good people just whenthey show up every day. There will be carwrecks; there will be serious illnesses; therewill be crime victims; and I personally thinkit’s wrong to either dump that problem onthe door of the State legislature or, in thealternative, just tell them to do without. Andthis is a great nation of immigrants. I thinkthis is unworthy of us, and I’m going to tryto change it, and I hope that you will supportthat. It would be good for you if you do.

Thank you for making me feel so welcometoday. Let me say again, you ought to go backand get the local paper and read the articleabout Teddy Roosevelt. You ought to thinkabout what happened in the intervening 90years. You ought to realize that we have aneven greater opportunity now, and with it agreater responsibility to forge a new partner-ship to deal with the new possibilities of thisbright new era. And if we seize this respon-sibility of ours, there is no telling what canhappen—good and wonderful and positivefor America.

So it is our duty, but it is our good fortune.You ought to go home tonight and thank Godthat you got a chance to serve the public atthis moment in time. It is a rare time. Andyou ought to wake up tomorrow determinedto do it with greater energy and enthusiasmand dedication than ever before.

Thank you, and God bless you.

NOTE: The President spoke at 11:36 a.m. in theHouse of Representatives Chamber at the StateCapitol. In his remarks, he referred to Gov. JohnEngler, Lt. Gov. Connie Binsfeld, Attorney Gen-eral Frank J. Kelley, and former Gov. WilliamMilliken of Michigan; Curtis Hertel, Speaker ofthe House; Mayor Dick Hollister of Lansing;House Majority Leader Ken Sikkema; Senate Mi-nority Leader John Cherry; Senate Majority Lead-er Dick Posthumus; Rev. Wendell Anthony, Fel-lowship Chapel, Detroit, MI, who gave the invoca-tion; William Schmidt, professor, Michigan State


University; and James J. Blanchard, Ambassadorto Canada and former Governor of Michigan.

Statement by the President on theDeath of President Cheddi Jagan ofGuyanaMarch 6, 1997

It was with deep regret that I learned ofthe death early today of President CheddiJagan of the Co-operative Republic of Guy-ana. President Jagan was a respected states-man in our hemisphere of democracies. Hewas one of the founders of the People’s Pro-gressive Party and for over 45 years playedan active role in his country’s political life.I remember warmly our meeting at theMiami Summit of the Americas in December1994. President Jagan was a champion of thepoor who devoted himself to alleviating pov-erty in his country and throughout the Carib-bean.

On behalf of the American people, I ex-tend my deepest sympathies to the Jaganfamily and the people of Guyana.

Memorandum on EducationalExcellence in Math and ScienceMarch 6, 1997

Memorandum for the Secretary of Education,the Director of the National ScienceFoundation

Subject: Preparing Students to MeetNational Standards of Excellence in EighthGrade Math and Improving Math andScience Education

Since the early 1980s, U.S. elementary andsecondary school students have begun takingtougher courses, and we are starting to seethe results. National Assessment of Edu-cational Progress scores have improved inmath and science, with gains in mathematicsequal to at least one grade level. On theScholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), averagemath scores are at their highest in 25 years,even as the number and diversity of test-tak-ers have increased. However, the eighth-grade results of the 41-Nation Third Inter-national Math and Science Study (TIMSS),released last fall, show that the United States

is below average in math and just above aver-age in science. That isn’t acceptable; in thistechnology-rich information era, our studentsneed to perform much better in both sub-jects, but especially in math, if they are toexcel at higher-level math and sciencecourses that are critical to college admissionand success and to citizenship, productiveemployment, and lifelong learning.

The first step in raising achievement is lift-ing expectations and setting high standardsfor what students should know and be ableto do. Our National Assessment of Edu-cational Progress, TIMSS, and the standardsdeveloped by the National Council of Teach-ers of Mathematics give us a solid frameworkto build on. Last month, to help parents andteachers learn who needs help, what changesin teaching to make, and which schools needto improve, I asked the Secretary of Edu-cation to develop a voluntary national test forindividual eighth-grade students based onwidely accepted, challenging national stand-ards in mathematics. The national test willbe available to States and local school dis-tricts to give to their students in the springof 1999, and will measure whether studentshave reached a high level of mathematicsproficiency.

The primary responsibility for achievinghigh standards rests with students, teachers,parents, and schools in local communitiesacross America. However, it is imperativethat we work to ensure that Federal re-sources support student success as well. Wemust ensure that Federal programs, re-search, and human resources are used as ef-fectively as possible to help improve teachingand learning.

Therefore, I direct the Secretary of Edu-cation and the Director of the NationalScience Foundation to form an interagencyworking group and to develop an action strat-egy for using Federal resources to assistStates and local school systems to preparestudents to meet challenging math standardsin eighth grade, and for involving the mathe-matics, scientific, and technical communitiesin support of these efforts.

The action strategy should include rec-ommendations for the use of Federal re-sources to help States, local school districts,and schools to improve teaching, upgrade


curriculum, and integrate technology andhigh-quality instructional materials into theclassroom, as well as motivate students andhelp them understand how math conceptsare applied in the real world. The strategyshould identify significant Federal programs,activities, and partnerships available to im-prove teaching and learning, ensure thatthese resources are appropriately focused onhelping students reach challenging mathstandards, and determine how these re-sources can best support State and local re-forms. In developing this strategy, the inter-agency group should review the current sta-tus of improvements in math education andidentify and address critical areas of need,drawing on research and input from edu-cators and professional organizations.

Because teaching and learning in math andscience are so integrally related, and becausesuccess in both subjects is vitally importantin this information era, the working groupshould also review how Federal resourcesand partnerships with other organizationscan help improve student achievement inscience.

The working group should make its rec-ommendations and submit its action strategyto me within 90 days.

William J. Clinton

Letter to Congressional LeadersTransmitting a Report onInternational Agreements

March 6, 1997

Dear Mr. Speaker: (Dear Mr. President:)Pursuant to subsection (b) of the Case-Za-

blocki Act (1 U.S.C. 112b(b)), I hereby trans-mit a report prepared by the Department ofState concerning international agreements.

Sincerely,

William J. Clinton

NOTE: Identical letters were sent to Newt Ging-rich, Speaker of the House of Representatives,and Jesse Helms, chairman, Senate Committee onForeign Relations.

Message to the CongressTransmitting a Report on the TradeAgreements ProgramMarch 6, 1997

To the Congress of the United States:As required by section 163 of the Trade

Act of 1974, as amended (19 U.S.C. 2213),I transmit herewith the 1997 Trade PolicyAgenda and 1996 Annual Report on theTrade Agreements Program.

William J. Clinton


The President’s News ConferenceMarch 7, 1997

The President. Good afternoon, ladiesand gentlemen. Today we learned some verygood news about the American economy.Our Nation has created almost 600,000 newjobs in the first 2 months of 1997, almost12 million since January of 1992. At the sametime, the deficit has been reduced by 63 per-cent; investment in our people has increased;inflation remains low. Our economy is on theright track. But to stay on that right track,we have to balance the budget while we goforward with the work that leads to continuedgrowth and low inflation. That’s what our bal-anced budget will do, eliminating the deficitin 5 years and strengthening critical invest-ments for the future of all of our people.

Last week the Congressional Budget Of-fice certified that even under its assumptions,because of the protections we built into thebudget, it would be balanced by 2002. SoI am hopeful, and I want to say again thatthe talks we have been continually havingwith congressional leaders in both parties willproduce a balanced budget agreement thisyear and in the not too distant future.

I also want to talk a moment about ourcommitments to our Gulf war veterans. AndI thank Secretary Brown and the other veter-ans leaders who are here, including ElaineLarson from the Presidential Advisory Com-mittee on Gulf War Illnesses, the leadershipof the Veterans of Foreign Wars and otherveterans organizations, and the Persian Gulfveterans who join with us here today.


Two months ago, when I accepted the finalreport of the Presidential Advisory Commit-tee on Gulf War Illnesses, I pledged to theCommittee and to all America’s veterans thatwe would match their efforts with action.Today I am announcing three importantsteps to meet that pledge and our debt toour veterans.

