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National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) 4/2/90 [OA 4727] [2]
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26
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2
3
Document No. 126496SS
WHITE HOUSE STAFFING MEMORANDUM
3/26/90
3/27/90 4:00 PM
DATE:
ACTION/CONCURRENCE/COMMENT DUE BY:
PRESIDENTIAL REMARKS: NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BROADCASTERS
SUBJECT:
ACTION FYI
ACTION FYI
VICE PRESIDENT
MCCLURE
SUNUNU
NEWMAN
SCOWCROFT
PORTER
DARMAN
ROGICH
BATES
UNTERMEYER
ROGERS
CARD
CICCONI
WINSTON
DEMAREST
PINKERTON
FITZWATER
GRAY
HAGIN
REMARKS:
Please forward any comments directly to Chriss Winston, Rm. 122,
x2930, no later than 4:00 PM, Tuesday, March 27, with a copy to
my office. Thank you.
RESPONSE: See comments
11 :Sd 22 MAR 06
James W. Cicconi
Assistant to the President
and Deputy to the Chief of Staff
Ext. 2702
Davis/Martin
Title: NAB
March 21, 1990
1990 MAR 26 PM 3. 20
Draft: Three
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS: NAB, GEORGIA WORLD CONGRESS CENTER
10 a.m. Monday, April 2, 1990
( (Acknowledgements -- President Eddie Fritz, Walt Warthel,
Hank Roeder, Rory Benson, thirty Members of Congress with us
today, etc.) )
( (Someone just told me that this very convention center will
be transformed tonight for a Grateful Dead concert. 11 Imagine
that, The Grateful Dead
I guess I can do that to an
audience if I speak too long. ))\\\
It's a privilege to be back before the National Association
of Broadcasters. I can't help but marvel at the huge screens
around us -- ( (you know, if I were as large as my image on these
screens, imagine how easy it would be for me to get my way with
Congress) ) And this convention is also displayed on monitors
around this arena; and from here, beamed around the world.
But there was a time when most Americans knew their
presidents distantly, from woodcut prints in their weekly
newspaper. The circle of democracy in ancient Athens and Rome
was even more limited, just to those within hearing range of the
debates inside the Parthenon or the Forum. But today, through
free, over-the-air broadcasts, you have brought millions of
living rooms within hearing range; you have made every home a
part of the American forum.
2
In fact, on this very day, you are providing -- for the
6,000 foreign broadcasters in attendance, through your
international seminars and through USIA's Worldnet -- a seminar
for the world. Television, which began as the American forum,
has become the world forum.
And so when a lone brave man stood up to a column of tanks
in Tienanmen Square, the world stood with him.
When the people of Prague sang the first Christmas carols in
almost half a century, the world sang with them.
And when the first German took the first hammer to that wall
of shame in Berlin, the world shared in an historic act of
courage
These images of democracy belong to the world. But it was
here in America that a free people first explored how to put the
airwaves into the service of democracy.
We did this by accepting regulation, but firmly rejecting
government programming or censorship, and government-ownership of
stations. Now the freedom your association enjoys is the model
the world is following today -- not just in the East, but also
among heavily-regulated nations in the West.
This is all part and parcel of a greater trend -- the ever-
increasing free flow of information around the globe. We live in
a time when commodity prices, travel reservations and news flash
from Hong Kong to Tokyo, Tokyo to Bonn, Bonn to Boston, all in
the blink of an eye. Roam among the acres of exhibits in this
convention center and you will find 22 football fields chocked
3
full of the latest gadgets in telecommunications: personal
computers and modems, fax machines, lasers, optical fibers,
satellites -- all strands in a growing web of world
communications, a growing world community, "a global village."
The information industry is not an adornment to modern life.
It is the essence of who and what we are. It is truly an
information age.
Last May, I discussed the future of Europe with the citizens
of Mainz, a German city nestled in the green hills along the
Rhine. And it was while I was there that I appreciated anew the
Biblical expression: "In the beginning was the Word." For it was
in that German town that the inventor of the printing press,
Johannes ((Yo-HAN-nes) Gutenberg ( (GOOT-ten-berg) ) first put
the scholarship of the ages into the hands of millions of
knowledge-hungry readers.
His one invention made possible all the pamphlets and
journals of the Enlightenment and the American Revolution -- from
the call to arms of Thomas Paine to the cool logic of The
Federalist Papers. You might argue that out of that one
invention sprang the very idea called America.
Today, along with the word, we have the image -- images
formed by the pixels of color television, and evoked by the
sounds of radio. But while Western democracy broadened as our
knowledge broadened, the circle of democracy and knowledge
narrowed under the communist regimes of Central and Eastern
Europe, and Southeast Asia.
4
For these nations, truth was something to be twisted and
stretched by the brutal hands of authority, manipulated beyond
recognition. The Czech author, Milan Kundera, calls this time
the "Kingdom of Forgetting" -- when whole nations almost forgot
their heroic histories and finest traditions. From Prague to
Phenom Penh, the peoples of these lands never fully gave in to
amnesia, because even in the worst hours of repression, they
could always count on a friendly voice to remind them of the
truth -- the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Radio
Liberty.
To fully appreciate what these broadcasts do, you need only
to ask a listener. Perhaps someone like Huang Ngor ( (Whang-
Nohr) ) whom you probably remember as the Cambodian actor in The
Killing Fields. But Doctor Ngor lived this horror before be
portrayed it on the screen. And when he lived in Cambodia under
the Khmer Rouge, the ownership of a radio was a crime punishable
by death.
Yet, as soon as it was safe to do so, the Cambodian people
dug up their radios, took out the dead batteries, laid them in
the sun and poured water over them. And in this way, they could
get another 15 or 20 minutes of life out of the old batteries,
precious minutes for which many people risked their lives. 11
Remember that: the free news broadcasts which we so easily take
for granted in America, some people must risk death to hear.
