Administration of William J. Clinton, 1999 / Apr. 26 741

Would anyone else like to talk before we Letter to Congressional Leaders adjourn? Gerhard, do you want to say any- Transmitting the Report on thing else? Massimo? Certification of the Nuclear [Chancellor Schroeder and Prime Minister Weapons Stockpile D’Alema made remarks.] April 23, 1999 President Clinton. Thank you. Yes, I’m Dear lllll: not sure I would even have you here, In my September 22, 1997, message trans- Massimo, if I were running for reelection. mitting the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Laughter [ ] Ban Treaty to the Senate for advice and con- No, no, I’ll tell you a serious story. Hillary sent to ratification, I announced that I would and I went to Italy over a decade ago, and provide to the appropriate committees of we were in northern Italy, and I met these Congress the annual certification of the nu- Italian Communists who were anti-Soviet clear weapons stockpile by the Secretaries of Union, pro-NATO, and pro-free enterprise. Defense and Energy and accompanying re- And I thought to myself, I’ve got to be very port. Enclosed is a copy of that certification careful about what words mean, anymore. It and report. Laughter was amazing. [ ] I am pleased to note the Secretaries’ con- Let me introduce three more people who clusion that the nuclear stockpile has no safe- came here and are just as tired as our panel- ty or reliability concerns that require under- ists are, and they sat through this whole ground testing at this time. Problems that thing. I’d like to thank Cherie Blair, Rita have arisen in the stockpile are being ad- Kok, and Doris Schroeder Koepf for being dressed and resolved without underground here. Thank you all for coming, and being nuclear testing to ensure the stockpile re- a part of this. mains safe and reliable. In reaching this con- And let me say, I’m sure you all know that clusion, the Secretaries obtained the advice this was a very difficult but profoundly im- of the Directors of the National Weapons portant 3-day meeting we had of NATO. And Laboratories, the Commander in Chief, all these leaders, I think, must be quite ex- United States Strategic Command, and the hausted. We have worked very hard and tried Nuclear Weapons Council. to do the right thing on every front. But they Sincerely, cared enough about these ideas and the worldwide movement to try to achieve what William J. Clinton we have worked on and believe in, in com- mon, that they came here to be with us. And NOTE: Letters were sent to the congressional leadership and selected Representatives and Sen- I think we owe them all a very great debt ators. This letter was released by the Office of of gratitude, and we thank them. the Press Secretary on April 26. An original was [Mr. From thanked the participants and not available for verification of the content of this closed the discussion.] letter.

NOTE: The discussion entitled ‘‘The Third Way: Progressive Governance for the 21st Century,’’ Statement on the Supreme Court’s began at 5:21 p.m. at the National Press Club Decision To Consider the Food and Building. In his remarks, he referred to former Drug Administration’s Regulation of Assistant to the President Sidney Blumenthal; Tobacco Products Prime Minister Lionel Jospin of France; John J. Sweeney, president, AFL–CIO; Ethel Kennedy, April 26, 1999 mother of Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend; I am very pleased that the Supreme Court Cherie Blair, wife of Prime Minister Blair; Rita Kok, wife of Prime Minister Kok; and Doris has agreed to take up the case regarding the Schroeder, wife of Chancellor Schroeder. The Food and Drug Administration’s regulation transcript made available by the Office of the of tobacco products. Almost 3 years ago, the Press Secretary also included the remarks of the FDA put in place a regulation to protect our other participants. children from tobacco, which the tobacco

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