Chancellor of the Alexander Order
One of a thousand points of light-a new book byGeorge Bush-mother of governors is doing well-an unabashedoptimist-10th anniversary of fall of Berlin Wall-trip to Berlin andPrague in November-history will be kind to Gorbatchew-leadership andcourage-need to rebuild bridge between Russia and UnitedStates-character does make a difference-public service is noble: tryit, you'll like it!
'I think I married the most popular woman inAmerica,' joked President Bush at the Alumni Arena at the Universityof Buffalo, after being introduced by its president William Greiner.He came to start this year's Distinguished Speakers Series, oninvitation of the student association.
'I am not here to lecture, I will just share somethoughts with you about what I have learnt in 75 years on this globe,and I am still learning. I don't believe you can be too old to learn.For instance, I know the students with us were admitted free. This,experience teaches us, is both good news and bad news. The good newsis, you save $ 50, the bad news is, you get what you paidfor!
And another thing you learn when you get to be 75years old, is that time really flies by. I can hardly believe thatthis January 10th it is ten years since I was sworn president of theUnited States, and also six years since I was sworn out, receivingwhat Winston Churchill called "The Order of the Boot."
I miss the people in the White House, thewonderful White House staff. Fortunately for Barb and me, lifecontinues to be full. We spend time with family and friends, lot oftravel, speechmaking. We also try to do what we can to help in ourcommunities. I am going to be the chairman of the great AndersonCancer Clinic in Houston, Barb is faithful attendee of the MayoClinic, she is very active with her Family and Literary Foundation,doing a great job with that, and we are both active with Americares.And I am on the Eisenhower Exchange Fellowship, and I am working withour Library and our School of Government and Public Service at TexasA & M University. We are trying to be, what I called when I wasPresident, "one of a thousand points of light," because you see, Ihonestly believe that there can be no definition of a successful lifethat does not include service to others.
And I am told that campus life here includes a lotof community organizations. It does not matter if you are a formerpresident or a student, it is important to get involved, and givesomething back… and that really is the spirit of being one of athousand points of light!
In addition, I have done a little writing. I amnot writing a memoir, I cannot remember all those things thathappened, what I told on this or that occasion to my friend HelmutKohl in Bonn, and so on. But we recently finished a book of letters,which will be out next week, published by Scribners. I am sure thebook will not be a bestseller, but it is my substitute for a memoir,starting when I was 18 years old writing to my mother, with some verynaïve views, I might add.
Barbara wrote this great bestseller memoir, it iscalled Barbara Bush Memoir, and it was wonderful, it was on the NewYork Times bestseller list. And then, she also helped Millie, ourdog, to write a book called Millie's Book. It made $ 1,200,000 tohelp to fight against illiteracy, and it didn't seem fair, becauseMillie was totally illiterate. And here I am, writing a book calledThe World Transformed with General Scowcroft, and it never soldanything like that. It is the definitive view, however, of ourforeign policy efforts when I was President of the UnitedStates.
As for Barb, I am happy to report that the motherof governors is doing quite well. A friend is Washington said, "wedon't see Barbara here much any more, she went back to Texas to breedgovernors"… but that's not what she's doing tonight!'
'But I was asked to talk tonight about our worldand where it is headed going into the next millenium.
And for starters, let me just say to the youngpeople here, I wish I were a student, I wish I were 20 instead of 75.I wish I were just starting, because I am an unabashed optimist aboutthe kind of world that you all will be living in as we move into thenext millenium. There are some problems out there, and I will discussthem briefly, but I am an optimist about the kind of world you areinheriting and which you will live in.
And how can I be so sure? Well, I guess everyhistorian here, every teacher of history will tell his students, youcan't learn about the future without understanding the past. And onereason I am optimistic, it that I saw this change happening day afterday during the four years that I was privileged to serve asPresident. Not only in this country, as we knocked down the barriersto civil rights, and we passed the Americans with Disabilities Act,we got the Clean Air revisions, and all that, but also we saw thehistoric change that was unprecedented, in the four yearperiod.
We saw the Berlin Wall come down, we saw Germanyunified, finally overcoming the barrier placed on it after World WarII, we saw the Soviet Union that was our enemy for years in the ColdWar, virtually implode, literally come apart at the seams. And if Ihad told you 15 years ago that there would be no Soviet Union, youwould have me sent to a psychiatric ward for analysis! And ithappened that fast…
And then we saw the Central and Eastern Europebecome free, we saw the three Baltic states become free, and we sawthe Warsaw Pact, which was an enemy of NATO, come apart. And all thisin this very short period.
On November 8th I am going to Berlin to celebratethe 10th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, one of the mostdramatic highlights of my presidency. And then, one week later, Iwill be in Prague with Vaclav Havel, the great poet, now president ofCzech Republic, as we celebrate together the 10th anniversary of the'Velvet Revolution."
Havel, incidentally, is one of the mostdown-to-earth, modest, private leaders that I have ever met. He was apoet, thrown into prison, and ultimately he became the symbol offreedom, the symbol of democracy for his fellow countrymen, indeed,for much of Europe and the rest of the world.
