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1995 Commencement Speech Analysis [Binder][2]
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�PHOTOCOPY
PRESERVATION
�March 21, 1995
MEMORANDUM TO MARK GEARAN
FROM:
RUSSELL HORWITZ
RE:
1993 Commencement Addresses
LOCATION
President Clinton gave commencement addresses at the following three schools in 1993:
•
New Hampshire Technical College, May 22, 1993
•
United States Military Academy, May 29, 1993.
•
Northeastern University, June 19, 1993.
THEME
President Clinton's 1993 Commencement addresses all focused on the importance of revitalizing
the nation's economy and creating investments by which the American worker could effectively
compete in the global economy. Both the New Hampshire and Northeastern speeches touched on
the Administration's economic accomplishments, namely, lower interest rates and job creations.
All three speeches cited the importance of implementing a deficit reduction package and
investments in education, training and technology (the West Point speech to a lesser extent).
One salient theme throughout these speeches was the President's pledge to do his part to "make
your [students] future worthy of the efforts that brought you here today." [Northeastern University
6/19/93] At New Hampshire, the President stated, "our job is to try to put your values and your
dreams into law and into facts," while at West Point, the President said, "We must approach the
job of rebuilding our nation with the same kind of single-minded determination that you have
brought your skills, your dedication, and leadership ability to in these four years and that you
will bring to the defense of our nation in the years ahead We can do no lessfor you." [West
Point, 5/29/93]
A substantial portion of the West Point speech, not surprisingly, concerned itself with military
security, specifically maintaining the preparedness of U.S. military forces, addressing the dangers
of the proliferation of various missiles, and citing the instability and regional conflict that still
exists in the world. The latter part of the speech dealt with the importance of having a strong and
productive economy and its significance to the country's security.
•
"The idea that we can create jobs; that people who work can raise their incomes over
time if they continue to improve their education and their productivity. If we can do that
and deal with the health care issue, we can restore a sense of possibility to America." -«•
New Hampshire Technical College, May 22, 1993
�"Just as our security cannot rest on a hollow army, neither can it rest upon a hollow
economy." - West Point, May 29, 1993
" e are beginning to move this country, taking down the obstacles to progress and
W
prosperity, putting our economic house in order, moving toward providing a national
plan to provide affordable, quality health care to all of America's families and children,
preparing ourselves to compete in the global economy." - Northeastern University, June
19, 1993.
COMMENTARY
Most of the reaction to these commencement addresses focused on the passages concerned with
the President's deficit reduction plan, specifically the BTU tax proposal. Many of the articles on
the New Hampshire and Northeastern speeches mentioned why the schools were selected to host
the President. New Hampshire Technical College is a technical college, while Northeastern
University is the largest co-op school in the country. Their curriculum is consistent with the
Administration's emphasis on education and training in the work place.
New Hampshire Technical College
David Von Drehle of the Washington Post wrote that "listeners today could close their
eyes and as the hoarse drawl reiterated the lines of his campaign, feel the tumultuous
months melt away.... There was a faint echo in that simple plea of a speech Clinton gave
some 15 months ago, not far from the college lawn " [5/23/93] The Boston Globe reported
that in the President'sfirstcommencement address, he "employedfamiliar themes from
his campaign days, askingfor support for his besieged economic program by promising
to continue fighting to put people first."' [5/23/93]
United States Military Academy
The West Point speech garnered a considerable amount of media interest because it was
seen as an attempt to confront past and present relations with the military. Frank Murray
of the Washington Times wrote that the President "seemed moved as he accepted salutes"
from the cadets and "responded with an unqualified endorsement of their career choice."
Under the New York Times headline "Clinton Mends Military Fences At West Point,"
Thomas Friedman reported that the President "seemed to endear himself most to the
audience with some self-deprecating humor and self-criticism ... Today's appearance at
West Point is part of a blitz by the President to try to overcome his uneasy relations with
many in the military by addressing them head on." [5/30/93]
1
After a much-publicized haircut on the tarmac of the LAX earlier in the month, the President said he was
'impressed" b the cadets' haircuts.
y
�Northeastern University
Gwen Ifill of the New York Times wrote that the President "made no effort to hide the
campaign-style nature of his remarks, directing his criticism at opponents in
Congress....Such a call to arms, on this occasion cloaked in the high-minded rhetoric
suitable for an academic ceremony, has become common for the President. But today,
Mr. Clinton had a special mission: he sought to capitalize on the week's successes,
including the passage of an amended version of his economic plan by the Senate Finance
Committee" [6/20/93] Walter Rodcers of ABC News reported. "Clinton's clearly trying to
convince people the economy's on the road to recovery." [World News. 6/19/93]
�£ ill
Si
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3
n
PHOTOCOPY
PRESERVATION
�Public Papers of the Presidents
May 22, 1993
CITE: 29 Weekly Comp. Pres. Doc. 932
LENGTH: 3566 words
HEADLINE: Remarks at the New Hampshire Technical College Commencement Ceremony
in Stratham, New Hampshire
BODY:
Thank you very much, Madam President, members of the faculty and staff, distinguished
Members of Congress and other platform guests, and ladies and gentlemen, and most
importantly, the members of this graduating class. To answer the president's question, I came
here to address this class because you were the people that I ran for President to serve. It
was your America that I hope to make better. I'm proud to come back to the State that 15
months ago made me the "comeback kid" in this country. [Laughter] On February 7, 1902,
when I came to this college, the people I met here asked me about things that matter to
mainstream Americans, about jobs and health care and getting the economy moving again and
whether the future for our young people would be better than the present. After I finished
speaking, one of your students, Greg Fuller, then asked me to come back and speak at this
graduation. Stand up, Greg. And then he wrote me a letter to confirm his request. That
itself was miracle enough. In 3 months and 2 weeks we had received more mail at the White
House than had come in, in all of 1902. There may be another letter from Greg somewhere
we haven't found yet. [Laughter] But I'm delighted to be here. This is thefirstgraduation
ceremony I have addressed as President, and I am - [applause]. I don't know, but it may be
the first time a President has ever addressed a graduation of a technical college. But I will
say this: More colleges like yours should have visits from the President because people who
work hard and study hard and who have to raise children and go to work while they go to
school and who are really on the cutting edge, up and down, of this economy, you are the
heart and soul of our present and our future. The world in which you — [applause] — your
families are clapping for you. The world in which you live, to be sure, has been full of bad
news here in New Hampshire for the last few years, but it's also a very exciting and
challenging place. And it will be different from the world in which I grew up in two very
important ways. First of all, more than ever before, America will be captured by the reality
of the global economy. More and more of our jobs will depend on trade. And more and
more of our future will depend on not only how well we are doing but how well our trading
partners are doing. One of our problems today is that Europe and Japan's economies are
down, so it's hard for ours to go up. More and more, our national security will depend not
just on military power but on our renewal of economic strength. More and more, we'll have
to find ways to cooperate as well as to compete with other countries. We'll have tofindways
to preserve the global environment and still make it possible for the economies of our world
to grow. That's thefirstthing. The second thing is something you already know, or you
wouldn't be here. We are moving very rapidly in all forms of production and service to a
;
�knowledge-based economy in which what you earn depends on what you can leam, not only
what you know today but what you're capable of learning tomorrow, and in which every
graduate of high school needs at least to go on to 2 years of further education and training.
You know that, or you wouldn't be here. All of you have invested your money, your time,
you energy to take personal responsibility for your own lives, developing your own skills and
in recognition of this new world reality. Your investment in a way is an act of faith. You
know the world is knowledgebase & you know you have to do this. Now having done it, you
have to have faith that there will be opportunities for you, that if you have worked hard and
played by the rules, you will be rewarded. As President I share that faith. I believe we can
make our system work I believe we can see our country once again reflect the values with
which all of us were raised. I don't think any of us can ever lose sight of that. Its
appropriate that I'm at this graduation, because New Hampshire aught me all these things
once again. In the fall and winter of 1991 and 1992, when I spent so much time here, I
literally, as we say in my part of the country, went to school with you. Two winters ago I
came face to face with middle class people who had lost their jobs and their homes and their
health care. I met people whose business loam had been canceled, even though they had
never missed a payment in their lives. I saw people who went down to the public assistance
office and began to draw welfare checks just to make their home payments to keep from
putting their kids in the street, middle class people who had had jobs and never thought they
would be unemployed. Every day when I get up in the White House and go to the Oval
Office to work. I think about the people I met here and people like them all over America
whose quiet courage and determination inspires me to keep fighting to restore die middle
class and the fundamental strength and purpose of this country. I'll never forget people like
Ron Macos, Jr., who couldn't get a job with health insurance because his little boy, had open
heart surgery. And when the First Lady's health care task force presents the national health
ere proposal in the next few weeks to the Congress, if that proposal passes, the Ron Macoses
of this world will be able to keep working and raising their children in the future. I'll never
forget a young woman I met named Emily Teabold, who was a senior in high school when I
met her. Her father lost his job in New Hampshire, and he spent her entire senior year in
North Carolina, because that's the closest place he could find a job. I met a man here named
David Springs, who was a month away from having his pension vested when he was fired
from his company because people who owned his company sold it out in one of these
leverage deals. And they bailed out with a golden parachute to a happy life and left their
employees on the rocks. I remember some stories of courage, too. I went to Clairmont and
met the people who were working in the American Brush Company, trying to help revive that
community. And I tried to help them find some customers for their products. I remember
going to Manchester and visiting a company called Envirotote that made bags that we wound
up buying all during the campaign and giving out with our little Clinton-Core stickers on, all
across the country. I saw people who were trying to make this country work again and trying
to make New Hampshire a beacon of opportunity again. Most of the people I saw, for all
their hurts, never lost their hopes. And I'm here today to thank you for not losing yours, for
going through this program and believing in it. Your president said something I want to
reiterate. For most of the 20th century there's been a big division in our minds about what
kind of learning counts and what kind of learning doesn't count as much, the big division »
between what is vocational and what is academic, between what is practical and what is
intellectual. In the last few years really smart people realize that that's a bogus distinction
�and that we have seen all over the world, and especially here in America, the line drawn
down between the vocational and the academic, between the practical and the intellectual.
All work requires knowledge, and it's not so bad ff it has a practical application. That is
what you have proved here. So here we are with you. You have done our job. You have
done anything that could asked of you. Many of you have done this at great personal
sacrifice. I wonder how many of you have gotten up in the morning wondering about what
you were going to do for child care that day, wondering about whether you should keep doing
this given the fact that it costs money and the unemployment rate in the State is above the
national average, wondering about all kinds of uncertainties. You have done it. You have
done your job. You have now arightto ask what is our job. What can you expect of your
country? What can you expect of your Government? What is our job? If you have been
responsible, what opportunities should you be able to claim? Our job is to try to put your
values and your dreams into law and into facts. It means we have to have a new economic
policy that recognizes that for 20 years, through the administrations of Democrats and
Republicans alike, most working people have been working harder for lower hourly pay, one
that recognizes that for a long time we have been the only advanced industrial country that
didn't provide basic health care to all of our citizens, the only one that puts people in the trap
of not being able to change jobs if anybody in their family has ever been sick, because
they've got a preexisting condition that will cost them their health insurance ff they change
jobs. That's a huge handicap in a world where the average 18-year-old will change work eight
times in a lifetime. And where, became of global competition, most new jobs are created by
small businesses that are coming into existence and going out of existence all the time. And
then, for 12 years we have seen our national debt go from $ 1 trillion to $ 4 trillion and our
national investment in many things that are critical to our future go down. So we're spending
less on what we should be spending money on, and costs are exploding. You have a right to
better than that. You have arightto an economic policy that puts our peoplefirst,our jobs,
policy that brings this deficit down so that we are not crushed and paralyzed with it into your
children's lifetime with high interest rates and a mortgaged future. You have a right
to be treated fairly and to be given a chance to make it. You have a right to live in a country
where everybody is given a chance to make it, which is not prejudiced against the wealthy we don't like to be that way - but gives those who aren't, a fair chance to earn their due.
