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    Q. Mr. President, you covered the waterfront on domestic issues you 
think are very important. But there is a question of racism. And I 
understand there's a report in the White House, already in second draft, 
and it's supposed to be a political hot potato and, therefore, you're 
hesitant to make it public.
    The President. Oh, no, that's not what's going on. There is a draft 
of a book that I wanted to produce and asked for help on from Chris 
Edley and from others on our staff and not on our staff several months 
ago. And Chris gave me his draft; then the staff looked at it and talked 
about where it was and wasn't consistent with present policies we were 
pursuing. They gave it all to me.
    I was involved for the last 3 months with the conflict in Kosovo. 
And what has really happened is that I want to do this right. I think 
all of you know how important this whole race issue is to me, and it's 
been amplified in its potential future importance because of the 
problems that we see involving race and ethnic and religious problems 
around the world.
    So I want to make sure that when we put this document out, it is in 
the form of a book

[[Page 1191]]

which can be useful and have something to say and move the conversation 
and the efforts beyond where we were in the Presidential initiative on 
race. So you shouldn't draw any conclusions other than that I want to be 
personally involved in it and I simply haven't had the time to give it 
the effort that it deserves.
    Q. Is it based on the panel's hearings and so forth?
    The President. Oh, yes, to some extent. It's based on the panel's 
hearings; it's based on very long conversations I had with the people 
that worked on the draft for me--with Mr. Edley and Terry Edmonds and 
others. We had some long, long sessions. I went through everything I 
wanted in the book. I went through some things I wanted to emphasize 
more than were emphasized in the year that the panel was publicly 
meeting--we were having the race dialogs.
    But I think it's very important, but it's got to be, first of all, 
mine. It's got to reflect what I believe and where I think we need to 
go. And secondly, it needs to move the ball forward a little bit.
    There's still a great deal of interest in this. Those of you who 
covered the speech this morning at Georgetown will remember that the 
young woman from Alabama who introduced me talked about how the 
initiative on race got her involved in something in her local community. 
Another one of the Presidential scholars, when she walked by me this 
morning, said, ``I want to know how I can get involved; I'm still 
interested in this.'' So I think there's still a great deal of interest 
in this in the country, and maybe, especially among our younger people. 
And I just want this book to be very good.
    So you shouldn't--yes, there are some differences of opinion among 
the people who had input in it, but that's not what's caused us not to 
put it out. What's caused us not to put it out is that I have not had 
the time to give to it, to be very careful and relaxed and thoughtful 
about how I say what it is I want to say to the country about this.
    Larry [Larry McQuillan, Reuters].

Legislative Agenda

    Q. Mr. President, this morning and again just now, you made 
references to a summer of progress, and you were calling for 
bipartisanship to try to accomplish things in the next few months. I'm 
just wondering, with the 2000 campaign obviously heating up and growing 
in intensity, do you feel there's more of an urgency to act right away, 
within the coming months?
    The President. Well, for one thing, I think it would be to 
everyone's advantage to continue to make progress. As I always tell the 
Republicans and Democrats, no matter how much we do, there will still be 
plenty of things on which there is honest disagreement, over which the 
next election can be fought. That is it just in the nature of things. 
That's healthy; that's good; that's a two-party system in America.
    But we are all hired by the American people to work here day-in and 
day-out, week-in and week-out, and we make a grave mistake--and it's 
almost never good politics to do the wrong thing--that is, to take a 
pass on making progress when you can do it.
    This is a very unusual moment where we have sustained prosperity, 
the longest peacetime expansion in our history. We've gone from having 
the biggest deficits in history to having the biggest surpluses in 
history. And yet, we have these looming demographic challenges of Social 
Security and Medicare. And we have these big issues that are right 
before us now, the ones I mentioned on which there is basically broad 
agreement.
    So I think that it would be good for America and, therefore, good 
for everyone involved if we go ahead and do this. I think, obviously, 
the closer you get to the election, perhaps the more difficult it will 
be. But I expect--I'll make you a prediction here--I expect that we'll 
get some good things done in the year 2000, before the Congress recesses 
finally for the election then. I expect to keep working right up to the 
very end, and I think that we will continue to make progress.
    But the most important thing is the attitude of the main players in 
Congress insofar as Congress has to play a role in this.

[[Page 1192]]

    Yes, go ahead.