First, I have approved Secretary Brown’srecommendation for the new regulations toextend the eligibility period for compensa-tion for Persian Gulf veterans withundiagnosed illnesses. We aim to raise sig-nificantly the window for Gulf veterans toclaim the compensation they have earned.Under current regulations, veterans withundiagnosed illnesses must prove their dis-abilities emerged within 2 years of their re-turn from the Gulf in order to be eligiblefor benefits. Experience has shown that manydisabled veterans have had their claims de-nied because they fall outside that 2 yeartimeframe. The proposed new regulationswould extend the timeframe through the year2001. That is 10 years after the cessation ofhostilities in the Gulf war. Gulf war veteranswho became ill as a result of their serviceshould receive the compensation they de-serve even if science cannot yet pinpoint thecause of their illnesses.

Second, I have accepted from the Sec-retaries of Defense, Health and HumanServices, and Veterans Affairs a comprehen-sive action plan to implement the rec-ommendations of the Presidential AdvisoryCommittee’s final report. I asked for this planwithin 60 days, and they delivered. The planaddresses outreach, medical and clinical is-sues, research, coordination, investigations,and chemical and biological weapons. It willhelp us to do an even better job of caringfor Gulf war veterans and finding out whythey’re sick.

Third and finally, as the Committee rec-ommended, I have initiated a Presidential re-view directive process to make sure that inany future troop deployments we act on les-sons learned in the Gulf to better protectthe health of our service men and womenand their families. We need to focus on bet-ter communication, better data, and betterservice.

The Committee’s work and a massive, in-tensive, ongoing review of millions of pagesof documents by the Department of Defenseand the CIA continues to bring new informa-tion to light, including recently released doc-uments about possible exposure of our troopsto chemical agents. The scope of the effortsis substantial, and if there is additional infor-mation, it will be found and released. Wewill be asking two very important questionsabout any such new information. First,should it change the research or health careprograms we have in place to care for ourveterans? And second, how will it help usto make the policy changes we need to betterprotect our forces in future deployments?

What is most important is that we remainrelentless in our search for the facts and thatas we do get new information, we share itwith our veterans, with Congress, and withthe American people and that we act on anyinformation we uncover. That is what wehave done and what we must continue to do.I will not stop until we’ve done everythingwe can to provide the care and to find theanswers for Gulf war veterans that they needand deserve.

And again let me say, I thank all of youfor your work and for being with us heretoday.

Now I’ll be glad to take your questions,and I think, Terry [Terence Hunt, AssociatedPress], you’re the first.

The Vice President and Maggie WilliamsQ. Yes, sir, Mr. President. We learned this

week that the Vice President solicited cam-paign contributions in the White House andthat the First Lady’s Chief of Staff accepteda $50,000 campaign contribution in theWhite House. This comes on the heels ofnews about White House sleepovers andWhite House coffees for big-money donors.You, sir, promised to have the most ethicaladministration in history. How does all of thissquare with that?

The President. Well, first of all, let’s takethem one by one. I don’t believe that theyundermine the case. But let me begin by say-ing, there were problems in the fundraisingin 1996 which have been well-identified. Andthe Democratic Party commissioned its ownaudit, did a review, made the results public,


and took appropriate action. I think that isvery important, and I’m proud of that.

The second thing I want to say is, I thoughtthe Vice President did a good job of explain-ing what he did and why, and explaining ex-actly what he intended to do in the future.

With regard to Maggie Williams, I’d liketo make a comment about that. She is anhonorable person. She was put in a ratherunusual circumstance, and as a courtesy, sheagreed to do what the relevant regulationplainly provides for, which is to forward thecheck on to the Democratic National Com-mittee.

Now, in retrospect, with all of the publicitythat’s attended the whole contribution issue,would it have been better if Maggie Williamshad said, ‘‘Look, I can do this under the regu-lations, but I decided I shouldn’t do it. AndI want you to go mail it in yourself or takeit over there yourself’’—that would havebeen a better thing to do. And in the future,I expect that the White House will followthat course should such an occasion everarise again.

But finally, I want to make the point I havebeen trying to make to the American people.We had to work hard within the law to raisea lot of money, to be competitive. We didwork hard, and I’m glad we did, because thestakes were high and the divisions betweenus in Washington at that time were verygreat. We still fell over $200 million shortof the money raised by the committees ofthe Republican Party.

The real problem and the reason you havesome of the questions you have, I think—unless you just believe that all transactionsbetween contributors and politicians are in-herently suspect, which I don’t believe andI think is wrong for either party—the realproblem is these campaigns cost too muchmoney, they take too much time, and theywill continue to do so until we pass campaignfinance reform. If we pass campaign financereform, as I’ve asked, by July 4th, then thesituation will get better. If we don’t, we willstill be raising too much money, and it willtake too much time and effort on the partof everyone involved. So I’m hopeful that wecan.

But I believe that both the Vice Presidentand Maggie Williams are highly ethical peo-

ple, and I do not believe that either onewould knowingly do anything wrong.

This business of raising money takes a lotof time, and if you have to do too much ofit, it will take too much time and raise toomany questions. But I do not agree with theinherent premise that some have advancedthat there is somehow something intrinsicallywrong with a person that wants to give moneyto a person running for office and that if youaccept it, that something bad has happened.I don’t agree with that. I don’t think thereis something intrinsically bad. But the systemis out of whack, and I think we all know itand we all know it’s not going to get betteruntil and unless we pass a reasonable cam-paign finance reform law.

Helen [Helen Thomas, United PressInternational].

Q. Mr. President, Governor Romer saidthat Maggie Williams was wrong to acceptthe check, and you obviously seem to agreein retrospect. But——

The President. No, no, I’m not going tosay Maggie Williams did anything wrong.And I don’t want to be—you all will haveto deal with this as best you can, but I wantto be clear. She is an honorable person.There is a regulation that deals with thiswhich explicitly says that when something—if you receive a contribution and all you dois just pass it on and you’ve been involvedin no way in any solicitation on public prop-erty and you’re just passing it through, thatthat is what the regulation provides for. Itis explicit and clear.

What I said was, I think that she wouldsay in retrospect and I would say, given theextreme sensitivity now everyone has to allthese contribution issues, that she shouldhave said to the gentleman in question,‘‘Look, I can do this legally, but I don’t wantto do it because I think we should removeall question, all doubt. I think you ought togo mail it yourself. Go take it down thereyourself.’’ And that’s what I think the WhiteHouse should do in the future if someonephysically is present in the White House andattempts to do that.

Q. Mr. President, in your zeal for fundsduring the last campaign, didn’t you put theVice President and Maggie and all the others


in your administration topside in a very vul-nerable position?

The President. I disagree with that. Howare we vulnerable, because—only vulnerableif you think it is inherently bad to raise fundsand you believe that these transactions arebetween people who are almost craven. Imean, that’s how—I don’t agree with that.Maggie Williams, in this case, was completelypassive. She didn’t ask someone to come inand give her a check. And she had no reasonto believe there was anything wrong with it,with the check involved. She just simply didwhat the regulation explicitly provides for,which is to pass it on.

Now, in the case of the Vice President,he can speak for himself, but I have to tellyou, we knew what we were facing. We knewno matter what happened we would be badlyoutspent. We believed in what we stood for.And we were, frankly—from time to time,we were surprised we had as many folks whowere willing to stick with us as there were.But we are proud of the fact that, within thelimits of the law, we worked hard to raisemoney so that we could get our message outthere and we would not be buried, literallyburied, by the amount of money that theother side had at their disposal.

There were the problems that we identi-fied, which we’ve been very forthright about.We got an external auditor to come into theDemocratic Party. They have taken the stepsto correct them. But it was—we had neverfaced anything like that before in Americanpolitics. And we did the very best we couldwith it. And I don’t think we were com-promised by fighting for what we believedin within the limits of the law.

I do believe that this system is not goodnow. It is so expensive. It requires too muchtime, too much energy. And the more effortyou put into it, the more opportunity youhave for some sort of—something goingwrong. So what I think has to be done iswe have to reform the law. But until we getsome energy behind an effort to reform thelaw, you know, if it’s just me and SenatorMcCain and Senator Feingold and a few oth-ers who support us for it, we can’t pass it,and you will be left with the same systemnext time and the time after that and thetime after that. And because of the expo-

nential rise in the cost of buying air time andother means of communication, we’ll haveall these questions all over again, time andtime and time again.