That is what you have arightto. And that is what you do not have today. We are doing our
best in Washington to turn that around, to get control of the deficit, to bring it down, to invest
in those things that will create more jobs, and to guarantee over the longrun that we'll have
jobs and incomes and health care that will justify the efforts you have made by going through
this program. That is our responsibility. I've asked the United States Congress to adopt a
program that begins with spending cuts, starting with a reduction in my own staff, a reduction
in the size of the Federal Government by 150,000 over the next 4 years, big cuts in the
administrative budgets, and asking the Federal employees to accept a wage freeze and lower
increases in later years so that we can bring the deficit down. I have asked also that more
than 200 other spending programs be cut, including the entitlements that have so much
special-interest support. Second it is clear to anyone who studies this problem that we need
new revenues also to bring the deficit down. I've asked those who can best afford to pay,
whose taxes went down in the 1980's, the wealthiest Americans, to pay most of what we need
to raise. Over 74 percent of my tax program comes from the top 6 percent of income earners.
I also have proposed an energy tax which most Americans will pay. It is one that's called a
�BTU tax which will help promote conservation and the use of the most clean and fuel
efficient fuels. But listen to the way it works: Because we offer income tax cuts to working
families with incomes under $ 30,000, those will offset the impact of the energy tax. And for
larger families under $ 25,000, there will even be a relief in the tax burden. For people with
incomes above $ 30,000, at $ 40,000 and $ 50,000 and $ 60,000, here's what it costs. You're
entitled to know in plain language. Next year it costs a dollar a month per family. The next
year after that, $ 7 a month; and the next year after that, depending on the size of your
family, between $ 14 and $ 17 a month. You have to decide ff it's worth it to bring the deficit
down. But let me tell you, au the tax increases and the spending cuts will be put in a trim
fund so that they can't be used to de anything but bring the deficit down. And we can't have
the taxes without the spending cuts. That's what the budget resolution that was adopted a few
weeks ago means. We must cut spending. So we're going to de that, both things. Now, is it
worth it? You have to be the judge. But let me ask you just to consider this. Since
November, since we made it dear that we were going to try to attack this deficit and after the
announcement had been made after the election that the deficit over the next 4 years would be
over $ 160 billion bigger than we were told before the election. Since November, long-term .
interest rates have dropped. Millions of Americans have already benefited by refinancing
their home mortgages, refinancing business loans. Many others will benefit by lower interest
rates on car loans or consumer loans or student loans. If just someone here has refinanced a
home loan since November, in all probability, depending on the size of the mortgage, you
will save more in 1 year than you will pay in 4 years in the energy tax. I think it is worth it
to keep the interest rates down and to drive the deficit down. But you have to decide that.
There's a third way that we're trying to make some fundamental changes. Just as we stop
spending money on things we don't need, I think we do have to invest some in what we do
need. A lot of you, just in order to get through this program, had to cut back on some of the
things that you would like to have spent money on. A lot of you made meaningful financial
sacrifices in your own family life just to set here today so you could wear the cap and gown.
I know that. But you've been wise to make that decision. Because of the investments you've
made in education and training, in the years ahead you'll be able to do more of the things that
you gave up doing in the ~ last 2 years. You'll able to provide more opportunities for your
children. You'll be able to build a stronger family unit with a stronger family future. That's
what we're also trying to do. This program offers dramatic increases in incentives for small
businesses to invest money, to become more productive and hire new people, to invest in
research and development, tofindnew products. It offers dramatic incentives to people to try
to end the real estate depression that has gripped New England and southern Florida and
California anti many other places. It offers real incentives for people to invest in new
businesses, the biggest in the history of America, for people to try theft hand in starting new
businesses. It offers an investment in new technologies, in defense conversion for all these
people around America who have lost their jobs because of defense cutbacks. And it attempts
to establish a transition from school to work so that everybody, by the time we finish this
program, who graduates from high school, who doesn't go to a 4-year college, would at least
have the clear opportunity to moverightinto a 2-year program like this one so they don't lose
time becoming productive and able to earn the best wages they can earn. I think that is a
good investment in our future. In other words, what I think our Government owes you is to
move beyond the two dichotomies that have argued so long in Washington, in what I think is
a very stale way. One says, "Well, you're out there on your own and all we've got to do is
�make sure we don't spend a nickel to see the cow jump over the moon." The other says,
"We'll take care of you. We can do things for you. Don't you worry about it." Neither one
of those approaches is fight. We can't entitle people to something that they won't work for.
But neither can we turn our back on the plain responsibility of the United States to provide
opportunity for people who will work for it. We have to empower people to seize what they
are willing to seize. You have done your part; now we have to do ours. I want to emphasize
again for the majority of people who do not go on to a 4-year college, it is imperative that we
join the ranks of the other high-wage countries and provide a system by which 100 percent of
them at least know they have the opportunity to move into a program like the one that you
have been a part of. It is imperative. Why? Because just as what you earn depends on what
you can leam, what America does in terms of growing jobs depends on bow functional all the
people in this country are. We don't have a person to waste. There ought to be twice as
many people here today as there are at this graduation ceremony. And if there were, the
economy of New Hampshire and the United States would be stronger as a result. I also
believe very strongly that the United States ought to make available on terms everybody can
afford the funds that people need to borrow tofinancetheir education to 9 or 4-year schools.
And we have proposed to change the whole basis of the way the student loan program works:
to lower interest rates, number one; and number two, to make available loans and then let
people pay them back after they go to work and as a percentage of their income, so that
people not be discouraged from borrowing money today with the fear that they won't be able
to pay it back if they get a job, especially if they get a job with a modest wage. You ought
to be able to pay it back as a limited percentage of your income. It will make a huge
difference. Now, I believe these policies together will restore the sense of optimism to middle
class America that we need. The idea that we can create jobs, that people who work at jobs
can raise their incomes over time if they continue to improve their education on and their
productivity. And if we can do that and deal with the health care issue, we can restore a
sense of possibility to America. I don't pretend that this will be easy, that the progress will be
uninterrupted, that nothing had will happen. As I said at the beginning, some of what
happens to us economically here in this country depends on what is happening to all these
other countries around the world. A big percentage of the new jobs we've gotten in the last S
years have come from trade. We won't get many if Europe and Japan are flat on their back.
But a lot of what happens to us depends upon what we do here. And you're entitled, having
done your part, to know that your Government has done its part. It may not happen
overnight. A lot of these economic trends have been developing for 20 years. The political
policies that we seek to change have been developing for a dozen years. And I must say, it is
much easier to tell people that I'm going to cut your taxes and spend more money on
everything than to say we're going to have to raise some money and spend less money on
most things. A lot of the easy things have been done, but I want you to believe that we can
do it. We have made a good beginning. Here's something that can affect you. After years of
arguing, wefinallypassed the family leave bill that says you can get some time off when a
baby is bom or somebody's sick without losing your job. I signed last week the motor voter
bill, which opens up the political process to easier registration, because another young student
from New Hampshire got me to sign a card when I was here saying that I'd do my best to
pass it if I got elected President. But changing this economy is a hard job. It requires a lot of
discipline, and it requires our patience and concentrated effort, yours and mine, over a long'
period of time. But we can do it. We can do it. The work of change is never easy. But you
�have proved you weren't afraid to change. The average student here is 30 years old. I can
remember when I was your age. A lot of people would have been embarrassed to go back to
school when they're 30. Now we've got people going back to school when they're 70. And
let me tell you something: You must remain unafraid to change. You must remain unafraid to
change. Many of you will have to go through retraining programs when you're in your midto late fifties. You should look at that as a great opportunity to live a rich and diverse and
interesting life. If we can do what we should do at the national level to reward the efforts you
are making, then change can be your friend and not your enemy. The heartbreaking thing I
saw in New Hampshire all during the primary season last year and in 1001 was how many
people had been victimized by change. I cannot repeal the laws of change. No person can.
Our common challenge is to preserve the values of work and family and community and
reward for effort in the midst of all this change. You have done your part You should be
proud of yourselves today, and you should commit yourselves to continue to work to make
sure that change is your friend and that you are rewarded for the extraordinary and
courageous efforts you have made. God bless you, and good luck.
NOTE: The President spoke at 11:05 a.m. In his remarks, he referred to college president Jane
Power Kilcoyne. A tape was not available for verification of the content of these remarks.
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
LOAD-DATE-MDC: February 18, 1994
�3
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61
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EiJ
PHOTOCOPY
PRESERVATION
�Public Papers of the Presidents
May 29, 1993
CITE: 29 Weekly Comp. Pres. Doc. 995
LENGTH: 2662 words
HEADLINE: Remarks at the United States Military Academy Commencement Ceremony in
West Point, New York
BODY:
Thank you very much. Please be seated. General Graves, thank you for that fine introduction
and for your outstanding leadership here. General Sullivan and the distinguished platform
guests, distinguished guests, all the families and guests of this graduating class, and most of
all, to the young men and women of the Corps of Cadets, it is a great privilege for me today
to join in this celebration of accomplishment. To the class of 1993,1 want to extend my
heartfelt congratulations. You've worked hard, and you've well earned the honor bestowed
upon you today. To your parents and your relatives, let me assure you that however often
you've wondered about it, you really aren't dreaming. Your sons and daughters, your brothers
and sisters really made it. And you can take pride in their graduation and in the strong values
that you must have helped to instill in them that made this day possible for them. To the
faculty and staff of this wonderful Academy, let me offer my gratitude for your dedication as
this historic institution graduates its 50,000th cadet. It is said here at West Point that much of
the history you teach was made by the people you taught. That's true and very much to your
credit. The work you and your predecessors have carried forward since 1802 is truly that of
nation-building, and today your Nation thanks you once again. For the class of 1993, today
marks the completion of an arduous process. I look out at you and think you endured Beast
Barracks. You passed countless PT tests, none of which I could pass anymore. [Laughter]
You have met high standards for discipline, for physical fitness, for academics, and I must
say, I am impressed by your haircuts. [Laughter] No one is perfect, of course, as even the
President demonstrates from time to time. I'm reminded that one of your greatest graduates
and one of my predecessors as Commander in Chief, General Dwight Eisenhower, was
punished as a cadet for such terrible offenses as, I quote, "apparently making no reasonable
effort to have his room properly cleaned at a.m. inspection," and ~ I wonder what a
"reasonable effort" is — and second, "being late for breakfast." In the unlikely event that there
have been any such breaches of discipline on your part, let me announce today that in
keeping with customary practice, I exercise my prerogative as Commander in Chief to grant
amnesty to the Corps of Cadets. [Applause] I hope the assembled crowd is not too troubled
that so many seem to be celebrating. [Laughter] Two centuries ago at this bend in the Hudson
River, America's first defenders stretched a chain across theriverto prevent British ships
from dividing and conquering our new Nation. Today we add 1,003 new links to that
unbroken chain of America's defenders, 1,003 new and solid segments in the Long Gray Line,
a line that stretches back 191 years through your ranks and as far into the future as the Lord
lets the United States of America exist. The Long Gray Line has never failed us, and I
'
believe it never will. Like the great chain itself, you have emerged from the forge, tested and
�tempered, composed of a stronger metal than you brought here. Forty-eight months ago, you
came here as young adults. Today when you leave this stadium, you will be officers of the
United States Army. West Point has prepared you for a life of service. And as you well
know, West Point's graduates have served American in many, many ways, not only by leading
troops into combat but also by exploring frontiers, founding universities, laying out the
railroad, building the Panama Canal, running corporations, serving in the Congress and in the
White House, and walking on the moon. Yet, no service is more important or admirable than
your simple decision to put on the uniform of this great Nation and to serve wherever
America calls you in defense of freedom. The willingness to serve and sacrifice for the
greater good is the ultimate tribute to your character and your efforts. For those services and
sacrifices, those that brought you here and those that will take you and our great nati6n into
the future, you have the appreciation of all the American people. You have stepped forward
not only to serve but to lead. For the hallmark of West Point has been its tradition of growing
leaders of character. Whenever the Nation called, members of the Long Gray Line have led
the way. Your predecessors led tight-lipped troops into the smoke and flame of battle at
Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. They were the first out of the muddy trenches into the
attack at the Meuse-Argonne. They led the first wave'of assaults from Normandy. They held
the line at Pusan and were first off the helicopters in the la Drang Valley and the Iron
Triangle. More recent graduates were among those who jumped into Panama and led the
charge into Iraq. And the corps was there as well when the call came from the victims of
hunger, when the call came from the victims of Hurricane Andrew. From Florida to Somalia,
you have been there. The 172 battle streamers on the Army flag commemorate the skill and
courage of those who have gone before you. Marked and unmarked graves around the world
testify to the corps' selfless devotion to country. Your steadfast commitment to duty, honor,
country is our national strength. My commitment and that of the Congress and the American
people is to stand by you. That means before we ask you to put your life and the lives of
those whom you command in harm's way, it is our solemn responsibility to take your advice,
to give you the tools you need, and then to give you our complete support. That is our
pledge to you as you enter this career. You are pinning on your gold bars at a time of
remarkable challenge and change for the United States. On this Memorial Day weekend, we
all pray that we have sent America's sons and daughters to war for the last time. Yet, history
suggests that during your years of service, we will again need to call upon America's weapons
and warriors to defend our national interests. The changes of recent years allow us to be
hopeful. But common sense reminds us to be prepared. One way we must be prepared is by
ensuring that our forces have what they need to get the job done, the equipment and the
quality people needed to ensure that we can achieve decisive victory should we be called to
battle once again. As our forces must change to meet the challenges and dangers of a new
world, one need will remain constant, the requirement for leaders of character. You will be
called upon in many ways in this era: to keep the peace, to relieve suffering, to help teach
officers from new democracies in the ways of a democratic army, and still to fulfill the
fundamental mission which General MacArthur reminded us of, which is always to be ready
to win our wars. But whatever the challenge, I know you will accomplish your mission, not
only because of your training but because of your values and character. I will do my part by
doing whatever is necessary to keep our forces ready ~ and to keep our microphones up.