((Insert to come))
5
Change is coming more easily to the Soviet Union. The
Sassers 44580
Soviet government once spent half a billion dollars a year to jam
such truth as
foreign broadcasts so that its people would not learn what their
sons and brothers were doing in Afghanistan. But within the
Soviet media today are many honorable men and women who strive to
report the news, who take glasnost more seriously than the party
line. And that is why more and more Soviet journalists are
earning the respect and admiration of their colleagues abroad.
Even more dramatic signs of change abound. The editor of
Tass speaks to Washington's National Press Club. The subject?
Freedom of information. China made its first conciliatory act by
accrediting a VOA correspondent. And throughout the world, the
jamming of American broadcasts has ceased.
But most remarkable of all, Soviet publications that once
vilified the Voice of America now praise it. Words of praise and
support come from Isvestia. A commentator in Moscow News thanks
VOA, and says that it uses ( (and I quote) ) : "our own broadening
sources of information better than we do and without delay return
to us what they have gathered."
Now Radio Free Europe has bureaus in Warsaw and Budapest,
and VOA even has one in Moscow -- an unthinkable development just
a few years ago. The very fact that it is no longer considered
remarkable to link live programs from Washington to Kiev, or from
Chicago and New York to Gdansk and Warsaw is, in itself,
remarkable.
6
How did this happen? It happened in part because of the
power of truth. Czechoslovakia's playwright-president, Vaclav
Havel, paid a very personal tribute to this power on his recent
visit to Washington, when he visited the Voice of America, and
met the employees of its Czech division. It was a very poignant
encounter -- for though Havel didn't recognize any of them by
face, he knew them all by name the instant he heard them speak.
And it is moments like that, that convince me of one sure
thing: I am determined that America will continue to bear witness
to the truth. America must never lose its voice. III
Sassen
Still, we can envision a time when the purpose of Radio Free
X 4580
Europe and Radio Liberty will be utterly fulfilled. But for now,
these networks, along with VOA and USIA, have two new missions.
D u Sault
First, We can fill a void in reporting between the nations
4770
of Eastern Europe. After all, Eastern Europeans need more than
Robert's Rules of Order. They need to know how the process of
reform is working with their neighbors. So if one nation adopts
a novel path to reform, a pollution control, or currency law, the
others need to be able to benefit from that experiment
Second, as we help the newly free news services to replace
the old distorted information sources, we can help them avoid the
worst forms of a free press -> bias, sensationalism and yellow
journalism. But we need to do even more. So I am instructing
USIA and Radio Free Europe to provide teaching and training for
apprentice journalists in Central and Eastern Europe.
Du Sault
X 4770
7
50580
Sasser
But, The best example of a free press must come from you. The
Peace Corps is teaching English in Eastern Europe as the lingua
franca of business and journalism. But it is not tasked to offer
a model of journalistic excellence. Only the American press
corps can pick up where the Peace Corps leaves off -- and provide
a model of accuracy, fairness and objectivity.
As broadcasters, you can -- and you are -- transferring
American know-how to the East. You are working with VOA to train
and orient foreign broadcasters visiting the United States. Just
in February, the director of Polish radio and television visited
your headquarters, in part to seek the counsel and assistance of
American broadcasters. And you have sent your representatives to
meet with their counterparts in the Soviet Union.
And on top of this, you are helping Americans to invest in
joint ventures to establish new radio and television networks in
the East. So most of all, I am here today to recognize your
energetic international leadership.
We are making the most of an opportunity anticipated forty-
five years ago by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a few months before
he made his last trip to his beloved second home so near here, at
Warms Springs. In one of his last messages to Congress,
President Roosevelt said that of all the changes taking place in
the world, it is communication that will do the most to advance
the cause of peace.
8
That was our vision then. That is our vision today. And by
working together, the vision of America is fast becoming a
reality for the world.
Thank you, may God bless you and may God bless the United
States of America.
#
#
#
Document No. 126496SS
WHITE HOUSE STAFFING MEMORANDUM
3/26/90
90 MAR 27 P4: 42
3/27/90 4:00 PM
DATE:
ACTION/CONCURRENCE/COMMENT DUE BY:
PRESIDENTIAL REMARKS: NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BROADCASTERS
SUBJECT:
ACTION FYI
ACTION FYI
VICE PRESIDENT
MCCLURE
SUNUNU
NEWMAN
SCOWCROFT
PORTER
DARMAN
ROGICH
BATES
UNTERMEYER
CARD
ROGERS
CICCONI
WINSTON
DEMAREST
PINKERTON
FITZWATER
GRAY
HAGIN
REMARKS:
Please forward any comments directly to Chriss Winston, Rm. 122,
x2930, no later than 4:00 PM, Tuesday, March 27, with a copy to
my office. Thank you.
RESPONSE:
See comments
James W. Cicconi
Assistant to the President
and Deputy to the Chief of Staff
Ext. 2702
Davis/Martin
Title: NAB
March 21, 1990
1990 MAR 26 PH 3. 20
Draft: Three
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS: NAB, GEORGIA WORLD CONGRESS CENTER
10 a.m. Monday, April 2, 1990
( (Acknowledgements -- President Eddie Fritz, Walt Warthel,
Hank Roeder, Rory Benson, thirty Members of Congress with us
today, etc.) )
((Someone just told me that this very convention center will
be transformed tonight for a Grateful Dead concert. 11 Imagine
that, The Grateful Dead
I guess I can do that to an
audience if I speak too long. ) 1111
It's a privilege to be back before the National Association
of Broadcasters. I can't help but marvel at the huge screens
around us -- ( (you know, if I were as large as my image on these
screens, imagine how easy it would be for me to get my way with
Congress) ) And this convention is also displayed on monitors
around this arena; and from here, beamed around the world.