Go ahead—Rita [Rita Braver, CBS News]first, and then Wolf [Wolf Blitzer, CableNews Network]. I’ll just do it that way.

White House AccessQ. I’m going to ask your forbearance, be-

cause this question is a little bit long. Butthis is about Johnny Chung, the person whogave the check to Maggie Williams. In Aprilof ’95, about a month after he gave thatcheck, he came in here to the White House;he brought in five Chinese officials. Someoneon your staff sent a memo to the NationalSecurity Council saying that you were notcertain you’d want photos of you with thesepeople floating around. I wanted to ask youwhy you were worried about that, and alsowhy, after a highly knowledgeable NSC offi-cial wrote back that he was a hustler whowill continue to make efforts to bring in hisfriends into contact with the President andFirst Lady and whose clients might not al-ways be in favor of business ventures thePresident would support—why did he keepgetting back in here? What was your relation-ship to him? And he now says that it wasat least implicit, if not explicit, that he wouldget this access for the money he gave.

The President. Well, first of all, you askedme two questions really.

Q. Four. [Laughter]The President. Why did I—well, I’ll an-

swer the two I can remember, then if I don’tsuit you, you can ask again. [Laughter]

I just had—as I have said before on thisquestion of White House access, we did nothave an adequate system here. I assumed,wrongly as it turned out, that there were kindof established procedures which were sort ofhanded on from administration to adminis-tration that had nothing to do with whoeverhappened to be here about the control anddeveloped access. And I was wrong aboutthat. So that’s what I assumed generally wasin place until we became aware that theyweren’t.

But on this particular day, I just had aninstinct that maybe whatever the rules were,that we didn’t maybe know enough about


these folks to know whether there should bea picture there. I didn’t assume anything neg-ative about them; I just thought that we justdidn’t know.

Now, with regard to the memo about Mr.Chung, I can’t answer that question becauseI never saw it, and no one ever told me ithad been written, and I don’t know who didsee it. So I really can’t answer that wholecluster of questions because the first I everknew such a memo had been written waswhen it was discussed in the public domain.I did not know that. I had no reason to be-lieve that there was any problem there.

Q. And what was your relationship withMr. Chung? How did you come to knowhim? How did he get into your office andwrite you letters that you replied to? Thereis lots of record of that.

The President. Well, I like to think we’repretty good about replying to our letters, andI don’t think there is anything wrong withthat. I don’t remember how I met him, butI think I met him at some Democratic Partyevent. I’m sure that’s where I met him. Ididn’t have a relationship with him prior tomy becoming President, to the best of myknowledge.

Wolf.

Decision on an Independent CounselQ. Mr. President, early in your administra-

tion, when you were faced with a similarround of pressure for a special prosecutorto investigate Whitewater, you made it easyon Janet Reno by preempting her and saying,‘‘Yes, it’s time for a special prosecutor’’—Robert Fiske, in that particular case—‘‘to goforward.’’ And ever since—you know, the his-tory of Whitewater. Why not make it easyfor Janet Reno this time and similarly pre-empt her and say, ‘‘Yes, there’s enough ofa threshold, enough of the law has been metto go forward and get to the bottom of this’’?

The President. For one thing, there wasno law at the time. And I might point outthat if there had been a law, either the pre-vious law or this law, there would have beenno special prosecutor because the thresholdof the law was not met. And you know, theAmerican people will have to make a judg-ment about whether all of this has beenworth it when the facts come out. But the

threshold of the law was not met, and I doubtvery seriously if one ever would have beencalled if any law had been in place.

Now there is a law in place. It is a legalquestion. I do not think it should becomea political question. And I have been veryrigorous in dealing with this and saying it injust that way, and I’m going to stick with myposition.

Peter [Peter Maer, NBC Mutual Radio].

Appearance of ImproprietyQ. Mr. President, you again today, Vice

President Gore the other day, and your staffshave repeatedly told us that no laws werebroken in the Lincoln Bedroom issue, in thephone calls for donations, in Maggie Williamsaccepting and then passing along the dona-tion to the DNC. But cumulatively, Mr.President, what are your thoughts on the pro-priety and the appearance of all of these var-ious actions?

The President. Well, let’s take them oneat a time. The Vice President has said thathe believes he should—if he makes furtherfundraising calls as opposed to attendingfundraising events, he should not make themfrom his office even if it is paid for with apolitical credit card.

I have said that I believe Maggie Williamsthinks, in view of the environment in whichwe now are, that even though there is anexplicit regulation on this—right on point onthis—that what she probably wishes she hadsaid and what I expect future employees tosay is, ‘‘Look, I can take this; it is legal. Butwe’re not going to do it this way. You haveto mail it in, or you have to take it in your-self.’’

On the third thing, I just have a differentview of this than you do. We have—I havedone something no President has ever done.I have—I mean, I gave you a list of the peo-ple that spent the night in the White House.And it shows that a relatively small percent-age of them, about one in nine, were peoplethat I met in the course of running for Presi-dent, who supported me for President, whoeither gave me contributions or also helpedto raise money for me.

The people that did that, I’m grateful tothem for doing that. I appreciate the fact thatthey helped me in the campaign in ’92. And


the document which was released, whichmost of you reported on, which showed thenote I had sent back to Nancy Hernreichmakes it clear that I wanted to get back intouch with those people. I appreciated whatthey had done. I didn’t want them to feelestranged from me. And I don’t think thereis anything wrong with a President—me oranyone else—reaching out to his supporters.

And some of them, including—let me justgive you—I mean, I can give you lots of ex-amples, but there have been a lot of differentkinds of people who spent the night here.But one of the newspapers made an issueof B. Rapoport from Texas. Well, he was myfriend 25 years ago. When I was a defeatedcandidate for Congress with a campaign debtthat was almost twice my annual salary, hewas my friend. When I was the youngestformer Governor in the history of the Repub-lic and nobody felt I had any political future,he was my personal friend. I don’t think thereis anything wrong with having people likethat spend the night with you.

So you can make your own judgmentsabout this. But I have tried to be very forth-right with you about this. I’ve given you allof this information, and you can make yourown judgments. But I just simply disagreethat it is wrong for a President to ask hisfriends and supporters to spend time withhim.

And let me remind you of one problem.A lot of you who have to travel around withme are acutely aware of this. This job, evenwhen you’re traveling, can be a very isolatingjob. Usually when you travel someplace, yougo someplace; you stay a little while; you turnaround and leave. If you go to these fund-raiser—on the coffees, for example, I’m theone that’s most responsible—or for the din-ners out, the fundraising dinners—I get frus-trated going to meetings and going where allyou do is shake hands with somebody or youtake a picture, no words ever change. Younever know what somebody’s got on theirmind, or they never get a chance to talk toyou. You never have any real human contact.I look for ways to have genuine conversationswith people. I learn things when I listen topeople.

But I can tell you this: I don’t believe youcan find any evidence of the fact that I have

changed Government policy solely becauseof a contribution. It’s just that I don’t thinkI should refuse to listen to people who sup-ported me or refuse to be around them ortell people, ‘‘Well, you contributed to thecampaign. Therefore, even though I’d loveto have you come see me at the WhiteHouse, I can’t do it anymore.’’ And you willjust have to sort through that and evaluatewhether you agree with that or not. But that’show I feel.

Q. Are those who question the proprietyoff base? Is that what you’re saying?

The President. Well, no, I’m saying thatI do not believe that inviting people to spendthe night with me at the White House, theoverwhelming majority of whom were per-sonal friends of mine of long standing, familymembers, friends of family members, friendsof my daughter’s, dignitaries, public officials,former public officials—some of whose con-nection with me really did begin in 1991when I started running for President and thatinvolved their willingness to give me moneyor to raise money for me—I don’t think thatthat is a bad thing.

What I think is a bad thing is to say—and again, this may not be illegal either, andyou know the documents also show that Istopped this—I don’t think a political partyshould say, ‘‘If you give this amount ofmoney, we’ll guarantee you this specific ac-cess. If you give that amount of money, we’llguarantee you that specific access.’’ I don’tthink that a political party should say or aPresident should say, ‘‘If you want access tous, you have to contribute. And if you wantaccess to us, you not only have to contributeto us, you can’t contribute to them.’’ I neverdid any of that.