[Laughter] I will do my part — and I think the Congress will, too — to make sure that our
forces are always ready tofightand win on a moment's notice. We ought, really, to meet the
�standard of one of your classmates. Pat Malcolm, who came in the clutch and delivered the
goods for you. If we can do that, you will be able to serve. If you have the character and
will to win, we owe it to you to make you the best trained, the best prepared, the best
equipped, and the best supported fighting force on the face of the earth. The budget cuts that
have come at the end of the cold war were necessary, even welcome, appropriate in light of
the collapse of the Soviet Union and other changes. But we must be mindful, even as we try
so hard to reduce this terrible national deficit, that there is a limit beyond which we must not
go. We have to ensure that the United States is ready, ready to win and superior to all other
military forces in the world. In doing that, we can ensure that the values you learned here and
the values you brought here from your families and your communities back home will be able
to spread throughout this country and throughout the world and give other people the
opportunity to live as you have lived, to fulfill your God-given capacities. We must also stay
prepared by understanding the threats of this new era. We can't predict the future. We
cannot tell precisely when the next challenge will come or exactly what form it will take.
Yet, we do know that the threats we face are fundamentally different from those of the recent
past. The end of the bipolar superpower cold war leaves us with unfamiliar threats, not the
absence of danger. Consider what we witness today in the world you will move into: ethnic
and religious conflict, the violent turmoil of dissolving or newly created states, the random
violence of the assassin and the terrorist. These are forces that plagued the world in the early
days of this century. As we scan today's bloodiest conflicts, from the former Soviet Union
and Yugoslavia to Armenia to Sudan, the dynamics of the cold war have been replaced by
many of the dynamics of old war. A particularly troubling new element in the world you
face, however, is the proliferation around the globe of weapons of mass destruction and the
means for their delivery. Today, ambitious and violent regimes seek to acquire arsenals of
nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare. As we discovered in Iraq, surging stocks of ballistic
missiles and other advanced arms have enabled outlaw nations to extend the threat of mass
destruction a long way beyond their own borders. And meeting these new threats will require
a new approach and a new determination shared by all peace-loving nations to oppose the
spread of these dread weapons. In the coming months, our administration will address the
dangers from growing stockpiles of nuclear materials that could be used in these weapons and
theriskof nuclear smuggling and terrorism. We will soon begin negotiations on a
comprehensive test ban treaty which will increase our political leverage to combat this
proliferation. We will reform our export controls to keep weapons-related technologies out of
the wrong hands, while cutting redtape for legitimate American export activities. And we
must make further changes in how we organize the Government to reflect the priority that we
place on nonproliferation. For, if we must contemplate the possibility of sending America's
men and women once again into harm's way, then we owe it to you to do our best to prevent
the proliferation of weapons that could vastly multiply the dangers and the casualties of any
conflict. Ultimately, preparedness lies in strength. And if our Nation is to be strong abroad, it
must also be strong at home. It was President Eisenhower who once said, "A strong economy
is the physical basis, the physical basis of all our military power." One of the most potent
weapons behind our victory in World War n was the industrial might of the United States.
What ultimately enabled us to prevail in the cold war was the simple fact that our free
'political and economic institutions had produced more prosperity and more personal human
happiness than did the confining institutions of communism. In the same way our global era
leadership must, must depend on our ability to create jobs and growth and opportunity for
�Americans here at home who, in turn, will have thefinancesto make sure we can maintain
the world's strongest military. Unfortunately, for too many years in this new global economy,
we have had difficulty maintaining opportunity at home. In the face of intense competition
around the world and the now-familiar problems we have in the United States, our debt has
grown from $ 1 trillion to $ 4 trillion, even as we have reduced military spending and
investments in areas that are crucial to our future in new technologies, in education and
training, and in converting defense cutbacks into domestic economic opportunities. Today we
face an especially troubling phenomenon that the United States has never faced before at
home: slow economic-growth which does not create new jobs. We must be repeated in the
future. Just as our security cannot rest upon a hollow army, neither can it rest upon a hollow
economy. If we are to sustain the American way of life that you have been trained so well do
defend, we must do more and do better. We must cultivate the teacher who can hold her
class' attention, encourage the entrepreneur who bets his savings on his own ideas. We must
dorightby the middle class families of this country who work hard and play by the rules.
We must pay down the deficit and make downpayments on the future, both at the same time,
honoring work, rewarding investment, and sharpening our competitive edge. If you can win
on the battlefield, surely American can win in everyfieldof competition we must face as we
march toward the 21st century. That is the great challenge facing our country. And the
Congress today is facing that challenge in dealing with the economic plan I have presented
The House of Representatives, led by concerned Americans like Congressman Jack Reed, who
is the only West Point graduate in the United States Congress, has sent a plan to the Senate
which now must be produced from the Senate in the form of an economic plan to bring this
country back. In this new era, those of us in political life need a new strategy, need sound
tactics, need the kind of discipline in implementing it that all of you have learned to provide
for our Nation's defense here at West Point. In short, we must approach the job of rebuilding
our Nation with the same kind of single-minded determination that you have brought your
skills, your dedication, and leadership ability to in these 4 years and that you will bring to the
defense of our Nation in the years ahead. We can do no less for you. Finally, let me say this.
Someday, some of you out there will be sitting in the Situation Room at the White House or
with the President or with the Secretary of Defense in some other circumstance. At that
moment you will be called to give your advice on an issue which may be small but also may
be large and of incredible significance to the future of this country. I ask you in all the years
ahead to keep preparing for that day throughout your careers by continuing study and
continuous listening and continuous absorption of every experience you have. The world is
changing rapidly, and if you do not work to make change our friend, then it can become our
enemy. Your represent the very best of the American people. It will be your understanding
of our Nation's challenges and your embodiment of our Nation's values, enriched by what you
have learned here, leavened by the experiences to come, bound by your commitment to
"Duty, Honor, Country" which will permit you to make our greatest, contribution to the
Nation: continuing service. You have earned your turn to lead, to follow in the footsteps of
those who have been on the Plain before you. Over the past 4 years, your Nation has invested
heavily in you. The skills and dedication you now bring to the defense of our Nation are
more than ample repayment. I am proud of the work you do, honored to serve as your
Commander in Chief, confident that all Americans join me in saluting your achievement, and
very, very optimistic about the future of our Nation in your hands. Good luck. God bless
�you, and God bless America.
NOTE: The President spoke at 10:20 a.m. in Michie Stadium. In his remarks, he referred to
Lt. Gen. Howard D. Graves, USA, Superintendent, U.S. Military Academy; Gen. Gordon R.
Sullivan, USA, Chief of Staff, U.S. Army; and Pat Malcolm, who kicked the winning field
goal in the 1992 Army-Navy football game. LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
LO AD-D ATE-MDC: February 18, 1994
�PHOTOCOPY
PRESERVATION
�Public Papers of the Presidents
June 19, 1993
CITE: 29 Weekly Comp. Pres. Doc. 1120
LENGTH: 2350 words
HEADLINE: Remarks at the Northeastern University Commencement Ceremony in Boston,
Massachusetts
BODY:
Thank you very much. I must tell you, I have marched in many of these processions over
the years. I don't think I ever marched in one that made me any happier than when we were
coming down this line and all of you were giving me the "high five." And when we arrived
here on the podium, I turned to Senator Kennedy, and I said, "Those are the people I ran for
President to help. I'm glad to see them here today."
I want to say a special word of thanks to President Curry, to the faculty and staff for the
honorary degree arid the invitation to come. To Senator Kennedy and Senator Kerry,
Congressman Frank and Congressman Meehan, to Mayor Flynn, and to my good friend
Governor Dukakis, and all others who are here, but especially to the graduates and their
families. I am so pleased to be here in the Boston Garden with you here today. I'm also glad
to be here with someone who's spent a lot of time thinking about the graduates' future, the
Secretary of Labor, Bob Reich, whose wife, Clare Dalton, is on the faculty here at
Northeastern. Glad to be here.
I know it's warm, and I don't want to prolong the introductory remarks, or any of them, for
that matter. But since President Curry mentioned Senator Kennedy's role in student financial
aid, I can't help but note that in the last few months, of all the Members in the United States
Congress, one stands out at having achieved a phenomenal amount of support from
Republicans and Democrats for initiatives to make this country a better place. For out of
Senator Kennedy's committee, with big votes form Republicans and Democrats, have come
the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, to give people the right to have a little time off
when a baby is bom or a parent is sick; a bill that will require the National Institute of Health
to give far greater attention than ever before to issues affecting women's health and their
children's; a bill that will enable us to immunize all the children of this country against
serious childhood diseases; a bill that will set national academic standards for our public
schools, to deal with what the former speaker said we needed to do before you get to college;
and finally, the national service and student loan bills, which will open college education to
all Americans by providing loans on more generous terms and allowing them to be repaid as
a percentage of your earnings, no matter how much you borrow, so you'll never go broke
repaying your loans, and allowing more young people to pay them back with service to thei^
communities. All of that came through Senator Kennedy's committee.
�I want to congratulate all of you who've survived this 5-year program, and also I want to
congratulate you on surviving the Boston traffic jams. That's the second greatest example of
gridlock in the United States. [Laughter]
I want to say, too, that I treasure a degree from an institution that really exalts public
service, not only by elected officials but by private citizens as well. This year I received
more than 200 invitations to address graduating classes. But Northeastern stood out to me
because I believe you are a symbol of the American dream, built on education and work and
community service, blending work and learning, having partnerships with the private sector in
this wonderful community of yours to build people, which is, after all, the only real product
America has ever been able to depend upon.
When I was working so hard to put together this provision of student aid to make college
loans available to all on lower interest rates and better repayment terms and to let more
people repay their loans through community service either before or during or after college, it
was students like you that I had in mind: hard-working, good people from either middle class
families that could otherwise not afford a college education or from poorer families who want
to work their way into a better life. You symbolize the very thing that America has always
been about and that we must today get back to if we're going to revitalize this great Nation.
And I'm very proud to be hear with you today.
I can also tell you that I was deeply impressed by Doug Luffborough, and if I could sing
like him I wouldn't be up here today as President. I read an article about Doug and his
mother and his family and his trials in working his way through college before I came here.
In the article he said he planned to invite himself and his mother to the White House.
[Laughter] Well, I'm going to beat him to the punch. I'd like for Doug and hi smother to
come to the White House.
If any man in America knows what having a good, hard-working, strong, loving, and
disciplining mother can mean, I certainly do. I know it can make all die difference in the
world, as it did for Doug and as it has for me. I think it would be appropriate just sort of as
a symbol of all the parents who are here if Doug's mother, Mrs. Elsa Luffborough Mensah,
would stand up. I think she's over there. Stand up! Give her a hand. See her up there in
the white dress? [Applause]
I must tell you, ma'am, there are a lot of people of great an famous achievement who will
never know the pride you must have felt when your son stood up here earlier today. I
thought it was unbelievable, and I appreciate what you did.