But there was a time when most Americans knew their
presidents distantly, from woodcut prints in their weekly
newspaper. The circle of democracy in ancient Athens and Rome
was even more limited, just to those within hearing range of the
debates inside the Parthenon or the Forum. But today, through
free, over-the-air broadcasts, you have brought millions of
living rooms within hearing range; you have made every home a
part of the American forum.
2
In fact, on this very day, you are providing -- for the
6,000 foreign broadcasters in attendance, through your
international seminars and through USIA's Worldnet -- a seminar
for the world. Television, which began as the American forum,
has become the world forum.
And so when a lone brave man stood up to a column of tanks
in Tienanmen Square, the world stood with him.
When the people of Prague sang the first Christmas carols in
almost half a century, the world sang with them.
And when the first German took the first hammer to that wall
of shame in Berlin, the world shared in an historic act of
courage.
These images of democracy belong to the world. But it was
here in America that a free people first explored how to put the
airwaves into the service of democracy.
We did this by accepting regulation, but firmly rejecting
government programming or censorship, and government-ownership of
stations. Now the freedom your association enjoys is the model
the world is following today -- not just in the East, but also
among heavily-regulated nations in the West.
This is all part and parcel of a greater trend -- the ever-
increasing free flow of information around the globe. We live in
a time when commodity prices, travel reservations and news flash
from Hong Kong to Tokyo, Tokyo to Bonn, Bonn to Boston, all in
the blink of an eye. Roam among the acres of exhibits in this
convention center and you will find 22 football fields chocked
3
full of the latest gadgets in telecommunications: personal
computers and modems, fax machines, lasers, optical fibers,
satellites -- all strands in a growing web of world
communications, a growing world community, "a global village."
The information industry is not an adornment to modern life.
It is the essence of who and what we are. It is truly an
information age.
Last May, I discussed the future of Europe with the citizens
of Mainz, a German city nestled in the green hills along the
Rhine. And it was while I was there that I appreciated anew the
Biblical expression: "In the beginning was the Word." For it was
in that German town that the inventor of the printing press,
Johannes ( (Yo-HAN-nes) ) Gutenberg ((GOOT-ten-berg)) first put
the scholarship of the ages into the hands of millions of
knowledge-hungry readers.
His one invention made possible all the pamphlets and
journals of the Enlightenment and the American Revolution -- from
the call to arms of Thomas Paine to the cool logic of The
Federalist Papers. You might argue that out of that one
invention sprang the very idea called America.
Today, along with the word, we have the image -- images
formed by the pixels of color television, and evoked by the
sounds of radio. But while Western democracy broadened as our
knowledge broadened, the circle of democracy and knowledge
narrowed under the communist regimes of Central and Eastern
Europe, and Southeast Asia.
4
For these nations, truth was something to be twisted and
stretched by the brutal hands of authority, manipulated beyond
recognition. The Czech author, Milan Kundera, calls this time
the "Kingdom of Forgetting" -- when whole nations almost forgot
their heroic histories and finest traditions. From Prague to
Phenom Penh, the peoples of these lands never fully gave in to
amnesia, because even in the worst hours of repression, they
could always count on a friendly voice to remind them of the
truth -- the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Radio
Liberty.
To fully appreciate what these broadcasts do, you need only
to ask a listener. Perhaps someone like Huang Ngor ( (Whang-
Nohr) ) , whom you probably remember as the Cambodian actor in The
Killing Fields. But Doctor Ngor lived this horror before be
portrayed it on the screen. And when he lived in Cambodia under
the Khmer Rouge, the ownership of a radio was a crime punishable
by death.
Yet, as soon as it was safe to do so, the Cambodian people
dug up their radios, took out the dead batteries, laid them in
the sun and poured water over them. And in this way, they could
get another 15 or 20 minutes of life out of the old batteries,
precious minutes for which many people risked their lives. 11
Remember that: the free news broadcasts which we so easily take
for granted in America, some people must risk death to hear.
( (Insert to come))
5
Change is coming more easily to the Soviet Union. The
Soviet government once spent half a billion dollars a year to jam
foreign broadcasts so that its people would not learn what their
sons and brothers were doing in Afghanistan. But within the
Soviet media today are many honorable men and women who strive to
report the news, who take glasnost more seriously than the party
line. And that is why more and more Soviet journalists are
earning the respect and admiration of their colleagues abroad.
Even more dramatic signs of change abound. The editor of
Tass speaks to Washington's National Press Club. The subject?
Freedom of information. China made its first conciliatory act by
accrediting a VOA correspondent. And throughout the world, the
jamming of American broadcasts has ceased.
But most remarkable of all, Soviet publications that once
vilified the Voice of America now praise it. Words of praise and
support come from Isvestia. A commentator in Moscow News thanks
VOA, and says that it uses ((and I quote) : "our own broadening
sources of information better than we do and without delay return
to us what they have gathered."
Now Radio Free Europe has bureaus in Warsaw and Budapest,
and VOA even has one in Moscow -- an unthinkable development just
a few years ago. The very fact that it is no longer considered
remarkable to link live programs from Washington to Kiev, or from
Chicago and New York to Gdansk and Warsaw is, in itself,
remarkable.
6
How did this happen? It happened in part because of the
power of truth. Czechoslovakia's playwright-president, Vaclav
Havel, paid a very personal tribute to this power on his recent
visit to Washington, when he visited the Voice of America, and
met the employees of its Czech division. It was a very poignant
encounter -- for though Havel didn't recognize any of them by
face, he knew them all by name the instant he heard them speak.
And it is moments like that, that convince me of one sure
thing: I am determined that America will continue to bear witness
to the truth. America must never lose its voice.
Still, we can envision a time when the purpose of Radio Free
Europe and Radio Liberty will be utterly fulfilled. But for now,
these networks, along with VOA and USIA, have two new missions.