As I have said before, one of the most im-portant meetings I had about China policywas one organized by Republicans; as far asI know, none of them had ever done anythingin my behalf before. But it was important.

I just don’t think you should eliminate con-tacts with your supporters. And I don’t thinkthat anyone else—if you really think aboutit, I don’t think you will think that, either.

John [John Donvan, ABC News].Q. Mr. President, in listening to many of

your supporters and aides respond to thesequestions over the last several weeks, one


note that I think I hear is one of frustration,a sense that these questions are unfair andthe focus on the Democrats is unfair. ButI also find something unsatisfactory in thatresponse, and my question to you as some-body who has enormous power to lead byexample, is it good enough to say that every-body else does it?

The President. No. No, and I’m not tryingto say that. I’m going to try to get throughthis whole press conference and never talkabout the practices of the Republicans.[Laughter] I’m going to do my best to getall the way—I don’t think that’s a good exam-ple.

And I also don’t think it’s good enoughto say it is legal. I think we should be heldto a higher standard than just, ‘‘It is legal.’’But what I do want you to know is, whenit is obvious that we have a disagreement—when I read reports or see them on televisionand I think, you see this in a certain way,and I just honestly see it in a different way—I think it’s helpful to the American peopleand to you and to me for me to tell you howI see it, that’s all.

But I think there are things that when wesee them in the light of day, even if we’vebeen given guidance about what the limitsof what the law are, it seems that it’s nota prudent thing to do. I was—I thought theVice President gave a very up-front andforthright statement about that the other day.So I don’t believe it’s enough to say every-body does it.

On the other hand, I don’t believe eitherthat we can afford to run the risk of havingone party just kind of disappear from thescene because they don’t do what—they’reunwilling to do what is necessary to be com-petitive in raising funds in the system thatexists, which is why I say to you, in the end,we should set a high standard. But if I hon-estly disagree with you about what’s right andwrong, I should be free to say that. But inthe end, the answer to this is to pass a reason-able campaign finance reform bill this year.That’s what I really believe.

Yes, go ahead.

Telephone Solicitations From the WhiteHouse

Q. Mr. President, you have—you and yourofficials have given us a number of expla-nations over the past several months aboutwhat you thought was legal. You said you gotclear legal advice and gave us the impressionthat the dividing line on solicitations for con-tributions—that the dividing line betweenright and wrong was whether or not that so-licitation took place at the White House. Butwhen we learned that the Vice President didjust that, then we were told that that wasn’tthe standard after all. Which is right?

The President. Well, let me just say onthe—I think that’s one the Vice President—first of all, I think they’re both right, and letme explain why. Because it’s clear that whatthe law is on this, going back a long time,is that it’s as if he’d written a letter to some-body from the White House. Did the solicita-tion occur when he wrote the letter or whenthe letter is received? And the law is clearlythat the solicitation is consummated, if youwill, when the person is solicited and wherethe person is solicited.

But the—and the Vice President thoughtthat as long as he was not using taxpayermoney to make the call, that it was legal.I think he was right about that. He alsothought about it and said, ‘‘If I ever do thisagain’’—in terms of calls—‘‘I’m not going todo it in my office because it doesn’t lookright. We ought to have a higher standard.’’And I was proud of him for saying that.

But I think that’s what—that goes back tothe question that John said. There is a dif-ference between—sometimes there is a dif-ference between what is legal and what oughtto be done, and this is a place where I thinkthere is a difference, and I think we’ve madethat clear. And I was proud of the statementthat he made.

Q. Mr. President, your Press Secretary thisweek left open the possibility that you, too,had made calls like the Vice President did.Did you ever make those calls?

The President. I told him to leave thatpossibility open because I’m not sure, frank-ly. I don’t like to raise funds in that way.I never have liked it very much. I prefer to


meet with people face to face, talk to them,deal with them in that way. And I also, frank-ly, was very busy most of the times that it’sbeen raised with me. But I can’t say, overall the hundreds and hundreds and maybethousands of phone calls I’ve made in thelast 4 years, that I never said to anybodywhile I was talking to them, ‘‘Well, we needyour help,’’ or ‘‘I hope you’ll help us.’’

So I told him not to flat out say that I’dnever done it because I simply can’t say thatI’ve never done it. But it’s not what I liketo do, and it wasn’t a practice of mine. Andonce I remember in particular, I was askedto do it, and I just never got around to doingit.

But I don’t believe the Vice President didanything wrong in making the calls. I knowsome people have advanced the propositionthat the Vice President should not ever askanybody for funds, at least unless he’s lookingat them face to face as opposed to on thetelephone. I just disagree with that. I dothink he made the right decision about notdoing it in the office.

So I asked that that be—that MikeMcCurry do it in that way, not to misleadyou or to be cute but just simply becauseI don’t want to flat out say I never did some-thing that I might, in fact, have done, justbecause I don’t remember it.

Susan [Susan Feeney, Dallas MorningNews].

White House CoffeesQ. You said that you’ve operated within

the parameter of the laws, but in retrospect,do you have any regret about the quantityof campaign activity that happened in theWhite House?

The President. You mean—I do not re-gret the friends that I have asked to comeand stay with me here. And in terms of thecoffees, based on what I knew the facts tobe and what I still believe they were, thatno one was going to be solicited at the meet-ing and that there was no specific price tagon coming to the coffees, which is what myunderstanding was, I don’t regret doing that.

As I said—again, this is a matter of percep-tion. I really was—I mean, I think I was moreupset maybe than some of you were whenI found out that my party was not checking

the checks that were coming in. I was lividand stunned that in 1996, after all we’d beenthrough in the last 20 years, that could havehappened. It took my breath away. I wasupset when I saw a proposed brochure thatsays, ‘‘This is the access you get to the Presi-dent in the White House if you have thisamount of money. If you give that amountof money you get guaranteed a certainamount of other access.’’ I thought that waswrong.

But on the other hand, I have a differenttake on some of this than you do. I am, asI said—I want to take personal responsibilityfor this. If you find the coffees offensive—I can’t say if somebody did something aroundthe coffees they shouldn’t have done, but ifyou find the fact of the President having cof-fee at the White House with people who ei-ther have supported him in the past or whohe hopes will support him in the future—I am personally responsible for that, and Itake full responsibility for it, because I en-joyed them enormously. I found them inter-esting. I found them valuable. I found thatall these people, many of whom had beenactive in elections for years and they’d doneall kinds of different things with their lives,were given the first chance they’d ever hadto just sort of say, ‘‘Here’s my idea, and Ihope you’ll consider it,’’ or ‘‘Here’s what Ithink you should do,’’ or ‘‘Here’s where Ithink you’re wrong.’’ And I genuinely en-joyed them, and I did not believe they wereimproper.

And I still believe as long as there was nospecific price tag put on those coffees, justthe fact that they would later be asked tohelp the President or the party does notrender them improper. That’s what I believe.

Mara [Mara Liasson, National PublicRadio].

Q. My question really was, if you had itto do all over again, would you have movedthese things outside of the White House orhad stricter standards about what politicalthings would be done in the White House?

The President. Well, if I had it to do allover again, we would fix what we have nowfixed. We would have stricter standards aboutadmission to the White House. And the an-swer to your other question—I hesitate togive you a general answer because there may


be some facts about a particular coffee oranother that I don’t know. All I’m saying isthat based on what I thought the facts were,which is these were people that we hopedwould help us, some of whom had helpedus in the past, some of whom had neverhelped us, and they were going to be invitedhere, and I was going to have coffee withthem, and we’re going to talk about things,after which some or all of them—not all ofthem, as it turned out, but many of themwould be solicited to help in the campaign—I do not believe that was wrong, and I feelcomfortable about what I did there.

I wish—I’ve said this a million times—Ialmost wish that one of you had been in allof these coffees, because they were, frankly,fairly pedestrian events in the sense thatnothing very juicy was discussed but peoplegot to come out with their ideas, state theirconvictions. And maybe there ought to besome way of dealing with that. Maybe at leastyou ought to have some assurance that, ifthese sort of things were done like this ona regular basis, at least, that you ought tohave some knowledge of what goes on inthem, and that might make you feel betterabout it.

Mr. Cannon [Carl Cannon, BaltimoreSun].