To all of you graduates here at Northeastern, because this is the largest co-op school in the
Nation, you are a breed apart. By having the chance to work for 2 years in yourfieldas you
have earned your degree, you have experienced a world that many others of your counterparts
all across America only anticipate when they walk up and get their degree. You embody the
growing unity in this country between work and learning, based on the clear understanding.'.
that the average American must now change work eight times in a lifetime and what you earn
depends upon what you can leam. Still, even with the jump your co-op education in this fine
�place has given you, some of you must be wondering whether you'll be able to find the right
job or any job.
I came here to tell you something very simple and straightforward: You have done your
part, and you deserve the opportunity to have that job and to make a better life for yourself
For years and years, the challenges of the global economy and our inadequate responses to
them have put unbelievable pressure on middle class families and middle class values. Most
people have worked harder for less and paid more for education, for health care, for housing.
For most of the 1980's, those with less than 2 years of post-high school education actually
saw their incomes drop as they worked longer and longer work weeks. And in the last couple
of years, even college graduates have begun to have a difficult time finding good jobs with
growing incomes.
Still, we know what works. We know that in this global economy, a good education
works. We know that investment in new technology works. We know that when business
and workers and Government are cooperating for high productivity, that works. We know
that grassroots effort to build strong and safe communities and to give every person a chance
work.
A lot of Americans have worked on that, but we have not done it as a nation. For more
than a dozen years we have spent too much time from the top down-having our leaders just
tell us what we want to hear, that taxes are bad and somebody else's spending is bad, but
spending on you is good. And so we've seen the debt go from $ 1 trillion to $ 4 trillion, our
deficit go from $ 74 billion to $ 300 billion a year. And unbelievably, our investment at the
national level in the things that make us a rich country has not even kept up with inflation:
investment in education, in environmental cleanup, in the new technologies that will permit us
to convert from a defense-based to a domestic high-tech economy. We have not done what we
ought to have done there. We have underinvested and still seen much of our future eroded by
a massive debt.
We have come to a time, my fellow Americans, when we have to bring to our public life a
nation the same brutal honesty that Doug's mother brought to him when she refused to let his
difficult circumstances be an excuse not to succeed. We have to take as a people the same
kind of advice your student speaker gave to you: Let's don't say, "I could have. I should
have. I would have." Let's say, "We can. We will." And let's get about doing it.
We are beginning to move this country, taking down the obstacles to progress and
prosperity, putting our economic house in order, moving toward providing a national plan to
provide affordable, quality health care to all of America's families and children, preparing
ourselves to compete in the global economy. We have a long road to travel, but we see some
hopeful signs.
Because of the progress of the economic plan that I have presented to the Congress to bring
down our deficit and increase investment in our people, interest rates have dropped to a
20-year low. That means that when you bring down the deficit and bring down interest rates,
�you free up money to be invested in productive things. What do lower interest rates mean?
They mean lower home mortgages. They mean lower business loans. They mean lower
consumer loans and car loans. They mean money that can grow the economy and create jobs.
And it also means the Government doesn't have to spend so much of your tax money paying
interest on the debt and can pay more financing college loans and an economic future that is
worthy of the effort you have made to get here to this place today.
In the first 4 months of this administration, over three-quarters of a million jobs were added
to this economy. But we have to finish the job. The United States Senate is now coming to
grips with the economic plan. It brings down our national deficit $ 500 billion over 5 years.
And for every $ 10 we cut that deficit, $ 5 comes from spending cuts, $ 3.75 comes from the
wealthiest Americans whose taxes have reduced in the 1980's, and $ 1.25 comes from the
middle class. Two-thirds of the tax burden comes form people with incomes above $ 200,000
because they can best afford to pay.
Now, there are some lobbyists and some legislators who don't like the plan, and they say
things that are popular, not the kind of things that your parents told you when you had to
kind of take a deep breath and go on but popular. They say, "More cuts, less taxes," but no
details. No details. Then when you look at the details, you find that the details hurt the
middle class, the working poor, the vulnerable elderly, do less to create jobs and ensure our
world economic leadership.
So I say to you, we ought to ask of every American, what is your real alternative, not
rhetoric, not chants that sound good, but give the American people as a whole the same sort
of truth that every one of your families gave you or you wouldn't be here today, that's what
you're entitled to, and that's what I'm determined to give you as President of the United
States.
My job is to make your future worthy of the efforts that brought you here today, to try to
help to create a national interest that triumphs over anybody's special interests. You have
done your part. It is now time for the leadership of this country to do ours.
I ask you only to remember here the lessons you have learned here and the lessons which
have already been repeated. Nobody can create for you an opportunity you are not capable of
seizing. If you don't continue to leam throughout a lifetime, you can still be left behind.
And nobody in this country can fully succeed until more of this country succeeds. We do not
walk alone. We walk as families, as communities, as neighborhoods, and as a nation, and we
had better start acting like it. We are going up or down together, and we need to go forward.
In 1960, in November, President Kennedy delivered the last speech of his Presidential
campaign here in the Boston Garden. He talked of, I quote, "the contest between the
comfortable and the concerned, between those who believe we should rest and lie at anchor,
and drift and those who want to move this country forward." That contest is not over, and it
never will be. But at each critical juncture in our Nation's history, whether a new generation
�of Americans are willing to take up that challenge laid down 33 years ago by President
Kennedy.
One of the most distinguished citizens Massachusetts ever produced was Oliver Wendell
Holmes. He joined the Massachusetts infantry during the Civil War, and he lived to have a
conversation with President Franklin Roosevelt 60 years later. Holmes said that a person
must be involved in the action and passion of his time for fear of being judged not to have
lived. Well, my fellow Americans, the action and passion of your time is to restore the
American dream and to make it real for everyone who is willing to do what you have done in
coming here today.
When I was in college - and I just celebrated my 25th reunion - I had a remarkable
teacher who said that the most important idea in our culture was the idea that the future could
be better than the present and that each of us has a personal moral responsibility to make it
so.
And I tell you, when I walked down that aisle today and I saw your enthusiasm, your
energy, your intelligence, your love for life, your excitement today, I thought to myself, you
deserve that. You deserve that. But only you can provide it. And so I say to you today, let
us all, form the President to the students, to the parents, to every person who works in this
great land, resolve to do our part to make sure that we have exercised our personal moral
responsibility to make your future better than the present.
God bless you, and good luck.
NOTE: The President spoke at 10:55 am. in the Boston Garden. In his remarks, he referred
to John A. Curry, president of the university, and Douglas Luffborough HI, student
commencement speaker.
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
�PHOTOCOPY
PRESERVATION
�March 21, 1995
MEMORANDUM TO MARK GEARAN
FROM:
RUSSELL HORWITZ
RE:
1994 Commencement Addresses
LOCATION
President Clinton gave commencement addresses at the following three schools in 1994:
•
Gallaudet University, May 13, 1994
•
University of California at Los Angeles, May 20, 1994
•
United States Naval Academy, May 25, 1994
THEME
While the President's 1993 commencement addresses focused quite heavily on the economy.
Administration accomplishments and initiatives, and the responsibilities of the government, the
1994 commencement addresses all touched on the theme of the personal responsibilities and
commitment these students will be confronted with in the future. The President cited each of the
graduating classes as examples of the type of "renewal that all America needs today." [Gallaudet
University 5/13/94] In the UCLA speech, the President asked the students, "What will the attitude
ofyour generation be, and how will you approach the future that is before you?" Similar to the
question posed at UCLA, the President suggested at Annapolis that the "question which hangs
over your head is the question of what your generation will accomplish.."
Both the Gallaudet and UCLA speeches touched on the AmeriCorps program and the importance
of embracing diversity and differences. In all three speeches, the President spoke of the need for
the younger generation to take personal responsibility to safeguard and improve the country's
future. The Naval Academy speech was largely concerned with foreign policy matters,
specifically the great transformations taking place in the world arena, the need for an effective and
adequately sized military force, and U.S. policy vis a vis Bosnia.
»
"The government is a partner, but the people, the people realize the possibility of this
country and ensure its continuation from generation to generation." — Gallaudet
University, May 13, 1994
•
"The future is not an inheritance, it is an opportunity and an obligation. It is something
you have to make in every generation, and it will be your achievement, not only for
yourselves individually but for your generation, for your community, andfor the larget
community that is America." - University of California at Los Angeles, May 20, 1994
�"The challenge for your generation is to remember the deeds of those who have served
before you and now to build on their work in a new and very different world. The world
wars are over. The Cold War has been won Now it is our job to win the peace." United States Naval Academy, May 25, 1994
COMMENTARY
The 1994 commencement addresses were received very warmly by the media. The President's call
for Americans to take personal responsibility for rebuilding both community and their
communities was seen as a notable and worthy use of the office. William Raspberry noted, "It is
Clinton at his best." Yet, Raspberry argues that for journalists of the hard-news variety, "// is
Clinton at his most unreportable. There's no 'lede' in these philosophical ruminations, no matter
how revealing they may be of the workings of his mind There's no proposal to bounce off the
opposition, no program to cast out, no votes to count." fChicaeo Tribune. 5/31/941
Douglas Jehl of the New York Times wrote that the President's emphasis on value-based themes
has "served to inject new variety into addresses that in recent months had become repetitious
soliloquies on health care and crime..." [5/21/94] David Broder noted that the President "voiced
an anxiety about the mind-set of members of their audience that is...widely shared " [Houston
Chronicle, 5/30/94]
"With an almost evangelical tone, the speeches have suggested that Americans must do as
individuals what government cannot do for them," penned David Richter of the Los Angeles
Times. [5/21/94] The Boston Globe's David Shribman opined that, "For all the troubles this
president has, he has returned time and again to the very subjects on which his critics judge him
most vulnerable: fairness, accountability, community, conscience, honesty. This, in its way, is a
measure of character." [5/21/94]
*
Gallaudet University
Under the headline, "Audience Signs Approval of President's Words," Ann Devroy of the
Washington Post wrote that the "ceremony was moving in its unusualness," while Paul
Bedard of the Washington Times reported that the President "did not hint of the problems
facing him in the Oval Office," but instead, "focused on the problems andfuture of the
class of '94. [5/14/94, 5/20/94]
UCLA
Calling the speech "Kennedyesque," the New York Times reported that the President
"served striking notice of his intent to use the Presidency to preach not just about what
government should do, but also what American must do." [5/21/94] In an editorial, the
Christian Science Monitor argued that the President "used his bully pulpit to good effect"
[5/24/94]
�Naval Academy
Most of the reaction to this speech was concerned with the President's statements on
Bosnia. David Lautter of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the President's "sharpened
rhetoric marked an escalation of words over Bosnia policy. The move reflects a
realization by White House officials that Clinton needs to take a more active role in
defending his foreign policies." [5/26/94] The San Diego Union-Tribune's Otto Kreisher
described the speech as having "surprising, hard edges." [5/26/94] Douglas Jehl of the
New York Times noted that the President's appearance "brought a reminder of the
awkwardness of his task, as a Commander in Chief who avoided military service himself,
in preparing to celebrate the shining moment of a war fought by his predecessors and
which had ended before he was bom." [5/26/94]
�Hi
feci
f
I|
PHOTOCOPY
PRESERVATION
�Public Papers of the Presidents
May 13, 1994
CITE: 30 Weekly Comp. Pres. Doc. 1061
LENGTH: 2339 words
HEADLINE: Remarks at the Gallaudet University Commencement Ceremony
BODY:
Thank you. Thank you so much for the warm reception and for the honorary degree.
I must tell you at the beginning that I have been deeply moved by the wonderful statements
of your students, Jeanette and Andre. I think they have already said everything I could hope
to say as well or better. And I wish only that I could say it to you in their language as well.
I'm delighted to be here with Dr. Jordan, whom I have admired so much and Dr. Anderson,
a native of my home State; with my great friend and your champion. Senator Tom Harkin;
with many Members of Congress, including Major Owens, who will receive an honorary
degree. Congressman David Bonior, Congressman Steve Gunderson, and your own
Representative in Congress, Eleanor Holmes Norton.
I honor, too, here the presence of those in the disability rights community, the members of
our own administration, but most of all, you the class of 1994, your families, and your
friends. You have come to this extraordinary moment in your own life at a very special
moment in the life of your country and what it stands for.