D u Sault
First, We we can fill a void in reporting between the nations
4770
of Eastern Europe. After all, Eastern Europeans need more than
Robert's Rules of Order. They need to know how the process of
reform is working with their neighbors. So if one nation adopts
a novel path to reform, a pollution control, or currency law, the
others need to be able to benefit from that experiment.
Second, as we help the newly free news services to replace
the old distorted information sources, we can help them avoid the
worst forms of a free press -- bias, sensationalism and yellow
journalism. But we need to do even more. So I am instructing
USIA and Radio Free Europe to provide teaching and training for
apprentice journalists in Central and Eastern Europe.
DuSault
X 4770
7
The best example of a free press must come from you. The
Peace Corps is teaching English in Eastern Europe as the lingua
franca of business and journalism. But it is not tasked to offer
a model of journalistic excellence. Only the American press
corps can pick up where the Peace Corps leaves off and provide
a model of accuracy, fairness and objectivity.
As broadcasters, you can -- and you are -- transferring
American know-how to the East. You are working with VOA to train
and orient foreign broadcasters visiting the United States. Just
in February, the director of Polish radio and television visited
your headquarters, in part to seek the counsel and assistance of
American broadcasters. And you have sent your representatives to
meet with their counterparts in the Soviet Union.
And on top of this, you are helping Americans to invest in
joint ventures to establish new radio and television networks in
the East. So most of all, I am here today to recognize your
energetic international leadership.
We are making the most of an opportunity anticipated forty-
five years ago by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a few months before
he made his last trip to his beloved second home so near here, at
Warms Springs. In one of his last messages to Congress,
President Roosevelt said that of all the changes taking place in
the world, it is communication that will do the most to advance
the cause of peace.
8
That was our vision then. That is our vision today. And by
working together, the vision of America is fast becoming a
reality for the world.
Thank you, may God bless you and may God bless the United
States of America.
#
#
#
Davis/Martin
Title: NAB
March 21, 1990
Draft: Two
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS: NAB, GEORGIA WORLD CONGRESS CENTER
10 a.m. Monday, April 2, 1990
((Acknowledgements -- President Eddie Fritz, Walt Warthel,
Hank Roeder, Rory Benson, thirty Members of Congress with us
today, etc. ) )
( (Someone just told me that this very convention center will
be transformed tonight for a Grateful Dead concert. 11 Imagine
that, The Grateful Dead
I guess I can do that to an
audience if I speak too long. )) \\\
It's a privilege to be back before the National Association
of Broadcasters. I can't help but marvel at the huge screens
around us -- ( (you know, if I were as large as my image on these
screens, imagine how easy it would be for me to get my way with
Congress) ) \\ And this convention is also displayed on monitors
around this arena; and from here, beamed around the world.
But there was a time when most Americans knew their
presidents distantly, from woodcut prints in their weekly
newspaper. The circle of democracy in ancient Athens and Rome
was even more limited, just to those within hearing range of the
debates inside the Parthenon or the Forum. But today, through
free, over-the-air broadcasts, you have brought millions of
living rooms within hearing range; you have made every home a
part of the American forum.
2
In fact, on this very day, you are providing -- for the
6,000 foreign broadcasters in attendance, through your
international seminars and through USIA's Worldnet -- a seminar
for the world. Television, which began as the American forum,
has become the world forum.
And so when a lone brave man stood up to a column of tanks
in Tienanmen Square, the world stood with him.
When the people of Prague sang the first Christmas carols in
almost half a century, the world sang with them.
And when the first German took the first hammer to that wall
of shame in Berlin, the world shared in an historic act of
courage.
These images of democracy belong to the world. But it was
here in America that a free people first explored how to put the
airwaves into the service of democracy.
We did this by accepting regulation, but firmly rejecting
government programming or censorship, and government-ownership of
stations. Now the freedom of your association is the model the
world is following today -- not just in the East, but also among
heavily-regulated nations in the West.
This is all part and parcel of a greater trend -- the ever-
increasing free flow of information around the globe. We live in
a time when commodity prices, travel reservations and news flash
from Hong Kong to Tokyo, Tokyo to Bonn, Bonn to Boston, all in
the blink of an eye. Roam among the acres of exhibits in this
convention center and you will find 22 football fields chocked
3
full of the latest gadgets in telecommunications: personal
computers and modems, fax machines, lasers, optical fibers,
satellites -- all strands in a growing web of world
communications, a growing world community, "a global village."
The information industry is not an adornment to modern life.
It is the essence of who and what we are. It is truly an
information age.
Last May, I discussed the future of Europe with the citizens
of Mainz, a German city nestled in the green hills along the
Rhine. And it was while I was there that I appreciated anew the
Biblical expression: "In the beginning was the Word." For it was
in that German town that the inventor of the printing press,
Johannes ( (Yo-HAN-nes) ) Gutenberg ( (GOOT-ten-berg)), first put
the scholarship of the ages into the hands of millions of
knowledge-hungry readers.
His one invention made possible all the pamphlets and
journals of the Enlightenment and the American Revolution -- from
the call to arms of Thomas Paine to the cool logic of The
Federalist Papers. You might argue that out of that one
invention sprang the very idea called America.
Today, along with the word, we have the image -- images
formed by the pixels of color television, and evoked by the
sounds of radio. But while Western democracy broadened as our
knowledge broadened, the circle of democracy and knowledge
narrowed in Central and Eastern Europe.
4
For these nations, truth was something to be twisted and
stretched by the brutal hands of authority, manipulated beyond
recognition. The Czech author, Milan Kundera, calls this time
the "Kingdom of Forgetting" -- when whole nations almost forgot
their heroic histories and finest traditions. But the peoples of
Central and Eastern Europe never fully gave in to amnesia,
because even in the worst hours of repression, they could always
count on a friendly voice to remind them of the truth -- the
Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty.