Participation by ContributorsQ. Mr. President, you said a moment ago

that no decision or policy made here wassolely because of a contributor. But shouldthat be a factor at all in U.S. foreign policyand who gets Government contracts and whogoes on trade missions? Should that even beconsidered at all?

The President. Well, what I thinkshould—let me just say this. This is the nub;this is the difficulty. Every public official—this is a problem or an issue that the Presi-dent, Members of Congress, Governors,mayors all face. People who help you, peoplewho try to help you put your program in,you try to stay in touch with them, so you’remore likely to know if they want to do some-thing than you are people who didn’t helpyou and people who weren’t involved in it.The instructions that I gave were, if someonewho helped us wants to be considered foran appointment, they ought to be considered

for the appointment, but they shouldn’t getit unless they’re qualified for it. Theyshouldn’t be disqualified because they havebeen a supporter of ours.

That’s the way I felt about the trade mis-sions. If someone wanted to go on a trademission and was qualified and could makea contribution, then they ought to get to go.But if they would never get to go in a thou-sand years, that no one would think theyshould have any business on the trade mis-sion and the only reason they were going toget to go was because they contributed tous, I didn’t think they should go.

But I think it’s disingenuous for anybodyin public life to say that it doesn’t help youto be considered for these things if you helpthe person who happens to win an election,because you have to stay in touch with thepeople that helped you. And it is a good thingto do. That’s the way the political systemworks. That’s the way—I would expect thatof a Republican or a Democrat or an inde-pendent who got elected to any office, thatpeople that helped you and people that youknow, people you have confidence in, youought to listen to them. But you should nevermake a decision and do something solely be-cause they have helped you before or solelyin anticipation of something they might dofor you in the future.

And what we have to do is to have ourdecisions open enough and transparentenough that the American people can seethat that is being done. And I can tell you,people come to you in all different kinds ofways. For example—let me just give you oneexample. It’s not a trade mission, but I’ll justgive you one example. There was a hugeamount of money at stake in the private sec-tor in the legislation involving the tele-communications reform. It was the first timewe had reformed telecommunications in 60years. You all are in it. You know better thanI do how much it’s changing—all the com-petition issues, massive amounts of money.

The Vice President has been interested inthis issue forever. We spent—in our weeklylunches, we spent endless amounts of timetalking about the telecommunications act,what it should look like, and we took a posi-tion. We then found we had all these peoplewho came to us and supported us, many of


whom had been Republicans their wholelives, who were independent long distancetelephone operators. And they came to usbecause the majority party had decided totake a position favored by the larger tele-phone companies.

We had a clear public position beforehand.Should we not have accepted their contribu-tion? Should we not have accepted their sup-port and help? I think we did the right thing.Now, flip it around. If they had been helpingus all along, but we agreed with them, shouldwe have weakened in our advocacy just be-cause they were supporting us?

In other words, I think the whole reasonfor the first round of campaign reform—let’sgo back to that—is that all these contribu-tions should be made public and you shouldbe free to evaluate them and you should befree to determine and to speculate and toprobe about whether the money we receivedfrom such and such a group has affected adecision we made and does it undermine orsupport the public interest. You should befree to do that. That’s why full disclosure isimportant. But I think that unless we’re goingto a completely publicly financed system,contributors will always have access to publicofficials, then other kinds of people will whohelped them. That’s the way it is.

Mara, go ahead.

Access and Economic Interests

Q. Mr. President, you say that there is noevidence that you’ve ever changed a policybecause of someone you met with. But whatdoes appear to have occurred is that certainpeople traded on their access. In otherwords, access to you became a valuable busi-ness commodity to get new clients or impresstheir current clients. Do you think that thatmeets the higher standard that you want theWhite House to adhere to?

The President. Well, what I think aboutthat is that we need to evaluate whether wedid anything which would give the impres-sion that we were trying to help someoneget business. In other words, I can’t say who,beyond the reach of our personal contacts,would be impressed with people who hadtheir picture taken with me. After today, itmay be that everybody will go broke unless

they take the pictures off the wall. I don’tknow. But I can’t say that.

What I can say is that the White Houseshould not knowingly permit the WhiteHouse or the Presidency or the Vice Presi-dency to be used to advance some privateeconomic interest. And that—you’ve putyour finger on something that is troublingto me, and we have to evaluate that more.And it’s one of the reasons that I wanted tomake sure that we had a system in place onaccess and on all of these things that willmeet that standard in the future, and I be-lieve we’ve done that. But I think that’s alegitimate problem.

Jim [Jim Miklaszewski, NBC News].Q. Mr. President——The President. Just a minute, I’ll come

back to you.

Maggie WilliamsQ. Mr. President, when you vetoed the

ban on partial birth abortion, you said youdid so to protect the lives of the mothersand because they were fairly rare. Well, it’ssince been revealed that there are approxi-mately 5,000 of these so-called partial birthabortions performed every year, 90 percentof them in the 5th and 6th month. Wouldyou now support a ban if it included provi-sions to protect the mother but would banthe procedure also in the 5th and 6th month?

And one second unrelated question, didthe White House discover if there were anyother checks or money passed besides the$50,000 to Maggie Williams? [Laughter]

The President. That’s fair. No, that’s a fairquestion. As far as I know, that did not hap-pen. As far as I know, any other checks thatcame in, we really didn’t—were things thatcame in the mail and were just routinely re-ferred. And I don’t even know if there wereany of those or how many there were. Butas far as I know, there was no other instancelike the one involving Maggie.

Partial Birth AbortionNow, let me answer the other question as

clearly as I can. The admission by the gen-tleman in question, that, you know, hethought he was misrepresenting the facts tothe Congress in the last debate, has causeda lot of stir here. But I believe—and I tried


to be clear about this at the time—I wasunder the impression that the facts are justas we all said they were, more or less whatyou’ve said. I don’t know that we have exactnumbers.

What I said before was, and let me restateit, I sought to get a bill I could sign thatwould ban this procedure when it was inap-propriate, because there would be other ave-nues available if an abortion was otherwiselegal. What I was concerned about again—and you said 500, I think, so let’s just takeyour number. We don’t really know.

Q. Actually, I think it’s 5,000.The President. Five thousand total, of

whom a small proportion, maybe 10 percentor so, are like those five women that I hadin the White House. I will say again, theyare my concern. They are my only concern.And I would remind you that three of thosefive women identified themselves to me aspro-life voters. And they were told that un-less they had a procedure which would bebanned under the law that I vetoed, afterit was over, the babies they would be carryingwould be dead and their bodies would neverbe able to have another baby. That is myonly concern. I have made that as clear asI can.

So I can’t answer the question that youasked me any clearer than that because Iwant to see the language of any proposedbill. I think you can make a very compellingcase that for the small number of people I’mtrying to protect, this is the biggest issue intheir entire lives and that for them my posi-tion is the pro-life position. And I believethat it would be a mistake for us to pass thisbill one more time without taking care ofthose folks. When—because, as you justpointed out Mr. Miklaszewski, because any-body that’s in the first two trimesters thathas an elective procedure will still have ac-cess to another one in a different way afterthe bill passes.

So, in a funny way, this might not workto reduce the overall number of abortionsat all. But in the end, what it could do isevery year to take a few hundred women andwreck their lives and wreck the possibilitythat they could have further children. That’swhy I was working on this. And if we cansolve that problem, I will happily sign this

bill. This thing is a real—it has hurt theAmerican people, dealing with this. And Idon’t mean it’s harmed physically; I mean,this has been a great emotional trauma forthe American people trying to come to gripswith this issue and deal with it. It’s a deepthing out there around the country, and itgoes way beyond the traditional pro-life/pro-choice fight or disagreement.

I would like to see us bring some harmonyto this and put it behind us. But every timeanybody mentions this, I remember so vividlythe faces of those five women and their lifestories and what happened to them after-ward. And a few hundred people a year, theydon’t have much votes or influence, butthey’re the people I’m concerned about, andthey’re the people I’m going to try to protectright down to the end.

Let’s take one from Sarah [SarahMcClendon, McClendon News Service].And then I’ve got to take one from JillDougherty [Cable News Network] becauseshe’s about to go to Moscow, and she needsto have her parting shot. Go ahead.