Everywhere, nations and peoples are struggling to move toward the freedom and democracy
that we take for granted here. Our example is now over 200 years old, but it continues to be
a powerful magnet, pulling people toward those noble goals. This week we all watched and
wondered as a former prisoner stood shoulder to shoulder with his former guards to become a
President of free and democratic South Africa.
Yet each day across the ~ from Bosnia to Rwanda and Burundi, and here in America in
neighborhood after neighborhood, we wonder whether peace and progress will win out over
the divisions of race and ethnicity, of region and religion, over the impulse of violence to
conquer virtue. Each day we are barraged in the news as mutual respect and the bonds of
civility are broken down a little more here at home and around the world.
It is not difficult to find in literature today many who suggest that there are large numbers
of your generation who feel a sense of pessimism about the future. People in my generation
worry about that. They worry whether young people will continue to try to change what is .
wrong, continue to take responsibility for the hard work of renewing the American
community.
�I wish everyone who is worried about America could see your faces today and could have
heard your class speakers today. Our whole history and our own experience in this lifetime
contradict the impulse to pessimism. For those who believe that nothing can change, I say,
look at the experience of Rabin and
Arafat as the police representing the Palestinians begin to move into Gaza and to Jericho. For
those who proclaim there is no future for racial harmony and no hope in our common
humanity, I say, look at the experience of Mandela and de Klerk. For those who believe that
in the end people are so vulnerable to their own weakness they will not have the courage to
preserve democracy and freedom, I say, look to the south of our borders where today of
almost 3 dozen nations in Latin America, all but two, are ruled by democratically elected
leaders.
Here at home, with all of our terrible problems, for every act of craven violence, there are
100 more acts of kindness and courage. To be sure, the work of building opportunity and
community, of maintaining freedom and renewing America's hope in each and every
generation is hard. And it requires of each generation a real commitment to our values, to
our institutions, and to our common destiny.
The students of Gallaudet University who have struggled so mightily, first for simple
dignity and then for equal opportunity, you have built yourselves, and in the process you have
built for the rest of us, your fellow citizens of this country and the world, a much better
world. You have given to all of us our hope. Gallaudet is a national treasure.
It is fitting, as Dr. Anderson said, that President Lincoln granted your charter because he
understood better than others the sacrifices required to preserve a democracy under diversity.
And ultimately, Lincoln gave his life to the cause of renewing our national tights. He signed
your first charter in the midst of the Civil War where he had the vision to see not just
farmland and a tiny school but the fact that we could use education to tear down the walls
between us, to touch and improve lives and lift the spirits of those who for too long had been
kept down.
Over the years, pioneers have built Gallaudet, sustained by generations of students and
faculty, committed to the richness and possibility of the deaf community and the fullness of
the American dream. This school stands for the renewal that all America needs today.
Lincoln's charter was an important law. But let me refer to another great president to make
an equally important point, that just as important as laws are the attitudes that animate our
approach to one another. The president that I'm referring to is your president. King Jordan.
When the Americans with Disabilities Act passed, he said, and I quote, "We now stand at the
threshold of a new era for all Americans, those of us with disabilities and those of us
without." He went on to say that in this pursuit, as in every pursuit of democracy, our task is
to reach out and to educate each other about our possibilities, our capabilities, and who we .
are.
�I ran for President because I thought we were standing on the threshold of a new era, just
as President Jordan says. I felt we were in danger of coming apart when we ought to be
coming together, of arguing too much about going left or right, when we ought to be holding
hands and going forward into the future together. I grew weary of heating people predict that
my own daughter's generation would be the first generation of Americans to do less well than
their parents. I was tired of hearing people say that our country's best days were behind us. I
didn't believe it in 1992, and I sure don't believe it after being here with you today.
My responsibilities to you and your generation are significant. That's why all of us have
worked hard to restore the economy, to reward work, to bring down the deficit, to increase
our trade with other nations, to create more jobs; why we've worked to empower all
Americans to compete and win in a global economy through early education and lifetime
training and learning, through reforming the college loan program, to open the doors of
college to all Americans; why we have worked to strengthen the family through the Family
and Medical Leave Act; why we have worked to create a safer America with the Brady bill
and the ban on assault weapons and putting more police on the street and punishing and
preventing more crime as well.
But I say to you that, in the end, America is a country that has always been carried by its
citizens, not its Government. The Government is a partner, but the people, the people realize
the possibility of this country and ensure its continuation from generation to generation.
I think there is no better symbol of this than the program which I hope will be the enduring
legacy of our efforts to rebuild the American community, the national service program. Six
Gallaudet students, including four members of this class, will be part of our national service
program, Americorps' veryfirstclass of 20,000 volunteers. I am very proud of you for giving
something back to your country.
By joining the Conservation Corps and committing yourselves to rebuild our Nation, by
exercising your freedom and your responsibility to give something back to your country and
earning something for education in return, you have embodied the renewal that America must
seek. As King Jordan reminded us, Government can make good laws, and we need them.
But it can't make good people. In the end, it's our values and our attitudes that make the
difference. Having those values and attitudes and living by them is everyone's responsibility
and our great opportunity.
Look at the changes which have occurred through that kind of effort. Because previous
generations refused to be denied a place at the table simply because others thought they were
different, the world is now open to those of you who graduate today. Most of hearts, your
minds, and your possibilities. For that, we are all in your debt.
Perhaps the greatest moment in the history of this university occurred in 1988 when the
community came together and said, "We will no longer accept the judgment of others about
our lives and leadership in this university; these are our responsibilities and we accept the .
challenge." In days, what was known as the "Deaf President Now" movement changed the
way our entire country looks at deaf people. The Nation watched as you organized and built
�a movement of conscience unlike any other. You removed barriers of limited expectations,
and our Nation saw that deaf people can do anything hearing people can, but hear.
That people's movement was a part of the American disability rights movement. Just 2
months after King Jordan took office, the Americans with Disabilities Act was introduced
with the leadership of many, including my friend Tom Harkin. In 2 years it became law and
proved once again that the fight cause can unite us. Over partisanship and prejudice we can
still come together. For the now more than 49 million Americans who are deaf or disabled,
the signing of the ADA was the most important legal event in history. For almost a billion
persons with disabilities around the world, it stands as a symbol of simple justice and
inalienable human rights.
I believe that being deaf or having any disability is not tragic, but the stereotypes attached
to it are tragic. Discrimination is tragic. Not getting a job or having the chance to reach
your God-given potential because someone else is handicapped by prejudice or fear is tragic.
It must not be tolerated because hone of us can afford it. We need each other, and we do not
have a person to waste.
The ADA is part of the seamless web of civil rights that so many have worked for so long
to build in America, a constant fabric wrapped in the hopes and aspirations of all
right-thinking Americans. As your President, I pledge to see that it is fully implemented and
aggressively enforced in schools, in the workplace, in Government, in public places. It is
time to move from exclusion to inclusion, from dependence to independence, from
paternalism to empowerment.
I mention briefly now only two of the many tasks still before me as your President and you
as citizens. Our health care system today denies or discriminates in coverage against 81
million Americans who are part of families with what we call preexisting conditions,
including Americans with disabilities. It must be changed. I f we want to open up the
workplace and i f we are serious about giving every American the chance to live up to his or
her potential, then we cannot discriminate against which workers get health care and how
much it costs. If you can do the job, you ought to be able to get covered. It's as a simple as
that. And that simple message is one I implore you to communicate to the Congress. We
have fooled around for 60 years. Your time has come. You are ready. You are leaving this
university. You want a full, good life and you do not wish to be discriminated against on
health care grounds. Pass health care reform in 1994.
The last thing I wish to say that faces us today also affects your future. The Vice President
has worked very hard on what is called the information superhighway. We know that
America is working hard to be the technological leader of the information age. The
technologies in which we are now investing will open up vast new opportunities to all of our
people. But information, which will be education, which will be employment, which will be
income, which will be possibility, must flow to all Americans on terms of equal accessibility
without regard to physical condition. And we are committed to doing that.
Finally, let me just say today a personal word. A few days ago when we celebrated
�Mother's Day, it was myfirstMother's Day without my mother. And so I have been thinking
about what I should say to all of you, those of you who are lucky enough still to have your
parents and, perhaps, some of you who do not. On graduations, it is important for us to
remember that none of us ever achieves anything alone. I dare say, as difficult as your lives
have been, you are here today not only because of your own courage and your own effort but
because someone loved you and believed in you and helped you along the way. I hope today
that you will thank them and love them and, in so doing, remember that all across this
country perhaps our biggest problem is that there are too many children, most of who can
hear just fine, who never hear the kind of love and support that every person needs to do
well. And we must commit ourselves to giving that to those children.
So I say, there may be those who are pessimistic about our future. And all of us should be
realistic about our challenges. I used to say that I still believed in a place called Hope, the
little town in which I was bom. Today I say, I know the future of this country will be in
good hands because of a place called Gallaudet.
For 125 years, young people have believed in themselves, their families, their country, and
their future with the courage to dream and the willingness to work to realize those dreams.
You have inspired your President today and a generation. And I say to you, good luck and
Godspeed.
NOTE: The President spoke at 2:20 p.m. In his remarks, he referred'to Jeanette Anne Pereira
and Andre Laurent Thibeault, students; I. King Jordan, president; and Glenn B. Anderson,
chairman, board of trustees, Gallaudet University. A tape was not available for verification of
the content of these remarks.
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
LO AD-D ATE-MDC: June 08, 1994
�-4
PHOTOCOPY
PRESERVATION
�Public Papers of the Presidents
May 20, 1994
CITE: 30 Weekly Comp. Pres. Doc. 1131
LENGTH: 3718 words
HEADLINE: Remarks at the University of California in Los Angeles, California
BODY:
Thank you so much for allowing me to be part of this wonderful occasion and for the
university medal. You know, for a person like me who is a diehard basketball fan, just
walking in Pauley Pavillion is a great honor. I dreamed of being here for many years, but I
never thought that it would be on this kind of occasion. [Laughter] I'm proud to be here to .
honor the university's 75th anniversary and to honor your chancellor on his 25th anniversary
of service. It is the sort of commitment our country could do with more of, and I honor it,
and I know you do, too.
To my good friend Mayor Riordan; President Peltason; Regent Sue Johnson; President
Shapiro; to Carol Goldberg-Ambrose, the chair of your Academic Senate; to Kate Anderson
and Khosrow Khosravani - we had a great talk over there. I hope we didn't earn any
conduct demerits. But the two students told me a lot about UCLA. [Laughter] To all of you,
I thank you for the chance to be here. The spirit in this room has been truly moving to me
today.
This is a sad day for our country and for my family because we mourn the loss of
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. She was a remarkable woman of courage and dignity, who
loved things that ennobled the human spirit. She and President Kennedy inspired me and an
entire generation of Americans to see the nobility of helping others and the good that could
come in public service. In later years, and particularly in this last year, it was my family's
privilege to get to know her personally and to see that the image which was projected to all
the world was more than met by the true person behind the image. Today, as we offer our
prayers and best wishes to her family, I think it well to remember that Jackie Kennedy and
her husband called us to a time when the world was full of challenges that we saw in terms
of possibilities, not problems. We saw our own lives in terms of promise, not pessimism.
We thought our job here on Earth was to build up, not tear down; to unite, not to divide.
I say to the students who are here from this magnificent institution, you now have an
education as fine as the world can afford. The question now is, as you go out into the world,
what is your attitude about yourselves, each other, your country, and your future.
UCLA, as I watched that slide show it was clear to me again, is an example of America's
faith in the future, the thing that's kept us going for 218 years now. Seventy-five years ago/
this was just a tiny 2-year teachers college on a dirt road in Hollywood. Now, it's one of the
�leading research institutions in the world and a bridge to the future for tens of thousands of
Americans and people who come from all around the world to be here.
There's no better place to discuss the future than here in California, America's last frontier.
For all of your present difficulties, don't ever forget that California is still America's America,
the cutting edge for a nation still a symbol of hope and optimism throughout the world.
I want to say that I very much envy those of you who are beginning your future here and
now, on the edge of this new century. Many say that this generation of college graduates is
filled with pessimism, with a sense of generational despair that our glory days are behind us.
Americans of my generation have been bombarded by images on television shows, and even
one book, about the so-called Generation X, filled with cynics and slackers. Well, what I
have seen today is not a generation of slackers but a generation of seekers, and I am much
encouraged.