To fully appreciate what these broadcasts do, you need only
to ask a listener. Perhaps someone like Huang Ngor ( (Whang-
Nohr) ) whom you probably remember as the Cambodian actor in The
Killing Fields. But Doctor Ngor lived this horror before be
portrayed it on the screen. And when he lived in Cambodia under
the Khmer Rouge, the ownership of a radio was a crime punishable
by death.
Yet, as soon as it was safe to do so, the Cambodian people
dug up their radios, took out the dead batteries, laid them in
the sun and poured water over them. And in this way, they could
get another 15 or 20 minutes of life out of the old batteries,
precious minutes for which many people risked their lives. \\
Remember that: the free news broadcasts which we so easily take
for granted in America, some people must risk death to hear.
( (Insert to come) )
Change is coming more easily to the Soviet Union. The
Soviet government once spent half a billion dollars a year to jam
5
foreign broadcasts so that its people would not learn what their
sons and brothers were doing in Afghanistan. But within the
Soviet media today are many honorable men and women who strive to
report the news, who take glasnost more seriously than the party
line. And that is why more and more Soviet journalists are
earning the respect and admiration of their colleagues abroad.
Even more dramatic signs of change abound. The editor of
Tass speaks to Washington's National Press Club. The subject?
Freedom of information. China made its first conciliatory act by
accrediting a VOA correspondent. And throughout the world, the
jamming of American broadcasts has ceased.
But most remarkable of all, Soviet publications that once
vilified the Voice of America now praise it. Words of praise and
support come from Isvestia. A commentator in Moscow News thanks
VOA, and says that it uses ( (and I quote) ) : "our own broadening
sources of information better than we do and without delay return
to us what they have gathered."
Now Radio Free Europe has bureaus in Warsaw and Budapest,
and VOA even has one in Moscow -- an unthinkable development just
a few years ago. The very fact that it is no longer considered
remarkable to link live programs from Washington to Kiev, or from
Chicago and New York to Gdansk and Warsaw is, in itself,
remarkable.
How did this happen? It happened in part because of the
power of truth. Czechoslovakia's playwright-president, Vaclav
Havel, paid a very personal tribute to this power on his recent
6
visit to Washington, when he visited the Voice of America, and
met the employees of its Czech division. It was a very poignant
encounter -- for though Havel didn't recognize any of them by
face, he knew them all by name the instant he heard them speak.
And it is moments like that, that convince me of one sure
thing: I am determined that America will continue to bear witness
to the truth. America must never lose its voice.
Still, we can envision a time when the purpose of Radio Free
Europe and Radio Liberty will be utterly fulfilled. But for now,
these networks, along with VOA and USIA, have two new missions.
First, we can fill a void in reporting between the nations
of Eastern Europe. After all, Eastern Europeans need more than
Robert's Rules of Order. They need to know how the process of
reform is working with their neighbors. So if one nation adopts
a novel path to reform, a pollution control, or currency law, the
others need to be able to benefit from that experiment.
Second, as we help the newly free news services to replace
the old distorted information sources, we can help them avoid the
worst forms of a free press -- bias, sensationalism and yellow
journalism. USIA and VOA should first point to their past
directors as exemplary models -- Edwin R. Murrow, John Houseman
and John Chancellor. But we need to do even more. So I am
instructing USIA and Radio Free Europe to provide teaching and
training for apprentice journalists in Central and Eastern
Europe.
7
The best example of a free press must come from you. The
Peace Corps is teaching English in Eastern Europe as the lingua
franca of business and journalism. But it is not tasked to offer
a model of journalistic excellence. Only the American press
corps can pick up where the Peace Corps leaves off -- and provide
a model of accuracy, fairness and objectivity.
As broadcasters, you can -- and you are -- transferring
American know-how to the East. You are working with VOA to train
and orient foreign broadcasters visiting the United States. Just
in February, the director of Polish radio and television visited
your headquarters, in part to seek the counsel and assistance of
American broadcasters. And you have sent your representatives to
meet with their counterparts in the Soviet Union.
And on top of this, you are helping Americans to invest in
joint ventures to establish new radio and television networks in
the East. So most of all, I am here today to recognize your
energetic international leadership.
We are making the most of an opportunity anticipated forty-
five years ago by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a few months before
he made his last trip to his beloved second home so near here, at
Warms Springs. In one of his last messages to Congress,
President Roosevelt said that of all the changes taking place in
the world, it is communication that will do the most to advance
the cause of peace.
8
That was our vision then. That is our vision today. And by
working together, the vision of America is fast becoming a
reality for the world.
Thank you, may God bless you and may God bless the United
States of America.
#
#
#
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
March 27, 1990
MEMORANDUM FOR CHRISS WINSTON
DEPUTY ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT
FROM:
NELSON LUND
ASSOCIATE COUNSEL TO THE PRESIDENT
FOR COMMUNICATIONS ANY
SUBJECT:
Draft Presidential Remarks: National Association
of Broadcasters
At the request of James W. Cicconi, Counsel's office has reviewed
the captioned remarks. We have no legal objections.
We appreciate having had the opportunity to review these remarks.
CC: James W. Cicconi
10:12 MARAT 06
Document No. 126496SS
WHITE HOUSE STAFFING MEMORANDUM
3/26/90
3/27/90 4:00 PM
DATE:
ACTION/CONCURRENCE/COMMENT DUE BY:
PRESIDENTIAL REMARKS: NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BROADCASTERS
SUBJECT:
ACTION FYI
ACTION FYI
VICE PRESIDENT
MCCLURE
SUNUNU
NEWMAN
SCOWCROFT
PORTER
DARMAN
ROGICH
BATES
UNTERMEYER
CARD
ROGERS
CICCONI
WINSTON
DEMAREST
PINKERTON
FITZWATER
GRAY
HAGIN
REMARKS:
Please forward any comments directly to Chriss Winston, Rm. 122,
x2930, no later than 4:00 PM, Tuesday, March 27, with a copy to
my office. Thank you.
