THE WHITE HOUSE

                    Office of the Press Secretary

________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                             March 20, 1998     


                      REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
             ON THE NATIONAL INTEREST FOR ENLARGING NATO

                            The East Room

12:46 P.M. EST


             
             THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you.  Thank you very much, 
Secretary Albright, General Shelton, General Sandler, Mr. Berger, 
Senator Roth, to the members and representatives of the Joint Chiefs, 
members of the diplomatic corps, and other interested citizens, many 
of whom have held high positions in the national security apparatus 
of this country and the military of our country.  We're grateful for 
everyone's presence here today.

             I especially want to thank the members of the Senate who 
are here.  I thank Senator Roth, the chairman of the NATO observer 
group, Senator Moynihan, Senator Smith, Senator Levin, Senator Lugar, 
Senator Robb, and Senator Thurmond.  Your leadership and that of 
Senators Lott, Daschle, Helms and Biden and others in this chamber 
has truly, as the Secretary of State said, made this debate a model 
of bipartisan dialogue and action.

             The Senate has held more than a dozen hearings on this 
matter.  We have worked very closely with the Senate NATO observer 
group.  And I must say, I was essentially gratified when the Senate 
Foreign Relations Committee voted 16 to 2 in support of enlargement. 

             Now, in the coming days the full Senate will act on this 
matter of critical importance to our national security.  The 
admission of Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic to NATO will be 
a very important milestone in building the kind of world we want in 
the 21st century.
             
             As has been said, I first proposed NATO enlargement four 
years ago, when General Joulwan was our commander in Brussels.  Many 
times since, I've had the opportunity to speak on this issue.  Now a 
final decision is at hand, and now it is important that all the 
American people focus on this matter closely.  For this is one of 
those rare moments when we have within our grasp the opportunity to 
actually shape the future, to make the new century safer and more 
secure and less unstable than the one we are leaving.
             
             We can truly be present at a new creation.  When 
President Truman signed the North Atlantic Treaty 49 years ago next 
month, he expressed the goal of its founders in typically simple and 
straightforward language: to preserve their present peaceful 
situation and to protect it in the future.  The dream of the 
generation that founded NATO was of a Europe whole and free.  But the 
Europe of their time was lamentably divided by the Iron Curtain.  Our 
generation can realize their dream.  It is our opportunity and 
responsibility to do so, to create a new Europe undivided, 
democratic, and at peace for the very first time in all history.

             Forging a new NATO in the 21st century will help to 
fulfill the commitment and the struggle that many of you in this room 
engaged in over the last 50 years.  NATO can do for Europe's east 
what it did for Europe's west -- protect new democracies against 
aggression, prevent a return to local rivalries, create the 
conditions in which prosperity can flourish.


             In January of 1994, on my first trip to Europe for the 
NATO summit, we did take the lead in proposing a new NATO for a new 
era.  First, by strengthening our Alliance to preserve its core 
mission of self-defense, while preparing it to take on the new 
challenges to our security and to Europe's stability.  Second, by 
reaching out to new partners and taking in new members from among 
Europe's emerging democracies.  And third, by forging a strong and 
cooperative relationship between NATO and Russia. 

             Over the past four years, persistently and 
pragmatically, we have put this strategy into place.  NATO has 
shifted to smaller, more flexible forces better prepared to provide 
for our defense in this new era, but also trained and equipped for 
other contingencies.  Its military power remains so unquestioned that 
it was the only force capable of stopping the fighting in Bosnia.  
NATO signed the Founding Act with Moscow, joining Russia and 
history's most successful alliance in common cause for a peaceful, 
democratic, undivided Europe.  We signed a charter to build 
cooperation between NATO and Ukraine.  We created the Partnership for 
Peace as a path to full NATO membership for some, and a strong and 
lasting link to the Alliance for others.  

             Today, the Partnership for Peace has exceeded its 
mission beyond the wildest dreams of those of us who started it.  It 
has more than three dozen members. 
             
             Now we're on the threshold of bringing new members into 
NATO.  The Alliance's enlargement will make America safer by making 
NATO stronger, adding new forces and new allies that can share our 
security burdens.  Let me be very clear:  NATO's core mission will 
remain the same -- the defense of the territory of its members.  The 
addition of new members will strengthen and enhance that mission.  In 
pursuing enlargement, we have made sure not to alter NATO's core 
function or its ability to defend America and Europe's security.
             