To be sure, yon are beginning your journey in uncertain times. Many of the college
graduates of 1994 were bom in 1973. That was a watershed year in American life. You see,
from the end of World War II until 1973, family income doubled in America, and we lived in
an era of prosperity that we almost came to take for granted. The middle class grew ever
larger and more secure; our country was stronger. People just took it for granted that they
could get jobs they could hold for a lifetime, that they would always do better every year than
they did the year before, that they would be able to afford to send their children to college, to
have a comfortable retirement, to own their own homes, and to take care of their parents.
Since then, most Americans have worked harder and harder for the same or lower incomes.
Our society has suffered unbelievable stresses as broken homes and unwed mothers have
become commonplace. In many places devastated by poverty and despair, we have seen the
absolute collapse of families and work itself and the sense of community. And in that
vacuum have rushed gangs and drugs and violence, the kind of random violence that today
often makes neighbors seem like strangers and strangers thought of as enemies.
In the time that many of you went from the first grade through high school graduation,
when all this was going on, your National Government was embroiled in a sense of gridlock
and paralysis and high rhetoric and low action. The deficit quadrupled, but there were no
investments made adequate to the challenges of the future, and many of our tough problems
were talked about but not acted on.
Here in this county, you've experienced earthquakes of all kinds, not just the real
earthquake of January but social and economic upheavals. The trends that are shaking and
remaking our entire society have hit California first and hardest.
Next month many college graduates will move on to their first full-time jobs. And I wonder
how many of you have, like me, laughed and almost cried reading that wonderful Doonesbury
comic strip -- that is, on some days I think it's wonderful; some days I'm not so sure ~
[laughter] -- which means I probably feel the same way about Mr. Trudeau that he feels about
�me - [laughter] -- you know, the great Doonesbury strip about the students at the college
graduation trading stories about their job openings and whether they're going to be selling
blue jeans orflippinghamburgers. [Laughter] Well, it's funny, but it's not quite accurate.
The truth is that education still makes a huge difference in what you can do with your lives
and your future. It is still the key, indeed, more the key today than ever before.
The truth also is that your destiny will befilledwith great chances and great choices. As
with every new generation in this country, you will make your mark by exploring new
frontiers. Once the challenge was settling a new continent. Now it is preparing for a new
century. And you face the next American frontier, which you can see here at UCLA all
around you, living with people who may seem different, working with technologies that may
seem difficult, pursuing markets and opportunities that may seem distant.
For the rest of your lives you will face this choice. In the face of bewildering, intense,
sometimes overpowering change, you can recoil. You can hope to do as well as you can for
as long as you can simply by trying to hold the future at arm's length. Or you can act in the
spirit of America or the State or this great university of which you are a part, the spirit of the
families who sacrificed so much to bring you here. You can embrace the future with all of
its changes and engage in what the late Oliver Wendell Holmes called "the action and passion
of your time." The choice you make as individuals and as a generation will make all the
difference.
Three times in this century alone our Nation has found itself a victor in global conflicts.
World War I, World War n, and the cold war. Three times America has faced the
fundamental question of which direction we would take, embracing or rejecting the future.
Seventy-five years ago, when this university was rounded, we faced one of those pivotal
moments. At that time, just after the end of World War I, there was also wrenching change
and enormous anxiety. The Nation's hottest new novelist was a man named F. Scott
Fitzgerald. He described the so-called lost generation, thefirstthat would graduate from
UCLA. He said that they grew up, and I quote, "tofindall gods dead, all wars fought, all
faiths in man shaken." America withdrew from the world, seeking security in isolationism and
protectionism. An ugly withdrawal occurred here at home as well, a retreat into the trenches
of racial prejudice and religious prejudice, of class bigotry and easy convenience, and a
simple refusal to prepare our people to live in the world as it was.
Ten years later, just 10 years later in 1929, that decade of neglect produced the Great
Depression. And soon we learned we could not withdraw from a world menaced by dictators,
and we found ourselves again in a world war.
At the end of the Second World War, we made a very different choice as a people. We
decided to reach out to the future together, together here at home and together with nations
around the world. As Franklin Roosevelt said of the generation of my parents and the
graduates' grandparents, they believed history was, I quote, "a highway on which your fellow
men and women are advancing with you." Abroad, we lifted former allies and former enemies
from the ashes. At home, investment in the future began with the returning warriors. The GI
bill helped millions of Americans to get an education, to buy homes, to build the great
�American middle class. We made a solemn covenant: We would help those who would help
themselves.
The wise decisions of that time built four decades of robust economic growth and
expanding opportunity and laid the foundation for us to be able to win the cold war. Now,
we stand at our third pivotal moment in tiffs century. And you are designed to play the
leading role. The cold war is over. It is up to all of us to keep the American dream alive
here at home, even as it advances abroad.
But this miracle of renewal must begin with personal decisions.
I Sought the Presidency in large measure because I thought my generation had not yet done
its job for America. I did not want my daughter to grow up to be part of thefirstgeneration
of Americans to do worse than their parents. As we were becoming more wonderfully
diverse, I did not want her to live in a country that was coming apart when it ought to be
coining together. I wanted to forge the two great sources of strength that our Nation has: the
power of our representative Government, as manifested in the Presidency, to address the
challenges of every age and time and the far, far greater power of the American people
themselves to transform themselves, their families, and their communities, to seize the future
and make it theirs.
My generation's responsibility to you is heavy, indeed. We are working in Washington to
meet it, working to turn around the economic difficulties. And we have made a good
beginning: 3 million new jobs in 15 months; 3 years of deficit reduction, 3 years of deficit
reduction for thefirsttime since Harry Truman was President; at the end of this budget cycle,
the smallest Federal Government in 30 years, since John Kennedy was President, with all the
savings going back to you to make America safer with more police officers on the street and
programs to help our children stay out of crime and have a better future. We are investing in
the technologies of tomorrow, from defense conversion to environmental protection to the
information superhighway; with new attacks on our profoundest problems, from AIDS to
women's health problems, to homelessness, to the deed to have enterprise development among
the poor in cities and rural areas, to the terrible difficulties of our health care system. We are
building education for a lifetime, from dramatic expansions in Head Start to permanent
retraining programs for displaced adults. We are looking for new markets for our products
and services with new trade agreements and new opportunities to sell our best efforts here
around the world.
My fellow Americans, this country is on the move, and California is coining back. But the
real problem I believe we have today is the problem I came to talk to you about: What will
the attitude of your generation be, and how will you approach the future that is before you?
Jackie Kennedy and her husband made us believe that citizenship was a wonderful thing;,
that we all had the capacity to be better people and to work together, and that the things we
could do together would make a very great difference indeed. If President Kennedy were
�alive today, he would be absolutely shocked at the pessimism, the negativism, the division,
the destructive tone of public discourse in America today.
We know we can do better. But i f we are to do better, you will have to lead us by looking
around at all this diversity you have celebrated today, by this devotion to community you
have exhausted, and bringing it out of us.
Just before I came here, I stopped briefly at Norton Air Force Base in San Bernardino,
which, as you know, was one of the bases closed, to announce the progress we are making at
rebuilding that community with a new computer center there, with turning over the land to a
new airport and for other public purposes and eventually for economic development. And it's
the first one of these bases in the country that the Government has finally said, let's help
people build their economy instead of dragging this out 'til kingdom come. And it was a
celebration that knew no party lines, knew no philosophical lines, knew no racial lines.
Nobody was out there talking about left and right and liberal and conservative and Republican
and Democrat. They were talking about how we could deal with the real problems and
opportunities of those people, to pull that community together and push it forward into the
future. That is what we must do as a people. And that is what your generation must do in
order for America to fulfill its promise.
Now, to do that in a great democracy, where there are a myriad of complex problems and
legitimate differences of opinion, we must leam to do something as a people that we often
take for granted in the university. We have to leam to talk to each other and to listen to each
other, not to talk past each other and to scream at one another.
We have been caught up in what the Georgetown professor Deborah Tannen calls a culture
of critique. One sure way to get instant public standing in our popular culture is to slam
somebody else. If you work on bringing people together and you talk about it, you're likely
to elicit a yawn. But if you bad-mouth people, you can get yourself a talk show.
This country was not built by bad-mouthing. Go back and look at the history of the
Constitutional Convention. Go back and look at how people got together wildly different
points of view and argued heatedly but always with a common love of this country and the
values of freedom and mutual respect. We have to find a way in this age and time to restore
that kind of discourse and that kind of respect. We cannot afford to engage in the citizenship
of division and distraction and destruction. We have a future to build, and you must lead the
way. You know you can do it, because of the way you have been educated here and the
people from whom you have learned and with whom you've learned. And you can lead the
way for the whole future of this country.
It was because I believe that so strongly that I put at the center of what symbolizes our
administration the national service corps, what we call AmeriCorps, the opportunity for tens
of thousands of young people to work where they live or where they go to school, solving the
problems of America at the grass-roots, learning from each other, reaching across lines tha*,
divide them, and earning money for their educations at the same time. Rebuild America and
educate a new generation - it's sort of a domestic GI bill and a domestic Peace Corps all
�rolled into one. It was inspired by efforts that I saw all over America over the last few years,
efforts like the California Campus Compact, which your chancellor helped to found, which
now commits more than 50 colleges and universities in this State to helping students serve
their communities. At UCLA alone some 4,000 of you are working in more than 40 service
programs, and I honor you for that.
This summer 7,000 young Americans will work in a summer of safety, helping their
communities to be less violent. Last summer in ourfirstsummer of service, thousands of
people all over the country, including here in Los Angeles, taught young people everything
from how to stay away from drugs to how to stay safe in an earthquake.
Service creates heroes. I was interested in the three people acknowledged there by
Chancellor Young, and I appreciate what he said. Let me say that there's one project I'd like
to mention in particular which one of the young students is involved in, Sam Jayaraman,
along with another student, Desiree DeSurra. They helped to found the Women In Support of
Each Other, acronym
WISE. This program, WISE, helped high school girls to make wise decisions to pursue their
education and not to become single mothers. Desiree was one of three students selected to
win this year's Chancellor's Humanitarian Award.
Now, let me tell you what that means to me. That is America at its best, people helping
people, telling people, "Look, maybe the President should do something, maybe the chancellor
of the university should do something, maybe the mayor should do something, but in the end,
you also have to take responsibility for your own lives. You have to make good decisions in
order to be part of a good future."
Thousands of young people just here on this campus alone have made a decision to make a
difference. Beginning this September, AmeriCorps will enable tens of thousands of more to
do that. I hope I live long enough to see hundreds of thousands of people in this program
every year, earning their way to a better education by rebuilding America every day at the
grassroots level.
The point of all that I have said is this: The future is not an inheritance, it is an opportunity
and an obligation. It is something you have to make in every generation, and it will be your
achievement, not only for yourselves individually but for your generation, for your
community, and for the larger community that is America
If you look around you at this incredible campus where minorities make up a majority,
something that will be true for whole States in the not too distant future, you see the future.
LA County with over 150 different racial and ethnic groups, thousands of people in this
county celebrating this month as Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month because of the
number of people who live here; a few days ago in America we celebrated the Cinco de
Mayo celebration, Mexican Independence Day, and it is now as big a celebration in America
as it is in Mexico because of our diversity. Will it be a source of our strength in the globaT
village, or will we permit it to divide us? I believe I know the answer. And I think you do.
�too.
There's no reason to be cynical about the future, no matter how difficult our problems are.
Look what's just happened in the last 4 or 5 years since many of you came to the university
here, the end of the cold war; the fall of the Berlin Wall. Just in the last year, Russia and the
United States agree not to point nuclear weapons at each other anymore; Rabin and Arafat
agree to self-government for the Palestinians in Jericho and the Gaza; the jailer and the jailed,
de Klerk and Mandela, agree that South Africa free, united is more important than anything
else.
In just a few days from now, I will go to represent you at the 50th anniversary of the
D-Day invasion. Just a few days ago, I was able to speak on the 40th anniversary of the
Supreme Court's landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education. It is very important for a
great country to remember those moments. But remember this, my fellow Americans: When
our memories exceed our dreams, we have begun to grow old. And it is the destiny of
America to remain forever young.