Response to Cox Committee Report on Chinese Nuclear Espionage

    Q.  Mr. President, in the wake of California Congressman Christopher 
Cox's study of spying in the U.S. and, specifically, Chinese attempts to 
spy, you asked your Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board to look into 
this, and it came back with a central recommendation that you separate 
the Nation's nuclear labs from the Energy Department.
    Your Energy Secretary seems to be resisting that. Ask me, sir--tell 
me, sir, how you feel about it--[laughter]--and let me ask you once 
again: Do you still maintain that you were not told anything about these 
Chinese efforts to spy at the Nation's nuclear labs during your 
administration, sir?
    The President. Let's go back to the first question--there are two 
separate questions. I read Senator Rudman's report; I thought it was 
quite interesting and had a lot of very helpful analyses of how this 
problem developed. And there were actually two separate organizational 
recommendations that he made in the alternative: either that the labs 
could be put under an independent board, or that the labs should be 
taken out of the present hierarchy of organization because of the 
culture--the committee--the Rudman group talked a lot about the culture 
of the labs and its resistance to oversight. He said another alternative 
might be to take it out from under the present organizational structure 
and make it directly answerable--the labs--directly answerable to the 
Secretary's Office. And he posed those things in the alternative.
    I have asked our people to look at it. I have talked to Secretary 
Richardson about it. I think everyone recognizes that he has worked very 
hard to deal with the underlying security issues, which are the most 
important things. And I think we all just ought to try to get together 
and work out what the best organizational structure is, and I expect 
that we will be--I expect to have a chance to talk to him about that and 
to work on it.
    But I think the Rudman report was a service to the country, and I 
think that Bill Richardson is doing a good job on trying to implement 
the security measures that are necessary. He's being very, very 
aggressive.
    Now, on the second question, I went back--I've been interested in 
this question, and I went back and looked at exactly what I said. Let me 
go back to what the facts are. First of all, there's been a 20-year 
problem with lax security at the labs. And what I said was that I didn't 
suspect that any actual breaches of security had occurred during my 
tenure. Since then, we have learned of the offloading of the computer by 
Mr. Lee, from the secured computers into his personal computers. That's 
something we know now that I didn't know then.
    But I think my choice of wording was poor. What I should have said 
was I did not know of any specific instance of espionage, because I 
think that we've been suspicious all along. And I have to acknowledge, I 
think, I used a poor word there. I think suspicion is--we have been 
suspicious all along, generally. We did not have any specific instance, 
as we now do, of the offloading of the computer.
    But I also want to emphasize that I took no particular comfort in 
that, because what we have here is--what I learned in 1997 was that 
there was a general problem of very long standing with the security at 
the labs, and I issued the Executive order in early '98 to clean it up. 
And Secretary Richardson has been working on it since then. And I think 
we've made a lot of progress since then.
    Yes.

Medicare

    Q. Sir, I'd like to ask you about Medicare and your plans that 
you're going to be announcing next week. This is a program that tens of 
millions of Americans depend on and yet in 15 years it will be, 
effectively, bankrupt. And you're about to propose what could be a very 
costly additional benefit in the prescription benefit. Why are you going 
to do that, sir? Isn't that going to make the problem worse, not better?
    The President. No. For one thing--let me remind you that we have 
taken a lot of very tough positions to reform Medicare since 1993. When 
I took office, Medicare was supposed to go broke this year. And now it's 
out to--what is it--2015 or something. So we have taken a lot of 
important positions

[[Page 1193]]

already. And as a matter of fact, as I'm sure you're all aware, a lot of 
the health care providers--particularly rural hospitals, nursing homes, 
home health providers, a disproportionate share of hospitals--for the 
folks listening to us, that's basically inner-city hospitals and 
teaching hospitals that have a whole lot of poor folks they take care of 
who aren't reimbursed--a lot of those people believe that our savings 
are too great. But we've taken some very tough actions to try to 
lengthen the life of the Medicare Trust Fund.
    When I make my proposals on Tuesday, there will be more to lengthen 
the life further, to make sure that we get through the first quarter 
century and maybe more of the new century with Medicare alive and well.
    But if you look at the long run, I think it's important that we 
propose a prescription drug benefit because life expectancy is going up. 
Drugs are being constantly developed which help to improve the quality 
as well as the length of life, and if they are properly taken, they can 
actually reduce long-term hospitalization and other medical costs.
    Now, it is absolutely true that if we design this wrong, it could 
wind up being a lot more expensive than rosy scenario suggests. But if 
you look at my record here over the last 6\1/2\ years, I've tried to be 
quite conservative in my budget projections and quite responsible in 
handling the budget of the country. And you will see that, I think, 
reflected in the way I make this proposal--including the prescription 
drugs.
    But I don't really think there's any alternative here. You've got 15 
million Americans--seniors--out there without any kind of coverage for 
their medicine. You've got millions and millions of others with 
inadequate or highly expensive coverage. And I just--I really believe 
that this is the most significant health care need that senior citizens 
have today. And I believe that over the long run, the proper 
availability, properly priced, of prescription medicine will actually 
not only lengthen lives and improve the quality of life of our seniors 
and improve their security--their state of mind--but it will also, long, 
long-term, save medical costs because it will keep people out of 
hospitals and out of more expensive treatments.
    Ellen [Ellen Ratner, Talk Radio News Service].