             Now I urge this Senate to do the same, and in particular 
to impose new constraints on NATO's freedom of action, its military 
decision-making, or its ability to respond quickly and effectively to 
whatever challenges may arise.  NATO's existing treaty and the way it 
makes defense and security decisions have served our nation's 
security well for half a century.

             In the same way, the addition of these new members will 
help NATO meet new challenges to our security.  In Bosnia, for 
example, Polish, Czech, and Hungarian soldiers serve alongside our 
own with skill and professionalism.  Remember, this was one of the 
largest, single operational deployments of American troops in Europe 
since World War II.  It was staged from a base is Taszar, Hungary.  
It simply would not have happened as swiftly, smoothly, or safely 
without the active help and support of Hungary.

             As we look toward the 21st century, we're looking at 
other new security challenges as well -- the spread of weapons of 
mass destruction and ballistic missile technology, terrorism and the 
potential for hi-tech attacks on our information systems.  NATO must 
be prepared to meet and defeat this new generation of threats, to act 
flexibly and decisively under American leadership.  With three new 
members in our ranks, NATO will be better able to meet those goals as 
well.
             
             Enlargement also will help to make Europe more stable.  
Already, the very prospect of membership has encouraged nations 
throughout the region to accelerate reforms, resolve disputes, and 
improve cooperation.
             
             Now, let me emphasize what I've said many times before 
and what all NATO allies have committed to:  NATO's first new members 


should not be its last.  Keeping the doors open to all of Europe's 
new democracies will help to ensure that enlargement benefits the 
security of the entire region, not just the first three new members.
             
             At last summer's summit in Madrid, NATO agreed to 
examine the process of enlargement at our next summit in 1999.  
Neither NATO nor my administration has made any decisions or any 
commitments about when the next invitations for membership should be 
extended, or to whom.  I have consulted broadly with Congress on 
decisions about the admissions of the first three members.  I pledge 
to do the same before any future decisions are made.  And of course 
any new members would also require the advice and the consent of the 
United States Senate.
             
             For these reasons, I urge in the strongest terms the 
Senate to reject any effort to impose an artificial pause on the 
process of enlargement.  Such a mandate is unnecessary and, I 
believe, unwise.  If NATO is to remain strong, America's freedom to 
lead it must be unfettered and our freedom to cooperate with our 
other partners in NATO must remain unfettered.  A unilateral freeze 
on enlargement would reduce our own country's flexibility and, 
perhaps even more important, our leverage, our ability to influence 
our partners.  It would fracture NATO's open-door consensus, it would 
undermine further reforms in Europe's democracies, it would draw a 
new and potentially destabilizing line, at least temporarily, in 
Europe.
             
             There are other steps we must take to prevent that 
division from re-emerging.  We must continue to strengthen the 
partnership for peace with our many friends in Europe.  We need to 
give even more practical expression to the agreements between NATO 
and Russia, and NATO and Ukraine, turning words into deeds.  With 
Russia and other countries, we must continue to reduce our nuclear 
stockpiles -- and we thank you, Senator Lugar, for your leadership on 
that -- to combat the dangers of proliferation, to lower conventional 
arms ceilings all across Europe.  And all of us together must help 
the Bosnian people to finish the job of bringing a lasting peace to 
their country.  If you think about where we were just a year ago in 
Bosnia, not to mention two years ago, not to mention 1995, no one 
could have believed we would be here today.

             It would not have happened had it not been for NATO, the 
Partnership for Peace allies, the Russians, all of those who have 
come together and joined hands to end the bloodiest conflict in 
Europe since the second world war.
             
             Now we have to finish what America started four years 
ago, welcoming Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic into our 
Alliance.  If you look around at who is in the room today, you can 
see that they are more than willing to be a good partner.  They will 
make NATO stronger; they will make Europe safer; and in so doing, 
they will make America and our young people more secure.  They will 
make it less likely that the men and women in uniform who serve under 
General Shelton and the other generals here, and their successors in 
the 21st century, will have to fight and die because of problems in 
Europe.
             
             A new NATO can extend the blessings of freedom and 
security in a new century.  With the help of our allies, the support 
of the Senate, the strength of our continued commitment, we can bring 
Europe together -- not by force of arms, but by possibilities of 
peace.  That is the promise of this moment.  And we must seize it.  
             
             Thank you very much.  (Applause.)

             END                          12:58 P.M. EST