As president, I will never forget as I went toPrague to celebrate the first anniversary of freedom and democracy.The crowd was estimated to be 750,000 to 1,000,000 people. I arrivedat the St. Wenceslas Square, and it was full of people, as far as youcould see, in the middle of Prague, simply to express their gratitudefor freedom, their gratitude for democracy. And this was a profoundlesson to me, and I have tutored and studies about democracy, but Ifelt it there and saw the strong impact that it made.
And one of the reasons I am optimistic about yourfuture, students' future, is that I don't believe that anyone canturn back the clock and set it back to totalitarianism or rigidfascism or whatever you want to call it.
The power of freedom is great, and that is thereason why I believe that I have a right to be optimistic about thefuture. So, I fully expect both of these return visits to be veryemotional visits, and I know that I will never forget the emotionsthat I felt inside at the time, as piece by piece the Berlin Wallcame down, that obscene barrier that divided brother from brother,family from family, for many, many years. And it was an indescribablyjoyous occasion, but a somebering one, too, because we did not knowhow the Soviets would react.
One of the reporters in my Oval Office asked me,"Why are you not openly rejoicing? Why haven't you expressed theemotion that we, American people feel? You are not willing to standon top of the Berlin Wall and dance with students?"
Well, let me tell you something about leadership.Leadership is not always something that will jack you up a couple ofpoints in the polls. Leadership is sometimes to curb action, or lackof action, and had I gone to Berlin at that moment, and stuck myfinger into Michail Gorbatchew's eyes, only to please thepress…who knows? We did not know how the Soviet military andtheir legions in Poland, their legions in Hungary, and their legionsin East Germany would react. We did not know if the Soviet militarymight say, 'Hey, Mr. Gorbatchew, enough is enough, and we are notgoing to stand for this, and we are going to do something.' And itwould have been a catastrophe if we had overplayed ourhand.
United States committed vast resources to winningthis ideological struggle, and communism ultimately collapsed underits own weight. I remember my predecessor Ronald Reagan beingridiculed in the many editorials in the press when he said, 'Mr.Gorbatchew, tear down the Wall!' And that he called the Soviet Unionthe 'Evil Empire.'
But what happened at that time, military spendingincreased, he was criticized for that, but the Russians concluded,but not just Gorbatchew, but some of his predecessors, that theywould not be able to win the arms race against the United States, andthat led them to Gorbatchew moving forward with glasnost,perestroika, openness, reform, and brought about significant changes.And incidentally, I think that history will be very, very kind toMichail Gorbatchew.
You know, he was considered a hard-liner at first,his wife was considered an ideologue, she taught Marxism at one oftheir great universities in Russia, but I noticed that she was buriedin a Christian cemetery the other day, and his daughter was wearing across. I noticed that they were saying prayers to God as she wasbeing laid to rest.
I talked to Gorbatchew the day his wife died inBerlin, and he was broken up as any husband would be, and I think hewas sustained by a certain faith, that might not have been possiblein a rigid communist monolithic domination.'
Then the President Bush talked about the need forfree trade, for keeping the international markets open. The UnitedStates should work toward removing barriers to free trade existing inother countries, and also we should not set up barriers to imports toAmerica. Free trade benefits all countries, and we should continuethis policy. Then he continued:
'Even more of an imperative, in my judgment, isconceiving and implementing a forward-looking foreignpolicy.
When I was President, the national security of ourcountry was my first concern. What is the toughest decision that aPresident makes? I can tell you, the most difficult decision aPresident makes, is when you have to send somebody else's son, ordaughter into combat, into harm's way. That is the most difficultdecision. And we have to do it at times, and of course the presentforeign policy doesn't stir the passions of anyone, but that does notdiminish the need to look out for our long-term interests. And theworld is safer, and is a more peaceful place than it was at the startof the century, and yet there is danger there, there is instabilitythere, and we need to work hard to secure a safer future for mygrandkids and your kids…
We are going nearly decade into this new era, andwe don't seem to have a fair enough footing yet, we don't seem to besure of our direction … at times, we seem to be a superpoweradrift, just look at Kosovo.
It was the first major intervention for NATO inthe post Cold War era. All Americans were deeply offended by thehorrors visited on the Kosovar Albanians by the Serbs. Goodintentions aside, it is not clear to me, what the operation achieved.One essential reason for action was to prevent the displacement ofthe Kosovar Albanians. But NATO actions seem to have had the exactopposite effect. Before intervention, 230,000 Kosovar Albanians weredisplaced by the Serbs. Three months later, nearly 1,500,000 havelost their homes.
And of course, the air war was a success in thesense that our pilots performed beautifully, our technology was good,we didn't lose one single airman, and everyone should be thankful forthat. But I hope that we didn't raise the nation's expectation thatfreedom comes cheaply, or easily. I hope that people do not losesight of that. Securing the peace in the new era will involvesacrifice and sustained effort.