American SovereigntyQ. Sir, this is on another subject. We have

a very great problem in this country today,and I wonder if you would use your leader-ship to counteract the rumormongers thatare abroad in the land who are spreading allthese rumors that are scaring people todeath—large segments of our citizens believethat the United Nations is taking over wholeblocks of counties in Kentucky and Ten-nessee. [Laughter]

The President. Yes.Q. And some of them, they believe

that——The President. Now, you all are laughing,

but——Q. ——you’re going to put us in a con-

centration camp and you’re going to give ourArmy to Russia and all that baloney. Couldyou do something about this, because it’shurting the unity of the United States.

The President. I don’t know, because thepeople who believe that think I’m the prob-lem. [Laughter] We’re all laughing about it,but there is not an insubstantial number ofpeople who believe that there is a plan outthere for world domination and I’m trying


to give American sovereignty over to theU.N. There was a—I read in our local Arkan-sas newspaper, one of them the other dayhad a letter to the editor saying that, thereI go again; there’s Clinton out there tryingto give American sovereignty over to theUnited Nations.

Let me just say this: For people that areworried about it, I would say, there is a seri-ous issue here that every American has tocome to grips with—including Americansthat don’t much think about foreign policyuntil some great problem occurs—and thatis, how can we be an independent, sovereignnation leading the world in a world that isincreasingly interdependent, that requires usto cooperate with other people and then todeal with very difficult circumstances in try-ing to determine how best to cooperate?

That’s the issue that you will all be report-ing on for the next week in the Mexico certifi-cation issue. Did I do the right thing to cer-tify Mexico? Are the Members of Congresswho disagree with me right when they saywe should have decertified Mexico and thengiven a national interest waiver so we couldcontinue to cooperate economically and inothers ways?

I strongly believe I was right. But wedon’t—if you want to go into that, we canlater, but the issue is, we live in an inter-dependent world. We have to cooperate withpeople. We’re better off when we do. We’rebetter off with NATO. We’re better off withthe United Nations. We’re better off whenthese countries can work together. So I justthink for folks that are worried about thisout in the country, they need to be thinkingabout how—we’re not going to give up ourfreedom, our independence, but we’re notgoing to go it alone into the 21st century ei-ther. We’re going to work together, and wehave to.

Jill?

Russia and NATO ExpansionQ. Thank you very much, Mr. President.

Speaking of Russia and NATO, yesterday weheard President Boris Yeltsin saying that thepurpose of the motivation by the West forNATO expansion is to squeeze Russia outof Europe and politically marginalize it. Andin a couple of weeks, you’ll be sitting down

with Mr. Yeltsin again. We’ve heard similarthings from the Russians many times. Areyou making any progress in changing theRussians’ position on this?

The President. Well, I hope so. Let meanswer the—I’d like to make two pointsabout it. First of all, this meeting that we’regoing to have in Helsinki, President Yeltsinand I, it will be very important. And yet it’simportant to recognize that it’s part of a regu-lar pattern of meetings over the last severalyears which have changed the nature of U.S.-Russian relations forever, I hope, so that itwill be a meeting that will be extremely can-did, extremely straightforward, and I hopeit will deal with not only the question of Rus-sia’s relationship to Europe but also what wecan do with the Russians to continue to re-duce the nuclear threat and what we can dowith the Russians to help them to build theireconomy, because I’m convinced that theyhave the capacity, if they can make certainchanges, to enjoy a phenomenal amount ofeconomic growth in a relatively short time,which I think would help a lot of things intheir country.

Now, on the merits, I have said since 1993that one of my dreams for the 21st centuryworld is a Europe that for the first time isunited, democratic, and free. Since the dawnof nation-states, about the beginning of thelast millennium in Europe, it has never beenso. There has never been a single time whenEurope was united, democratic, and free.The final capstone to that, I think, is workingout a security relationship with NATO, a Eu-ropean Union that is expanding and stilltied—a Europe still tied to the United Statesand to Canada, to North America, not onlyeconomically and politically but also in termsof our security alliance but also has a specialrelationship with Russia and does not ruleour even Russian membership in a commonsecurity alliance.

The best answer I can give to PresidentYelstin is, what are we doing with NATO to-day and with whom are we doing it? Whatwe are doing today is Bosnia. We togetherended the bloodiest war in Europe sinceWorld War II, and we are doing it with Rus-sia. And there are lots of other things we cando with Russia.


The final point I want to make is, amongthe great questions—there are five or sixgreat questions which will determine whatthe world will look like 30 or 40 years fromnow. One of those great questions is, howwill Russia and China, the two great formerCommunist powers, define their greatness inthe next century? Will they define theirgreatness as we try to do, in terms of theachievements of our people, our ability toprotect ourselves, and our ability to relate toother people? Or will they define—and Ithink that’s a more modern definition, if youwill—or will they define their greatness interms of their ability to influence, if not out-right dominate, the people that live aroundthem as well as to control the political debateof people who live within their borders toa degree that I think is not helpful?

If that debate is resolved in the properway, the 21st century is going to be a verygood time for the American people. And Ithink when you hear all this stuff aboutNATO, you have to understand that there’stwo things going on. The Russians want toknow, are we aggressive in NATO expansionor defensive, and looking at other targets likeBosnia? Then they’re having to define inthemselves, ‘‘Where do we want to be 25 or30 years from now?’’

And when they say things that we find of-fensive, I would ask the American people tounderstand their sensitivities. We were neverinvaded by Napoleon or Hitler, and theywere. So they’re a little sensitive about theprospects of their borders. And we’re tryingto work together for a better, brighter world.

I think that we’re going to get there. I ex-pect that the Helsinki meeting will be posi-tive. But you should understand, this is atough debate and that they have reasons intheir own psyche and circumstances thatmake it a difficult one.

Thank you.

NOTE: The President’s 137th news conferencebegan at 2:02 p.m. in the East Room at the WhiteHouse. In his remarks, he referred to NancyHernreich, Deputy Assistant to the President andDirector of Oval Office Operations, and BernardRapoport, member, Advisory Committee forTrade Policy and Negotiations.

Statement on the National EconomyMarch 7, 1997

Today we learned that the economy is con-tinuing to generate good jobs, almost 600,000jobs in the first 2 months of this year alone.That’s good news for American workers andtheir families. The American economy hasnow created nearly 12 million new jobs sinceI took office. Now it’s time to keep thisAmerican job engine on the move by passinga balanced budget plan that invests in edu-cation and our future.

Our 1993 economic plan has helped spurthis strong job growth, while cutting the defi-cit by 63 percent, from $290 billion in 1992to $107 billion in 1996. Now we must cutthe deficit to zero while investing in our peo-ple. My budget will do just that. I look for-ward to working with the Congress to getthe job done by passing a balanced budgetplan.

Proclamation 6978—National OlderWorkers Employment Week, 1997March 7, 1997


A ProclamationAmerican workers age 55 and older rep-

resent one of our country’s richest resources,and the value of their potential contributionto our society is immense. An estimated 70percent of all Americans age 55 and olderalready actively contribute to our commongood—by working, by volunteering, and bycaring for sick and disabled relatives, friends,and neighbors.

Despite their qualifications, however,many of these Americans experience seriousdifficulty finding work if they lose a job ordesire new employment. Their search foremployment can become increasingly chal-lenging as they grow older.

Our laws and government agencies can—and do—offer protections, programs, andservices for older workers. The Age Discrimi-nation Act, the Older Americans Act, and theAge Discrimination in Employment Act allrecognize the unique rights of such employ-ees, and the Department of Labor alone


helps thousands of workers each yearthrough efforts such as the Senior Commu-nity Service Employment Program.

But it is up to employers also to recognizethe potential of older Americans as employ-ees—to recognize that by every commonmeasure of job performance, older workersare as effective as younger people becauseof their unique skills, experiences, and judg-ment. And, it is appropriate that we designatea week to acknowledge that all workersshould be judged and employed on the basisof their individual ability to do a job, regard-less of age.

Now, Therefore, I, William J. Clinton,President of the United States, by virtue ofthe authority vested in me by the Constitu-tion and laws of the United States, do herebyproclaim March 9 through March 15, 1997,as National Older Workers EmploymentWeek, and I urge all employers when theyhire new workers to consider carefully theskills and other qualifications of men andwomen age 55 and older. I also encouragepublic officials responsible for job placement,training, and related services to intensifytheir efforts throughout the year to helpolder workers locate available jobs and train-ing.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto setmy hand this seventh day of March, in theyear of our Lord nineteen hundred and nine-ty-seven, and of the Independence of theUnited States of America the two hundredand twenty-first.