RESPONSE:
Please see suggestions.
25 : 9d 27 MAR 06
3/27/90
James W. Cicconi
Assistant to the President
and Deputy to the Chief of Staff
Ext. 2702
Davis/Martin
Title: NAB
March 21, 1990
1990 MAR 26 PM 3. 20
Draft: Three
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS: NAB, GEORGIA WORLD CONGRESS CENTER
10 a.m. Monday, April 2, 1990
( (Acknowledgements -- President Eddie Fritz, Walt Warthel,
Hank Roeder, Rory Benson, thirty Members of Congress with us
today, etc. ))
we have to move right along because
( (Someone just told me that this very convention center will
be transformed tonight for a Grateful Dead concert Imagine
?
that, The Grateful Dead
I guess I can do that to an
audience if I speak too long. )) )\\\
It's a privilege to be back before the National Association
of Broadcasters. I can't help but marvel at the huge screens
100med
around us -- ( (you know, if I ^were as large as my image on these
screens, imagine how easy it would be for me to get my way with
Congress) ) And this convention is also displayed on monitors
around this arena; and from here, beamed around the world.
But there was a time when most Americans knew their
presidents distantly, from woodcut prints in their weekly
newspaper. The circle of democracy in ancient Athens and Rome
was even more limited, just to those within hearing range of the
debates inside the Parthenon or the Forum. But today, through
free, over-the-air broadcasts, you have brought millions of
living rooms within hearing range; you have made every home a
part of the American forum.
2
In fact, on this very day, you are providing -- for the
6,000 foreign broadcasters in attendance, through your
international seminars and through USIA's Worldnet -- a seminar
for the world. Television, which began as the American forum,
has become the world forum.
And so when a lone brave man stood up to a column of tanks
in Tienanmen Square, the world stood with him.
When the people of Prague sang the first Christmas carols in
almost half a century, the world sang with them.
And when the first German took the first hammer to that wall
of shame in Berlin, the world shared in an historic act of
courage.
These images of democracy belong to the world. But it was
here in America that a free people first explored how to put the
airwaves into the service of democracy.
We did this by accepting regulation, but firmly rejecting
government programming or censorship, and government-ownership of
stations. Now the freedom your association enjoys is the model
the world is following today -- not just in the East, but also
among heavily-regulated nations in the West.
This is all part and parcel of a greater trend -- the ever-
increasing free flow of information around the globe. We live in
fast breaking
a time when commodity prices, travel reservations and news flash
from Hong Kong to Tokyo, Tokyo to Bonn, Bonn to Boston, all in
the blink of an eye. Roam among the acres of exhibits in this
convention center and you will find 22 football fields chocked
network linking
all 13 3 vs,
full of the latest gadgets in telecommunications: personal
computers and modems, fax machines, lasers, optical fibers,
satellites -- all strands in a growing web of world
truly
communications, a growing world community a global village."
The information industry is not an adornment to modern life.
It is the essence of who and what we are. It is truly an
information age.
Last May, I discussed the future of Europe with the citizens
of Mainz, a German city nestled in the green hills along the
Rhine. And it was while I was there that I appreciated anew the
Biblical expression: "In the beginning was the Word." For it was
in that German town that the inventor of the printing press,
Johannes ( (Yo-HAN-nes)) Gutenberg ((GOOT-ten-berg)) first put
the scholarship of the ages into the hands of millions of
knowledge-hungry readers.
His one invention made possible all the pamphlets and
journals of the Enlightenment and the American Revolution -- from
the call to arms of Thomas Paine to the cool logic of The
Federalist Papers. You might argue that out of that one
invention sprang the very idea called America.
Today, along with the word, we have the image -- images
formed by the pixels of color television, and evoked by the
sounds of radio. But while Western democracy broadened as our
knowledge broadened, the circle of democracy and knowledge
narrowed under the communist regimes of Central and Eastern
Europe, and Southeast Asia.
4
For these nations, truth was something to be twisted and
stretched by the brutal hands of authority, manipulated beyond
recognition. The Czech author, Milan Kundera, calls this time
the "Kingdom of Forgetting" -- when whole nations almost forgot
their heroic histories and finest traditions. From Prague to
Phenom Penh, the peoples of these lands never fully gave in to
amnesia, because even in the worst hours of repression, they
could always count on a friendly voice to remind them of the
truth -- the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Radio
Liberty.
To fully appreciate what these broadcasts do, you need only
to ask a listener. Perhaps someone like Huang Ngor ( (Whang-
Nohr) ) whom you probably remember as the Cambodian actor in The
Killing Fields. But Doctor Ngor lived this horror before be
portrayed it on the screen. And when he lived in Cambodia under
the Khmer Rouge, the ownership of a radio was a crime punishable
by death.
Yet, as soon as it was safe to do so, the Cambodian people
dug up their radios, took out the dead batteries, laid them in
the sun and poured water over them. And in this way, they could
get another 15 or 20 minutes of life out of the old batteries,
precious minutes for which many people risked their lives.
Remember that: the free news broadcasts which we so easily take
for granted in America, some people must risk death to hear.
( (Insert to come) )
5
Change is coming more easily to the Soviet Union. The
Soviet government once spent half a billion dollars a year to jam
foreign broadcasts so that its people would not learn what their
sons and brothers were doing in Afghanistan. But within the
Soviet media today are many honorable men and women who strive to
report the news, who take glasnost more seriously than the party
line. And that is why more and more Soviet journalists are
earning the respect and admiration of their colleagues abroad.
Even more dramatic signs of change abound. The editor of
Tass speaks to Washington's National Press Club. The subject?