So I ask you this, young graduates, especially: When yon see in a few days the glories of
D-Day recounted, one of the most masterful mobilization of people to achieve a common
objective, one of the most stunning examples of personal courage in all of human history,
remember that it was the work of citizen soldiers who were mostly between the ages of 18
and 25, people who had grown up in the false prosperity of the twenties and the bitter
realities of the thirties, people who read books and movies that portrayed them as slackers and
the future as dark and cynical. But they rallied that day to a cause larger than themselves.
And when they had done the job they were sent to do - to save their country, to save
freedom, to save a civilization -- they came home and got on with the business of making
lives for themselves, their children, and their children's children.
Thanks to them and to God Almighty, you will probably never have to face that kind of
challenge in your life but, instead, to face the challenges unique to your generation, the
challenges of a new and wide-open world, the challenges of breakdown here at home that we
must reverse.
I believe you are ready for that test and that you will meet it. You have the educational
tools to meet it. You must now make sure that deep down inside you have the spirit, the
drive, the courage, the vision. We are all depending on you.
Thank you very much.
NOTE: The President spoke at 2:24 p.m. in Pauley Pavilion at the 75th anniversary
convocation. In his remarks, he referred to Charles E. Young, chancellor. University of
California-Los Angeles; Mayor Richard Riordan of Los Angeles; Jack W. Peltason, president,
and Sue Johnson, board of regents vice chairperson. University of California; Harold T.
Shapiro, president, Princeton University; Kate Anderson, president, UCLA Under-graduate
Student Association; and Khosrow Khosravani, external vice president, UCLA Graduate
Student Association. This item was not received in time for publication in the appropriate
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3
PHOTOCOPY
PRESERVATION
�Public Papers of the Presidents
May 25, 1994
CITE: 30 Weekly Comp. Pres. Doc. 1157
LENGTH: 3904 words
HEADLINE. Remarks at the United States Naval Academy Commencement Ceremony in
Annapolis, Maryland
BODY:
Thank you very much. Secretary Dalton, for those fine remarks. Admiral Lynch, thank you
for your continents and your leadership here at the Academy. Admiral Owens, Admiral
Boorda, General Mundy, proud parents and family members, faculty and staff of the
Academy, brigade of the midshipmen: It's a great honor for me to join you at this moment of
celebration. I'm delighted to be back here on the eve of the Academy's 150th year.
Since 1845, the U.S. Naval Academy has provided superb leadership for our Navy, for our
Marine Corps, and for our entire Nation. And I cannot imagine a more valuable contribution.
The last time I was here, I joined some of you for lunch at King Hall. And ever since
then, whenever people have asked me what I liked best about my visit to the Naval Academy
I try to think of elevated things to say, but part of my answer is always pan pizza and chicken
tenders. [Laughter] In memory of that luxurious meal — [Laughter] — I have today a small
graduation present. In keeping with longstanding tradition I hereby grant amnesty to all
midshipmen who received demerits for minor conduct offenses. [Laughter] See, today the
interest group is in the stands, not on thefield.[Laughter]
Next week I will have the proud responsibility to represent our Nation in Europe in the
ceremonies marking the 50th anniversary of D-Day, the invasion of Italy, and World War II.
That war marked the turning point of our century when we joined with our allies to stem a
dark tide of dictatorship, aggression, and terror and to start a flow of democracy and freedom
that continues to sweep the world down to the present day.
That war also marked an era of sacrifice almost unequaled in our entire history. Some
400,000 of our fellow countrymen and women lost their lives. Over half a million more were
wounded. Today we have among us many who took part at Normandy and the other great
battles of World War n, such as retired Commander Alfred McKowan, Academy class of
1942, who served aboard the U.S.S. Quincy off Utah Beach on D-Day. They're a great
reminder of what our armed services have done for America. And I would ask all the
veterans of that war to stand now so that the rest of us might honor them. [Applause]
To the members of the class of 1994, my parents' generation and your grandparents'
�generation did not end their work with the liberation of Europe and victory in the Pacific.
They came back to work wonders at home. They created the GI bill so that freedom's heroes
could reenter civilian life and succeed and build strong families and strong communities.
They built our interstate highway system. They turned our economy into a global wonder.
They forged the tools of international security and trade that helped to rebuild our former
allies and our former enemies so that we could ultimately win the cold war. It brought us
decades of peace and prosperity.
Today we have come to celebrate your graduation from this Academy and your commission
as officers of the United States Navy and Marine Corps. As we do, the question which hangs
over your head is the question of what your generation will accomplish, as the generation of
World War II accomplished so much.
Lately, there have been a number of books written, not about you, of course, but about
your generation that says that so many people your age are afflicted with a sense of fatalism
and cynicism, a sort of Generation X that believes America's greatest days are behind us and
there are no great deeds left to be done. Well, this class, this very class is a rebuke to those
cynics of any age.
Look at the extraordinary effort you have made to become leaders in service to America:
formation at dawn, classes at 8 a.m., rigorous mandatory PT, parading on Worden Field,
summers spent aboard ship or down at Quantico. Most college students never go through
anything like it. It's a routine that turns young men and women into officers and that has
taken your basketball team to the NCAA Tournament.
I deeply respect your decision to serve our Nation. Your service may take many forms in
the years ahead: commanding ships in combat, training aviators for flight, running a business,
perhaps one day even sitting in the Oval Office. Your career, regardless of its past, will
require sacrifices, time away from loved ones, and potentially service in the face of danger.
But regardless of where your careers take you, you clearly understand the imperative of civic
duty. There's no brighter badge of citizenship than the path you have chosen and the oath
you are about to take.
You just heard Secretary Dalton speak of President Kennedy's wonderful speech here at the
Naval Academy when he was here. I read that speech carefully before I came here. And
among other things. President Kennedy said, along the lines that Secretary Dalton quoted, that
if someone asked you what you did with your life, there's not a better answer than to say, "I
served as an officer in the United States Navy."
The challenge for your generation is to remember the deeds of those who have served
before you and now to build on their work in a new and very different world. The world
wars are over; the cold war has been won. Now it is our job to win the peace.
For the first time in history, we have the chance to expand the reach of a democracy and
economic progress across the whole of Europe and to the far reaches of the world. The first
step on the mission is to keep our own Nation secure. And your very graduation today helps
�ensure that. Today the American people have 874 new leaders, 874 new plates of battle
armor on our ship of state, 874 reasons to sleep better at night.
The past 4 years have been a time of challenge and exertion for each of you, a time of
challenge and exertion, too, for the U.S. Navy and for this Academy. The Navy has had to
confront the difficulty of the Tailhook scandal. And this year the Academy bad to confront
improper conduct regarding an academic examination. These are troubling events, to be sure,
because our military rests on honor and leadership. But ultimately, the test of leadership is
not constant flawlessness. Rather it is marked by a commitment to continue always to strive
for the highest standards, to leam honesty when one fails short, and to do the right thing
when it happens.
I came here today because I want America to know there remains no finer Navy in the
world than the United States Navy and no finer training ground for naval leadership then the
United States Naval Academy. You have my confidence. You have America's confidence.
These are challenging times to be in the Navy because it's a new era in world affairs.
When this class entered the Academy in June of 1990, think of this, Israel and to the PLO
were sworn enemies; South Africa lived under apartheid; Moscow, Kiev, and Riga all were
still part of the Soviet Union; and the United States and the Soviet Union still pointed their
nuclear weapons in massive numbers at each other. But now Nelson Mandela is the President
of his nation. There is genuine progress toward peace in the Middle East between Israel and
the PLO and the other parties. Where the Kremlin once imposed its will, a score of new free
states now grapple with the burden of freedom. And the United States and Russia at least no
longer aim their nuclear weapons at each other.
These amazing transformations make our Nation more secure. They also enable us to
devote more resources to the profound challenges we face here at home, from providing jobs
for our people to advancing education and training for all of them, to making our streets safer,
to ensuring health care for all of our citizens, and in the end building an economy that can
compete and win well into the 21st century.
But the world's changes also can create uncertainty for those who have committed their
careers to military service. Indeed, they create uncertainty for the United States. And in this
time of uncertainty they tempt some to cut our defenses too far.
At the end of the cold war it was right to reduce our defense spending. But let us not
forget that this new era has many dangers. We have replaced a cold war threat of a world of
nuclear gridlock with a new world threatened with instability, even abject chaos, rooted in the
economic dislocations that are inherent in the change from communism to market economies,
rooted in religious and ethnic battles long covered over by authoritarian regimes now gone,
rooted in tribal slaughters, aggravated by environmental disasters, by abject hunger, by mass
migration across tenuous national borders. And with three of the Soviet Union's successor
states now becoming nonnuclear and to the tension between the U.S. and Russia over nuclear
matters declining, we still must not forget that the threat of weapons of mass destruction
remain in the continuing disputes we have over North Korea and elsewhere with countries
�who seek either to develop or to sell or to buy such weapons. So we must - we must do
better. For this generation to expand freedom's reach, we must always keep America out of
danger's reach.
Last year I ordered a sweeping review - we called it the bottom-up review -- to ensure that
in this new era we have a right-sized Navy, Marine Corps, Army, and Air Force for the
post-cold-war era. That is especially important for our naval forces. For even with all the
changes in the world, some basic facts endure: We are a maritime nation; over 60 percent of
our border is sea coast; over 70 percent of the world is covered by water; and over 90 percent
of the human race lives within our Navy's reach from the sea. Now, as long as these facts
remain true, we need naval forces that can dominate the sea, project our power, and protect
our interests.
We've known that lesson for over 200 years now, since the time Admiral John Paul Jones
proclaimed, "Without a respectable Navy, alas, America." The right-size defense costs less but
still costs quite a bit. That is why this year I have resisted attempts to impose further cuts on
our defense budget.
I want you to understand this clearly. It is important for your generation and your children
to bring down this terrible debt we accumulated in recent years. And I have asked the
Congress to eliminate outright over 100 programs, to cut over 200 others. We've presented a
budget that cuts discretionary domestic spending for the first time since 1969. That will give
us 3 years of deficit reduction in a row for the first time since Harry Truman was President of
to the United States right after World War II. But we should not cut defense further. And I
thank the Congress this week for resisting the calls to do so.
That enables us to answer John Paul Jones' cry. Today you can see the importance of our
naval forces all around the world. Right now, at this very moment as you sit here, the U.S.S.
Saratoga and her battle group are steaming in to the Adriatic to help enforce the no-fly zone
and to protect the safe havens in Bosnia At this very moment, the U.S.S. Carl Vinson is in
the Persian Gulf to help enforce sanctions on Iraq. Right now, to the U.S.S. Independence is
patrolling the waters of Northeast Asia to protect our allies and interests in Japan, Korea, and
throughout the Asian-Pacific region.
As we adjust our forces to a new era, our motto should still be: "Reduce where we should,
but strengthen as we must." That's why we're investing in new weapons such as the next
carrier, CVN-76; our new Sea Wolf attack submarine; new AEGIS ships, like the DDG-51;
new air capabilities like F-18 upgrades and the Joint Advanced Strike Technology. It's why
we're improving our weapons systems and making the technology that won Operation Desert
Storm even better: Tomahawk missiles with increased accuracy and target area and better
night-fighting capabilities for our Harrier jump jets and other aircraft, so we can not only own
the night today but dominate the night tomorrow.
We have been able to afford aright-sizedmilitary at lower cost, but this year we must *,
continue to fight any deeper cuts to defense. I want to emphasize how important it is that the
House of Representatives and the Senate do that. I want to thank Congressman Gilchrest,
�who is here, and Congressman Machtley from Rhode Island, a graduate of the Naval
Academy, also here, and their colleagues for their support for the C-17 vote and for their
continuing support for an adequate military. This is a bipartisan issue; it knows no party.
We have done all we should do, and we now must support an adequate defense.
We are working to safeguard the quality of to the most important defense asset of all, you
and the more than one million other men and women in uniform, who stand sentry over our
security. Today our Armed Forces are clearly and without dispute the best trained, to the best
equipped, the best prepared, and the best motivated military on the face of the Earth. As long
as I am President, that will continue to be the truth.
The question of our security in this era still ultimately depends upon our decisions about
where to bring our military power to bear. That is what makes it possible for our enormous
economic strength to assert itself at home and around the world. And there is no decision
any President takes more seriously than the decision to send Americans into harm's way.