William J. Clinton


NOTE: This proclamation will be published in theFederal Register on March 11.

Letter to Congressional LeadersReporting on IraqMarch 7, 1997

Dear Mr. Speaker: (Dear Mr. President:)Consistent with the Authorization for Use

of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution(Public Law 102–1) and as part of my effortto keep the Congress fully informed, I amreporting on the status of efforts to obtain

Iraq’s compliance with the resolutions adopt-ed by the United Nations Security Council(UNSC). This report covers the period fromJanuary 7 to the present.

Saddam Hussein remains a threat to hispeople and the region. The United Statessuccessfully responded to the increasedthreat resulting from Saddam’s attack on Irbilin late August 1996, but he continues to tryto manipulate local rivalries in northern Iraqto his advantage. The United States and ourcoalition partners continue uninterrupted en-forcement of the no-fly zone over northernIraq under Operation Northern Watch, thesuccessor mission to Operation ProvideComfort. France chose not to participate inOperation Northern Watch, but the UnitedKingdom and Turkey remain committed tothe same enforcement of the no-fly zoneabove the 36th parallel that existed underOperation Provide Comfort. Enforcement ofthe southern no-fly zone also continues, andFrance remains engaged with our other coa-lition partners in conducting OperationSouthern Watch.

Besides our air operations, we will con-tinue to maintain a strong U.S. presence inthe region in order to deter Saddam. U.S.force levels have returned to approximatepre-Operation Desert Strike levels, withland- and carrier-based aircraft, surface war-ships, a Marine amphibious task force, a Pa-triot missile battalion, and a mechanized bat-talion task force deployed in support ofUSCINCCENT operations. On February 20,1997, an air expeditionary force consisting of30 F–16s and F–15s deployed to Doha,Qatar, to further strengthen the U.S. deter-rent in the region. On February 22, an F–117 squadron deployed to Kuwait since lastautumn was redeployed to the United Statesupon the completion of its mission.USCINCCENT has completed the initialphases of Operation Desert Focus, with therelocation and consolidation of all combatantforces in Saudi Arabia into more secure fa-cilities throughout Saudi Arabia. To enhanceforce protection throughout the region, addi-tional military security personnel have beendeployed for continuous rotation.USCINCCENT continues to closely monitorthe security situation in the region to ensure


adequate force protection is provided for alldeployed forces.

United Nations Security Council Resolu-tion (UNSCR) 949, adopted in October1994, demands that Iraq not utilize its mili-tary forces to threaten its neighbors or U.N.operations in Iraq and that it not redeploytroops or enhance its military capacity insouthern Iraq. In view of Saddam’s rein-forced record of unreliability, it is prudentto retain a significant U.S. force presence inthe region in order to maintain the capabilityto respond rapidly to possible Iraqi aggres-sion or threats against its neighbors.

Regarding northern Iraq, we have con-ducted three rounds of talks, along with ourBritish and Turkish partners, with the majorKurdish parties in northern Iraq—theKurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and thePatriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). Our im-mediate goal is to strengthen the U.S.-bro-kered cease-fire of October 23, which contin-ues to hold, and to encourage political rec-onciliation between the PUK and KDP. ThisAdministration continues to warn all con-cerned that internecine warfare in the northcan only work to the advantage of SaddamHussein and Iran, which we believe has norole to play in the area. In this connection,we remain concerned about Iraqi Kurd con-tacts with either Baghdad or Tehran.

The United States is providing political, fi-nancial, and logistical support for a neutral,indigenous Peace Monitoring Force (PMF)in northern Iraq that has demarcated thecease-fire line and will monitor the cease-fire. The PMF likely will be fully deployedin the next few weeks. Our support is beingprovided in the form of commodities andservices in accordance with a drawdown di-rected by me on December 11, 1996, andin the form of funds to be used to provideother non-lethal assistance in accordancewith a separate determination made byformer Secretary of State Christopher on No-vember 10, 1996.

We also are encouraging both Kurdishgroups to take steps toward reconciliation. Atthe latest round of higher-level talks in An-kara on January 15, the Iraqi Kurds agreedto establish joint committees to cooperate insuch areas as education, health, and transpor-tation. Local representatives of the two Kurd

groups, the three countries and the PNF con-tinue to meet biweekly in Ankara and moveforward on other confidence-building meas-ures. All our efforts under the Ankara proc-ess, like all our efforts concerning Iraq, main-tain support for the unity and territorial in-tegrity of Iraq.

The United States, working through theUnited Nations and humanitarian relief orga-nizations, continues to provide humanitarianassistance to the people of northern Iraq. Wehave contributed more than $15 million thisfiscal year to programs in the north adminis-tered by the United Nations InternationalChildren’s Fund (UNICEF) and the WorldFood Program (WFP). Security conditions innorthern Iraq remain tenuous at best, withIranian and Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)activity adding to the ever-present threatfrom Baghdad.

The oil-related provisions of UNSCR 986,which authorized Iraq to sell up to $2 billionof oil during an initial 180-day period (withthe possibility of UNSC renewal of subse-quent 180-day periods), went into effect onDecember 10, 1996. This resolution requiresthat the proceeds of this limited oil sale, allof which must be deposited in a U.N. escrowaccount, will be used to purchase food, medi-cine, and other materials and supplies for es-sential civilian needs for all Iraqi citizens andto fund vital U.N. activities regarding Iraq.Critical to the success of UNSCR 986 isIraq’s willingness to follow through on itscommitments under 986 to allow the U.N.to monitor the distribution of food and medi-cal supplies to the Iraqi people. While Iraqhas already sold nearly 80 percent of the oilallowed for the first 90-day period, Iraqi ef-forts to impose restrictions on the access andfreedom of movement of the U.N. monitorstasked with overseeing the equitable dis-tribution of humanitarian supplies haveslowed such distribution.

Since my last report, the Government ofIraq has continued to flout its obligationsunder UNSC resolutions in other ways.Under the terms of relevant UNSC resolu-tions, Iraq must grant the United NationsSpecial Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) in-spectors immediate, unconditional, and un-restricted access to any location in Iraq theywish to examine, and access to any Iraqi offi-


cial whom they wish to interview, so thatUNSCOM may fully discharge its mandateto ensure that Iraq’s weapons of mass de-struction program has been eliminated. Iraqcontinues, as it has for the past 5 years, tofail to live up either to the letter or the spiritof this commitment.

On February 23, UNSCOM ChairmanRolf Ekeus obtained permission from theIraqi regime to remove more than 130SCUD motors from Iraq for extensive testingin the United States and France. Iraq agreedto this action after 3 months of stalling, andonly after a December 30 Security CouncilPresidential Statement deplored Iraq’s fail-ure to comply with its obligation to cooperatewith UNSCOM. Ekeus continues to believethat Iraq maintains significant numbers ofoperational SCUD missiles, possibly withCBW warheads. As long as Saddam refusesto cooperate fully with U.N. weapons inspec-tors, UNSCOM will be impeded in its effortsto fulfill its mandate. We will continue tofully support the mandate and the efforts ofUNSCOM to obtain Iraqi compliance withall relevant U.N. resolutions.

Implementation of UNSCR 1051 contin-ues. It provides for a mechanism to monitorIraq’s efforts to reacquire proscribed weap-ons capabilities by requiring that Iraq notifya joint unit of UNSCOM and the Inter-national Atomic Energy Agency in advanceof any imports of dual-use items. Similarly,countries must provide timely notification ofexports to Iraq of dual-use items.

Iraq continues to stall and obfuscate ratherthan work in good faith toward accountingfor the hundreds of Kuwaitis and third-coun-try nationals who disappeared at the handsof Iraqi authorities during the occupation. Ithas also failed to return all of the stolen Ku-waiti military equipment and the pricelessKuwaiti cultural and historical artifacts,which were looted during the occupation.

Iraq’s repression of its Shi’a populationcontinues with policies that are destroyingthe Marsh Arabs’ way of life in southern Iraqas well as the ecology of the southernmarshes. The human rights situationthroughout Iraq remains unchanged. Sad-dam Hussein shows no signs of complyingwith UNSCR 688, which demands that Iraqcease the repression of its own people.