Freedom of information. China/made first first conciliatory act Square
often Tianamen
was
accrediting a VOA correspondent. And throughout the world, the
to
jamming of American broadcasts has ceased.
But most remarkable of all, Soviet publications that once
vilified the Voice of America now praise it. Words of praise and
support come from Isvestia. A commentator in Moscow News thanks
VOA, and says that it uses ( (and I quote) ) : "our own broadening
sources of information better than we do and without delay return
to us what they have gathered. "
Now Radio Free Europe has bureaus in Warsaw and Budapest,
and VOA even has one in Moscow -- an unthinkable development just
a few years ago. The very fact that it is no longer considered
remarkable to link live programs from Washington to Kiev, or from
Chicago and New York to Gdansk and Warsaw is, in itself,
remarkable.
6
How did this happen? It happened in part because of the
power of truth. Czechoslovakia's playwright-president, Vaclav
Havel, paid a very personal tribute to this power on his recent
visit to Washington, when he visited the Voice of America, and
met the employees of its Czech division. It was a very poignant
encounter -- for though Havel didn't recognize any of them by
face, he knew them all by name the instant he heard them speak.
And it is moments like that, that convince me of one sure
thing: I am determined that America will continue to bear witness
to the truth. America must never lose its voice. III
Still, we can envision a time when the purpose of Radio Free
Europe and Radio Liberty will be utterly fulfilled. But for now,
these networks, along with VOA and USIA, have two new missions.
First, we can fill a void in reporting between the nations
of Eastern Europe. After all, Eastern Europeans need more than
Robert's Rules of Order. They need to know how the process of
reform is working with their neighbors. So if one nation adopts
a novel path to reform, a pollution control, or currency law, the
others need to be able to benefit from that experiment.
Second, as we help the newly free news services to replace
the old distorted information sources, we can help them avoid the
worst forms of a free press -- bias, sensationalism and yellow
journalism. But we need to do even more. So I am instructing
USIA and Radio Free Europe to provide teaching and training for
apprentice journalists in Central and Eastern Europe.
7
The best example of a free press must come from you. The
Peace Corps is teaching English in Eastern Europe as the lingua
franca of business and journalism. But it is not tasked to offer
a model of journalistic excellence. Only the American press
corps can pick up where the Peace Corps leaves off -- and provide
a model of accuracy, fairness and objectivity.
As broadcasters, you can -- and you are -- transferring
American know-how to the East. You are working with VOA to train
and orient foreign broadcasters visiting the United States. Just
in February, the director of Polish radio and television visited
your headquarters, in part to seek the counsel and assistance of
American broadcasters. And you have sent your representatives to
meet with their counterparts in the Soviet Union.
And on top of this, you are helping Americans to invest in
joint ventures to establish new radio and television networks in
the East. So most of all, I am here today to recognize your
energetic international leadership.
We are making the most of an opportunity anticipated forty-
five years ago by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a few months before
he made his last trip to his beloved second home SO near here, at
Warms Springs. In one of his last messages to Congress,
President Roosevelt said that of all the changes taking place in
the world, it is communication that will do the most to advance
the cause of peace.
8
That was our vision then. That is our vision today. And by
working together, the vision of America is fast becoming a
reality for the world.
Thank you, may God bless you and may God bless the United
States of America.
#
#
#
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
March 27, 1990
MEMORANDUM FOR CHRISS WINSTON
FROM:
JIM PINKERTON
SUBJECT:
National Association of Broadcasters Draft
This draft has some powerful images: Havel meeting with
recognizing the VOA broadcasters by their voices,
Cambodians getting the last bit of juice from their radio
batteries.
The themes of the speech: the global linkage of world
media, the increasing free flow of information around the
globe, the horrors of state censorship of information, and
the wonders of the new technologies of information -- all
these are appropriately presented. What is missing is an
explanation of the deeper significances of these
phenomena. As the speech now stands, any one of these
themes could be articulated in the same way by the
opposition, say, Richard Gephardt, but they would used to
reach a completely different conclusion, e.g., "economic
nationalism," industrial planning, etc.
By contrast, the Bush Agenda speaks to the themes of the
Information Age in profound ways. What we suggest is some
articulation of just how the Information Age is a
reflection of the principles underlying the President's
Agenda - - drawing conclusions that incidentally set us
apart from our opponents. Here are three conclusions
suggested by the existing draft's themes:
O First, governments are now subject to market forces in a
way they haven't been before. The policy-maker who
tinkers with the economy in the wrong way, who pushes the
wrong button, will see the flow of capital re-route itself
across nations and continents and oceans. This fact helps
explains the President's determination to cut the capital
gains tax at a time when many of our chief competitors do
not even have such a tax.
O Second, the information age means increased individual
choice, because individuals can more easily get the
information that determines their choices. The MAR 06
President's education program offers a concrete example.
(more)
2
Instead of pouring money into an existing structure --an
education structure that already represents the world's
highest expenditure per capita, the President offers a
reform that promises to change that structure by letting
parents choose the public school their children will
attend. Greater competition between schools means greater
information for parents about which schools are right for
their kids -- just as competition does for, say, grocery
stores.
O Third, the Information Age represents a New Paradigm,
characterized by the phenomenon of decentralization:
the dispersal of the centers of authority and the break-
up of bureaucracy -- whether those bureaucracies be a
Stalinist government in Eastern Europe, a stodgy
corporation on Park Avenue, or a sclerotic city hall in
Anytown, U.S.A.
It means pushing decision-making downward and outward,
to the lowest feasible level. No place, no culture is
immune from the benefits of decentralization. Now that
the people have learned that government doesn't know best,
they will refuse to turn over decision-making power when
they can decide better for themselves. Popular opinion
now converges around the notion that government should try
to do only a few things but do them well. When people
refuse to support big government, the public debate
focuses on qualitative, as opposed to quantitative,
changes in government.