Campaign Finance Reform

    Q. What is your strategy now, Mr. President, for a comprehensive 
campaign finance reform, to really make it pass?
    The President. Well, I think the best strategy is to get a clear 
majority of the House of Representatives to demand that it come up, and 
then try to put enough pressure on to get the Senate leaders to let it 
come up.
    Basically, the Republican leadership in the Senate has said that 
they're just not going to permit it to come up, because they don't want 
their people who would vote against it to have a recorded vote on it, 
and they don't want to run the risk that they've got enough for their 
folks that would vote with all of ours--see, all of our people are for 
it. We've got 100 percent of the Democrats in the Senate for it.
    And so, what I think we have to do is to keep it on the front burner 
enough so that the discomfort level rises high enough that an actual 
vote is allowed. All I've really asked for here is a vote. If we'd just 
get a vote on the bill, I will be very well satisfied and I think it 
will come out just fine.
    Yes, Ann [Ann Compton, ABC News].

Timing of Candidacy Announcements and Effects of President's Conduct

    Q. Can I ask a political question? When Vice President Gore 
announced officially for President, he chose a date when you were going 
to be out of the country. And according to Mrs. Clinton's supporters, if 
she announces her exploratory committee in the next couple of weeks, it 
would be at a time when you've got a commitment to go out to South 
Dakota.
    Do you think your personal behavior has made you something of a 
liability to those who are running? And did you take it personally when 
Vice President Gore made his announcement and seemed to set himself so 
clearly separate from you when it came to issues of family?
    The President. Well, first of all, I thought, as I have said 
repeatedly, I thought the Vice President had a great announcement. And

[[Page 1194]]

what he really said in his announcement--I actually heard it, so I don't 
have to have it characterized for me--what he said in his announcement 
was that he had had more experience than anybody running--which is true; 
that he would put forward more specific ideas about what he would do if 
he were elected President than anyone has to date, by far--which is 
true; and that the choice before the American people was whether we 
would build on the progress that we've made for the last 6 years or turn 
around and go backwards--which is what I think the real choice will be 
before the American people. So I approved of that.
    And as far as his doing it when I was out of the country, I thought 
that was a good thing. Very often, you'd be amazed how many times over 
the last 6\1/2\ years we have planned for certain announcements to be 
made by the Vice President when I was out of the country, because that 
way it gets--I mean, far be it for us to try to maneuver the press--
[laughter]--but he gets better coverage and I get better coverage--I'm 
out of the country, so he gets better coverage. So I thought that was a 
good thing.
    And I think on the general point, what I have noticed over now more 
than 30 years, since I first began to volunteer as a young man in 
politics, all politics, all elections are about the future; and all 
candidates are judged on their own merits. And I believe that is the 
case here.
    But I think that the American people know that the country's in good 
shape and that not only our economic policies, our crime policies, and 
our welfare policies, but our family policies are good for their efforts 
to raise their children. And the best thing that I can do, it seems to 
me, is to do the right thing by my country, to just keep working at 
being a good President, and they'll do fine.
    Q. Not be with Mrs. Clinton when she campaigns?
    The President. Well, first of all, she hasn't made a decision to 
announce to run for the Senate. This is not what's going on here. And as 
a practical matter, logistically and legally--as a practical matter, she 
has to have an exploratory committee to continue to talk to people in 
New York about this. That's all this is. She has not made a final 
decision to run yet. So I think that's a whole different issue. And I 
think that you should look at it in that context.
    Mark [Mark Knoller, CBS Radio].

Serbs and Ethnic Albanians in Kosovo

    Q. Mr. President, considering what's going on in Kosovo now, and now 
that you've had a chance to meet with the refugees in Macedonia on 
Tuesday and you've heard the depth of the hatred that they feel for the 
Serbs and you've heard of the brutality to which they were subjected, is 
it not asking the impossible for the Serbs and the ethnic Albanians to 
live in peace in Kosovo?
    The President. Well, I don't think they could do it without a lot of 
help in the short run. And I think--I was asked this question earlier in 
a slightly different question--I think that the first and most important 
thing is for us to get the whole KFOR force in there, all 50,000, as 
quickly as possible, properly deployed to maximize security. Then I 
think we've got to get people busy doing positive things--rebuilding 
their homes, reestablishing their property records, reestablishing their 
schools. We've got to give them something to think about on a daily 
basis that is positive. Then I strongly believe we need to give them the 
help they need to try to work through this emotionally, psychologically, 
spiritually, morally. I think a lot of these children are going to need 
mental health services, and I hope we can get them. I think that we need 
to bring people in who have been through similar things.

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