The Multinational Interception Force(MIF) has been increasingly challenged inthe last few months. In the first 6 weeks ofthe year, 12 merchant vessels were divertedfor sanctions violations. This represents thehighest volume of smuggler traffic we haveseen since maritime sanctions enforcementbegan. Most of these smugglers take gas oilillegally from Iraq via the Shatt Al Arab wa-terway and sell it on the spot market for enor-mous profit. As I have noted in previous re-ports, these smugglers use the territorial wa-ters of Iran to avoid the MIF inspection inthe Northern Gulf. With the help of the Ira-nian government, which profits from theseactivities by charging protection fees, thesesmugglers are able to export between 40,000and 65,000 metric tons of gas oil through theGulf each month.

To counter the efforts of those who engagein illegal trade with Iraq, we have taken anumber of steps to minimize the smugglingactivity. We have adjusted the positioning ofour naval forces to take maximum advantageof known trade routes. We are working close-ly with our friends in the Gulf CooperationCouncil to develop greater cooperation inborder patrol and customs inspection proce-dures. We have publicized the involvementof the Iranian government at the United Na-tions and in press reports.

It is important to remember that thesesanctions violations not only aid Saddam andhis policy of resisting U.N. mandates, but alsoslow the flow of humanitarian aid to the Iraqipeople who are in such great need. Commit-ting scarce MIF assets to counter the smug-gling trade results in fewer ships available toprocess the legal humanitarian shipmentsthat bring food to Iraq under the provisionsof UNSCR 986 and the humanitarian excep-tions to sanctions.

We continue to work closely with our mar-itime partners in the MIF. Recently, TheNetherlands informed us that they will senda frigate and an aircraft to join the MIF inthe near future. Canada will also soon besending a ship to join the MIF. The continu-ing support of the international communityis critical to the success of this multinationaloperation.

Since the implementation of UNSCR 986in December, the MIF has not encountered


any serious problems in processing the mari-time traffic involved in lifting oil from theMina Al Bakr offshore terminal. While it isstill too early to tell if the inbound shipmentswill go as smoothly, we are hopeful that ouradvance planning and preparation in this areawill pay off.

The United Nations Compensation Com-mission (UNCC), established pursuant toUNSCR 687, continues to resolve claimsagainst Iraq arising from Iraq’s unlawful inva-sion and occupation of Kuwait. The UNCChas issued over 1 million awards worth ap-proximately $5.2 billion. The UNCC has au-thorized to date only limited payments forfixed awards for serious personal injury ordeath because additional funds to pay awardshave been unavailable due to Iraq’s refusalto comply with all relevant UNSC resolu-tions. With the advent of oil sales underUNSCR 986, however, 30 percent of the pro-ceeds will be allocated to the CompensationFund. These proceeds will be used to makeinstallment payments on awards alreadymade and to finance operations of theUNCC.

To conclude, Iraq remains a serious threatto regional peace and stability. I remain de-termined to see Iraq comply fully with allof its obligations under United Nations Secu-rity Council resolutions. My Administrationwill continue to oppose any relaxation ofsanctions until Iraq demonstrates its peacefulintentions through such compliance.

I appreciate the support of the Congressfor our efforts and shall continue to keep theCongress informed about this importantissue.

Sincerely, William J. Clinton

NOTE: Identical letters were sent to Newt Ging-rich, Speaker of the House of Representatives,and Strom Thurmond, President pro tempore ofthe Senate.

Digest of OtherWhite House Announcements

The following list includes the President’s publicschedule and other items of general interest an-nounced by the Office of the Press Secretary andnot included elsewhere in this issue.

March 1In the morning, the President and Hillary

Clinton traveled to New York City.

March 2In the morning, the President and Hillary

Clinton returned to Washington, DC. In theevening, they attended a gala at Ford’s Thea-tre.

The President declared a major disaster inArkansas and ordered Federal aid to supple-ment State and local recovery efforts in thearea struck by severe storms and tornadoesMarch 1 and continuing.

March 3In the afternoon, the President met with

Senators Daniel Patrick Moynihan and JesseHelms and Representatives Lee H. Hamiltonand Larry Combest in the Oval Office to dis-cuss Government classification issues.

March 4In the morning, the President traveled to

Little Rock, AR. In the afternoon, he trav-eled to Arkadelphia and College Station, AR.In the evening, the President returned toWashington, DC.

The President announced his intention toappoint John R. Phillips to be a member ofthe President’s Commission on White HouseFellows.

The President declared a major disaster inKentucky and ordered Federal aid to supple-ment Commonwealth and local recovery ef-forts in the area struck by severe storms, tor-nadoes, and flooding beginning March 1 andcontinuing.

The President declared a major disaster inOhio and ordered Federal aid to supplementState and local recovery efforts in the areastruck by severe storms and flooding begin-ning February 28 and continuing.

March 5In the morning, the President had a tele-

phone interview from the Oval Office withJames A. Barnes of the National Journal.

March 6In the morning, the President traveled to

Lansing, MI. In the evening, he returned toWashington, DC.

The President declared a major disaster inIndiana and ordered Federal funds to sup-

317Administration of William J. Clinton, 1997

plement State and local recovery efforts inthe area struck by severe storms and floodingFebruary 28 and continuing.

March 7The President announced his intention to

appoint Dianne Welsh Bleck to be a memberof the Board of Visitors to the U.S. Air ForceAcademy.

The White House announced that theRussia-U.S. summit in Helsinki, Finland, willbegin with an informal dinner hosted byPresident Martti Ahtisaari at the PresidentialPalace on March 19. The summit will con-tinue with meetings between the Presidentand President Boris Yeltsin of Russia onMarch 20. The President will depart for Co-penhagen, Denmark, on the evening ofMarch 20.

The President declared a major disaster inTennessee and ordered Federal aid, includ-ing individual assistance, to supplement Stateand local recovery efforts in the areas af-fected by severe storms, flooding, and torna-does that began on February 28.

The President declared a major disaster inWest Virginia and ordered Federal aid, in-cluding individual assistance, to supplementState and local recovery efforts in the areasaffected by severe storms, heavy rains, andhigh winds that began on February 28.

NominationsSubmitted to the Senate

The following list does not include promotions ofmembers of the Uniformed Services, nominationsto the Service Academies, or nominations of For-eign Service officers.

Submitted March 3

Joel I. Klein,of the District of Columbia, to be an Assist-ant Attorney General, vice Anne Bingaman,resigned.

Robert S. LaRussa,of Maryland, to be an Assistant Secretary ofCommerce, vice Susan G. Esserman.

Submitted March 6

James B. King,of Massachusetts, to be Director of the Of-fice of Personnel Management for a term of4 years (reappointment).

Checklistof White House Press Releases

The following list contains releases of the Officeof the Press Secretary that are neither printed asitems nor covered by entries in the Digest ofOther White House Announcements.

Released March 3

Transcript of a press briefing by Press Sec-retary Mike McCurry

Transcript of a press briefing by Vice Presi-dent Al Gore on 1996 campaign financing

Response to a question asked at Press Sec-retary Mike McCurry’s press briefing

Released March 5


Released March 6


Released March 7

Statement by Press Secretary Mike McCurryon U.S.-Russian summit dates

Statement by Press Secretary Mike McCurryannouncing Thomas F. (Mack) McLarty’supcoming visit to Guatemala

318 Administration of William J. Clinton, 1997

Fact sheet on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses:Ongoing Initiatives

Acts Approvedby the President

Approved March 3

H.R. 499 / Public Law 105–4To designate the facility of the United StatesPostal Service under construction at 7411Barlite Boulevard in San Antonio, Texas, asthe ‘‘Frank M. Tejeda Post Office Building’’

271

United StatesGovernmentPrinting OfficeSUPERINTENDENTOF DOCUMENTS

Washington, D.C. 20402

OFFICIAL BUSINESS

Penalty for private use, $300

BULK RATEPostage and Fees Paid

U.S. Government Printing OfficePERMIT G-26

Presidential Documents - GPO Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents will be furnished by mail...

Documents

Transcript of Presidential Documents - GPO Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents will be furnished by mail...