The situation in Kosovo provides ample evidence,that although this Soviet bear, the Soviet Empire is now extinct, newthreats emerge to take its place. Faceless threats, in the form ofincorrigible dictators, religious and ideological extremists, peoplekilling each other in the name of God, terrorists at home and abroad,international narco-traffickers, proliferation of weapons of massdestruction, and more.
A brief survey of the global landscape revealssituations crying out to be addressed. For example, one of the greatthreats to the social and political order of the developing world isthat 1.5 billion people are forced to live on less that $ 1 a day.And furthermore, it is reported that next month there will be 6billion people in the world, and in the next 25 years, we will haveanother 2 billion people to feed.
And that alone should explain why we need to doour part, and help our partners and neighbors who bear an impossibleburden to meet their overwhelming needs of their people. As anAmerican, it seems clear to me, that we need to help those leadersand countries, who with our active encouragement have made the leapto freedom and free markets.
We cannot turn our backs during their awkward andsometimes difficult period of adjustment, when the going gets tough.We cannot fail to recognize the political courage of theforward-looking people who charted a new and more hopeful course fortheir people.
Indeed, more that 1/3 of humanity is now engagedin privatizing what were largely socialist command economies until afew short years ago. And just in the last decade, we have come sofar: privatization, less regulation, all around countries that usedto be socialist economies … you cannot but be optimistic aboutwhat lies ahead. The process of reform has got to continue, it is noteasy, I admit, but I think it will continue, and that's why I amoptimistic.
In Russia, the situation, bleak as it is, isgetting better. There are some bright spots in the economy, oilprices are up and that helps a bit, exports are rebounding, taxreceipts are up, a tight budget has been set by the Duma. But thepolitical turmoil remains, as is shown by the succession of men whohave rotated in and out of the Prime Minister's slot to the pointthat they could put a revolving door in the Kremlin. They are comingand going almost every day, and that instability doesn't help Russiaas it reaches out to interact with its trading partners around theworld.
We got our work cut out for us, to rebuild thebridge between Russia and the United States, we got to stay involved,we can't give up, we can't gloat over victory in the Cold War. Wehave to treat Russia with respect, and when we criticize, we ought tobe constructive critics.
When the Wall fell, I did not gloat. When theBaltics became free, I was determined that we work with Gorbatchew tosee that transition to freedom was peaceful, and that we did nothingto provoke Soviet anger so that they would set back the freeing ofthe Baltic states. These foreign powers that are changing, they needto be interacted with, and they need to be treated withrespect.
I believe it is absolutely imperative that as thepost Cold War world takes shape, we get our act together and startsending clear signals to the world that we intend to lead, and leadwith consistency. And we need to make clear that we seek to foster noone's weakness, and that we want so see the process of reform tocontinue.
In the end, whether you are talking business orglobal politics, it takes leadership and courage to make positive,forward-looking change happen. It takes leadership and courage toconceive a vision, and then make it reality. Leadership and courage.Who says, 'Character doesn't count?' It matters in all of thesematters, and I believe it.
I know many people here are down on the politicalprocess, too much money for some, too many special interests forothers, but despite its warts, and there are many, I still believethat public service is a noble calling.
We've got this little school, George Bush Schoolof Government and Public Service at Texas A & M University, andthe Library, and I love working with those kids, trying to inculcatethem with a sense of public service being helpful, be it at the locallevel, or community work, that public service is noble. And althoughwe live in an era illuminated by peace and prosperity that mankindhas never known before, we still need to get decent people getinvolved, get off the sidelines, to roll up their sleeves and givesomething back to this country which has given us so much.
And again, judging by the active volunteerorganizations right here, that's exactly what so many here at theUniversity of Buffalo do every day, and I would encourage you to keepup the good work. Believe me, it does make a big difference in thelives of others, but perhaps the biggest difference it makes is inyour own life. You'll feel wonderful. You'll have the sense ofserving others. For 35 challenging, exciting years, I've had mychance.
We got some things right in my administration. Iwas blessed with wonderful people, wonderful, honest people aroundme. And I know I could have done some things a lot better. But mytime to serve is since passed, and I hope it is not out of bounds inthis marvelously non-partisan forum for me to note, how proud Barbaraand me are to see our two sons, George W. and Jeb, doing their partin giving their all &endash; one of them governor in the secondbiggest state in the nation, the other governor in the fourth biggeststate in the nation.
And believe me, what greater reward can a fatherand a mother have, than two sons who are willing to live TheodoreRoosevelt's "strenuous life!" Yes, they will make mistakes, they willget hurt along the way, but they are in there trying, they are inthere willing to serve.
I will simply say to the young people here: giveit a shot, try it. You'll like it!
Buffalo, New York
October 4, 1999
May we recommend some books?
Allthe Best, Beorge Bush, by George Bush
RonaldReagan: An American Story
Reagan on Leadership, by James M. Strock
AWorld Transformed, by George Bush
Primerfor Those Who Would Govern, by Hermann Oberth
ArnoBreker: The Divine Beauty in Art, by B. John Zavrel
Alexanderthe Great, by Robin Lane Fox