History teaches us that there is no magic formula, nor should a President ever try to draw
the line so carefully that we would completely rule out the use of our military in
circumstances where it might later become important. After all, to the mere possibility of
American force is itself a potent weapon all around the world. But this is clear: We must be
willing to fight to defend our land and our people, first and foremost. That's why we
responded forcefully when we discovered an Iraqi plot to assassinate former President Bush.
And the Tomahawks we fired that day were fired by to the Navy.
We must be willing to fight to protect our vital interests. And that's why we've adopted a
defense strategy for winning any two major regional conflicts nearly simultaneously. We
must be willing to fight to protect our allies. That's why we deployed Patriot missiles to South
Korea, and working with others - working with others - we must be willing to use force
when other American interests are threatened. And that's why we sought a stronger role for
NATO in Bosnia.
The hardest eases involved the many ethnic and religious conflicts that have erupted in our
era. The end of the superpower stand-off lifted the lid from a cauldron of long-simmering
hatreds. Now the entire global terrain is bloody with such conflicts, from Rwanda to Georgia.
We cannot solve every such outburst of civil strife or militant nationalism simply by sending
in our forces. We cannot turn away from them. But our interests are not sufficiendy at stake
in so many of them to justify a commitment of our folks. Nonetheless, as the world's greatest
power, we have an obligation to lead and, attimeswhen our interests and our values are
sufficiently at stake, to act.
Look at the example of the former Yugoslavia For centuries, that land marked a tense and
often violent fault line between empires and religions. The end of the cold war and the
dissolution of that country into so many new republics surfaced all those ancient tensions •,
again, triggering Serb aggression, ethnic cleansing, and the most brutal European conflict
since the Second World War.
�Whether we get involved in any of the world's ethnic conflicts in the end must depend on
the cumulative weight of the American interests at stake. Now, in Bosnia, we clearly have an
interest in preventing the spread of the fighting into a broader European war, in providing that
NATO can still be a credible force for peace in the post-cold-war era in this first-ever
involvement of NATO outside a NATO country, in stemming the incredibly destabilizing
flow of refugees from the conflict and in helping to stop the slaughter of innocents.
These interests do not warrant our unilateral involvement, but they do demand that we help
to lead a way to a workable peace agreement if one can be achieved, and that if one can be
achieved, we help to enforce it. Our administration is committed to help achieve such a
resolution, working with others such as NATO, the United Nations, and Russia
Those efforts have not been easy or smooth, but we have produced results. By securing
NATO enforcement of the no-fly zone over Bosnia, we kept the war from escalating into the
air. We initiated humanitarian air drops and have now participated in the longest
humanitarian airlift in history. We secured NATO enforcement of the exclusion zones around
Sarajevo and Garazde, and as a result, the people of Sarajevo have experienced over 3 months
of relative calm, and Garazde is no longer being shelled. And by stepping up diplomatic
engagement, we have worked with others to foster a breakthrough agreement between the
Croats and the Bosnians, signed here in Washington, which I believe eventually will lead to a
broader settlement.
One of the dreams of World War n was that after the war, through the United Nations and
in other ways, the United States might be able to cooperate with others to help resolve the
most difficult problems of our age, not always to have its own way, not always to be able to
prescribe every move, but in order to help resolve the problems of the world without having
to commit the lives of our own soldiers where they should not be committed and still being
able to play a positive role. That is what we are attempting to work out in Bosnia. And i f it
can be done - i f it can be done - we'll be on the way to managing some of this incredible
chaos that has threatened to engulf the world in which you will raise your children.
Today I want to acknowledge the outstanding contributions of Admiral Mike Boorda which
were made to our efforts in Bosnia. His stunning leadership there, his clarity of thought, and
resolve of purpose is one of the key reasons I named him to be our new Chief of Naval
Operations. Thank you. Admiral Boorda
At every turn, we have worked to move the parties there toward a workable political
solution. This is one of those conflicts that can only end at the negotiating table, not on the
battlefield. They canfightfor another 100 years and not resolve it there. At every turn we
have rejected the easy-out of simplistic ideas that sound good on bumper stickers but that
would have tragic consequences. The newest of these is that we should simply unilaterally
break the United Nations arms embargo on Bosnia and the other former Yugoslav states.
I do not support that arms embargo, and I never have. We worked with our allies and tried
to persuade all them that we should end it. Now some say we should simply violate the
�embargo on our own because it was a bad idea to impose it in thefirstplace. Well, if we did
that, it would kill the peace process; it would sour our relationships with our European allies
in NATO and in the U.N.; it would undermine the partnership we are trying to build with
Russia across a whole broad range of areas; it would undermine our efforts to enforce U.N.
embargoes that we like, such as those against Sadaam Hussein, Colonel Qadhafi, and General
Cedras in Haiti.
We simply must not opt for options and action that sound simple and painless and good but
which will not work in this era of interdependence where it is important that we leverage
American influence and leadership by proving that we can work with others, especially when
others have greater and more immediate stakes and are willing to put their soldiers in harm's
way.
Our administration will not walk away from this Bosnian conflict. But we will not
embrace solutions that are wrong. We plan to continue the course we have chosen, raising
the price on those who pursue aggression, helping to provide relief to the suffering, and
working with our partners in Europe to move the parties to a workable agreement. It is not
quick. It is not neat. It is not comfortable. But I am convinced in a world of
interdependence, where we must lead by working with others, it is the fight path. It is the
one that preserves our leadership, preserves our treasure, and commits our forces in the proper
way.
The world's most tearing conflicts in Bosnia and elsewhere are not made in a day. And
one of the most frustrating things that you may have to live with throughout your life is that
many of these conflicts will rarely submit to instant solutions. But remember this, it took
years after D-Day to not only end the war but to build a lasting peace. It took decades of
patience and strength and resolve to prevail in the cold war.
And as with generations going before, we must often be willing to pay the price of time,
sometimes the most painful price of all. There is no better source of the courage and
constancy of our Nation that we will lead in this era than this Academy and our Armed
Forces. This Academy has prepared you to lead those Armed Forces. As you take your
place in the Navy and the Marine Corps, always bear in mind the heroism, the sacrifice, the
leadership of those who have served before you.
I think, in particular, of one of the stories that comes out of D-Day, June 6th, 1944. On
that gray dawn, as U.S. Rangers approached Pointe du Hoc, they were raked by German fire
from the cliff above. One landing craft was sunk; others were endangered. But then, an
American destroyer, the U.S.S. Satterlee, along with a British destroyer, came to the rescue.
They came in perilously close to the shore, and opened fire with all their guns at the Germans
who were rainingfiredown on the Rangers. By its actions, the Satterlee saved American
lives and enabled the Rangers to carry out their now-famous mission. Forty-eight years later,
a Ranger Platoon leader said, "Someday I'd love to meet up with somebody from Satterlee so
I can shake his hand and thank him."
The valor of those who proceeded you is the stuff of inspiration. A great country must
�always remember the sacrifices of those who went before and made our freedom possible.
But even greater accomplishments lie ahead if you can make them happen. For remember
this: When our memories exceed our dreams, we have begun to grow old. It is the destiny of
America to remain forever young.
As the guardians of your generation's freedom and our future, may you never know directly
whose lives you have saved - you may not -- whose future you have improved. You may
never hear their thanks or get to shake their hands. But they'll be out there. We'll all be out
there, aware of your courage, impressed by your dedication, grateful for your service to God
and country. You can keep America forever young.
Good luck, and God bless you.
NOTE: The President spoke at 10:28 a.m. at the Navy/Marine Corps Memorial Stadium. In
his remarks, he referred to Rear Adm. Thomas C. Lynchd, USN, Superintendent, U.S. Naval
Academy; Adm. William A. Owens, USN, Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Gen.
Carl E. Mundy, Jr., Commandant of the Marine Corps.
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
LOAD-DATE-MDC: June 23, 1994
�PHOTOCOPY
PRESERVATION
�March 21, 1995
t
/r
T
MEMORANDUM TO MARK GEARAN
FROM:
RUSSELL HORWITZ
RE:
Bush And Reagan Commencement Addresses
yOcttft^
PRESIDENT BUSH
President Bush employed one general theme each year, which varied throughout his tenure, when
delivering commencement addresses. He averagedfivecommencement addresses each year,
although he delivered eight in 1991.
The 1989 commencement addresses each spelled out the Administration's conclusions of a wideranging foreign policy review, specifically dealing with East-West relations, the Soviet Union, and
NATO. Each speech had a slightly different focus as it pertained to the foreign policy review.
White House press secretary, Marlin Fitzwater, said the speeches "may in effect be the most
definitive enunciation of the results of that review." f Associated PresSi 5/3/89]
Much like 1989, President Bush's 1990 commencement addresses were primarily concerned with
international affairs, specifically the general theme of change in the world. One speech, however,
had a slightly different angle when the President spoke of America's place in a increasingly
democratic world as a leader in science at Texas A & I.
The 1991 addresses appear to change in both form and contentfromthe previous two years. The
President assumed a much more aggressive stance and talked less about foreign affairs and more
about domestic politics. At West Point, he accused Democrats of practicing the "politics of
division" in pushing a civil rights bill he opposed. At the FBI Commencement ceremony,
President Bush blamed Congress for failing to pass his anti-crime proposals, while at Yale, he
criticized those trying to block MFN for China. At the Air Force Academy, the President touted
the Persian Gulf victory and stated: "Some in Congress want to gut our ability to develop
strategic defenses," while,finally,at the University of Michigan, he castigated President Johnson's
Great Society programs for "equating dollars with commitment." [USA Today. 6/3/91]
As 1992 was an election year, President Bush returned to familiar campaign themes, focusing on
proposals to change the way government operates by reforming the welfare system, promoting his
urban renewal plan, and defending the health of the economy. One report said that the President's
speech at Southern Methodist University "sounded a countervailing theme to the cynicism and
unease many Americans have expressed about their political choices and the course of the
nation." [Los Angeles Times. 5/17/92] In his speech at Notre Dame, however. President Bush
avoided political rhetoric and instead talked about the importance of the family unit in Americarf
life.
�PRESIDENT REAGAN
President Reagan gave a total of only ten commencement addresses during his eight years (Two in
1981 and two in 1984). One of his more important commencement addresses took place at his
alma mater, Eureka College. In that speech, the President proposed that the United States and
Soviet Union reduce by one-third their nuclear warheads.
President Reagan spoke to all the military academies (Naval, Military, Air Force, and Coast
Guard), including the U.S. Marine Corps Basic Training School and the Uniformed Services
University of Health Sciences. His addresses to the Service Academies focused on U.S.-Soviet
relations and maintaining the strength and effectiveness of the U.S. military. His speech to the
Coast Guard Academy dealt with the country's war on drugs.
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Michael Waldman
Description
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<p>Michael Waldman was Assistant to the President and Director of Speechwriting from 1995-1999. His responsibilities were writing and editing nearly 2,000 speeches, which included four State of the Union speeches and two Inaugural Addresses. From 1993 -1995 he served as Special Assistant to the President for Policy Coordination.</p>
<p>The collection generally consists of copies of speeches and speech drafts, talking points, memoranda, background material, correspondence, reports, handwritten notes, articles, clippings, and presidential schedules. A large volume of this collection was for the State of the Union speeches. Many of the speech drafts are heavily annotated with additions or deletions. There are a lot of articles and clippings in this collection.</p>
<p>Due to the size of this collection it has been divided into two segments. Use links below for access to the individual segments:<br /><a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=43&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=2006-0469-F+Segment+1">Segment One</a><br /><a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=43&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=2006-0469-F+Segment+2">Segment Two</a></p>
Creator
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Michael Waldman
Office of Speechwriting
Date
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1993-1999
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2006-0469-F
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Segment One contains 1071 folders in 72 boxes.
Segment Two contains 868 folders in 66 boxes.
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Clinton Presidential Records: White House Staff and Office Files
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William J. Clinton Presidential Library & Museum
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Adobe Acrobat Document
Text
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paper
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1995 Commencement Speech Analysis [Binder] [2]
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Office of Speechwriting
Michael Waldman
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Box 48
<a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/show/36404"> Collection Finding Aid</a>
<a href="https://catalog.archives.gov/id/7763296">National Archives Catalog Description</a>
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2006-0469-F Segment 2
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White House Staff and Office Files
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William J. Clinton Presidential Library & Museum
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Adobe Acrobat Document
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6/3/2015
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7763296
42-t-7763296-20060469F-Seg2-048-011-2015