As Robert Samuelson recently put it, the American people
are not so much stingy as they are skeptical. This
skepticism -- this immunization against being fooled by
the authorities that the information age allows is a
healthy thing. It permits us to envision a society where
people take care of themselves to the extent that they are
able, but for those that cannot take care of themselves,
there are flesh-and-blood people, not stony bureaucracies,
there to help. The President's child care policy, which
permits parents, not bureaucrats, to decide what kind of
child care is best for them, is an example of such a
counter-bureaucratic policy.
Other comments:
pg. 1, para. 2, line 1
"Imagine that, The Grateful
Dead. I guess I can do that to an audience if I speak too
long."
(more)
3
This could easily be taken as derisive of The Grateful
Dead, who have been helpful recently in supporting the
President's reforestation effort. We should not
unnecessarily risk offending our friends. Thus, we urge
deleting the reference.
4,3
"Yet, as soon as it was safe, the Cambodian people
dug up their radios, too out the dead batteries, laid them
in the sun and poured water over them. And in this way,
they could get another 15 or 20 minutes of life out of the
old batteries. "
A stunningly vivid image.
6,5,2
"
we can help them avoid the worst forms of a
free press -- bias, sensationalism, and yellow
journalism. "
Notwithstanding the correctness of this statement, we
will probably be on safer ground by just avoiding any
criticism of a free press.
7,1,1 "The best example of a free press must come from
you. "
This is a powerful point which deserves ampliflying.
The underlying principle is that now that "the idea known
as America" is taking hold worldwide, our responsibility
increases to try to live up to the ideal that the rest of
the world looks to.
###
Rm 122
Chriss Winston
Document No. 126496SS
WHITE HOUSE STAFFING MEMORANDUM
3/26/90
3/27/90 4:00 PM
DATE:
ACTION/CONCURRENCE/COMMENT DUE BY:
PRESIDENTIAL REMARKS: NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BROADCASTERS
SUBJECT:
ACTION FYI
ACTION
FYI
VICE PRESIDENT
MCCLURE
SUNUNU
NEWMAN
SCOWCROFT
PORTER
DARMAN
ROGICH
BATES
UNTERMEYER
CARD
ROGERS
CICCONI
WINSTON
DEMAREST
PINKERTON
FITZWATER
GRAY
HAGIN
REMARKS:
Please forward any comments directly to Chriss Winston, Rm. 122,
x2930, no later than 4:00 PM, Tuesday, March 27, with a copy to
my office. Thank you.
comments included, plus general comments below.
RESPONSE: General: Commerce wondered about mentioning their
help on spreading the woul On the Census. I expeained
it problems is not appropriate in the text of this
speech.
Please * commerce Wanted -
11 : Sd 4000
James W. Cicconi
Assistant to the President
& I decided to Send to them.
and Deputy to the Chief of Staff
note
Ext. 2702
If they do not call by 5:30, I recommed
we go w/ only these. I will call you at 5:30
shank - -Holly X 2800
Davis/Martin
Title: NAB
March 21, 1990
1990 MAR 26 PM 3. 20
Draft: Three
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS: NAB, GEORGIA WORLD CONGRESS CENTER
10 a.m. Monday, April 2, 1990
( (Acknowledgements -- President Eddie Fritz, Walt Warthel,
Hank Roeder, Rory Benson, thirty Members of Congress with us
today, etc.) )
( (Someone just told me that this very convention center will
be transformed tonight for a Grateful Dead concert. \\ Imagine
that, The Grateful Dead
I guess I can do that to an
audience if I speak too long. )) III
It's a privilege to be back before the National Association
of Broadcasters. I can't help but marvel at the huge screens
around us -- ( (you know, if I were as large as my image on these
screens, imagine how easy it would be for me to get my way with
Congress) ) And this convention is also displayed on monitors
around this arena; and from here, beamed around the world.
But there was a time when most Americans knew their
presidents distantly, from woodcut prints in their weekly
newspaper. The circle of democracy in ancient Athens and Rome
was even more limited, just to those within hearing range of the
debates inside the Parthenon or the Forum. But today, through
free, over-the-air broadcasts, you have brought millions of
living rooms within hearing range; you have made every home a
part of the American forum.
2
In fact, on this very day, you are providing -- for the
6,000 foreign broadcasters in attendance, through your
international seminars and through USIA's Worldnet -- a seminar
for the world. Television, which began as the American forum,
has become the world forum.
And so when a lone brave man stood up to a column of tanks
in Tienanmen Square, the world stood with him.
When the people of Prague sang the first Christmas carols in
almost half a century, the world sang with them. 11
And when the first German took the first hammer to that wall
of shame in Berlin, the world shared in an historic act of
courage \\
These images of democracy belong to the world. But it was
here in America that a free people first explored how to put the
airwaves into the service of democracy.
We did this by accepting regulation, but firmly rejecting
government programming or censorship, and government-ownership of
stations. Now the freedom your association enjoys is the model
the world is following today -- not just in the East, but also
among heavily-regulated nations in the West.
This is all part and parcel of a greater trend -- the ever-
increasing free flow of information around the globe. We live in
a time when commodity prices, travel reservations and news flash
from Hong Kong to Tokyo, Tokyo to Bonn, Bonn to Boston, all in
the blink of an eye. Roam among the acres of exhibits in this
convention center and you will find 22 football fields chocked
3
full of the latest gadgets in telecommunications: personal
computers and modems, fax machines, lasers, optical fibers,
satellites -- all strands in a growing web of world
Somewhat
repetitive
communications, a growing world community, "a global village. " now--
cliché
The information industry is not an adornment to modern life.
(USIA)
It is the essence of who and what we are. It is truly an
information age.
Last May, I discussed the future of Europe with the citizens
of Mainz, a German city nestled in the green hills along the
Rhine. And it was while I was there that I appreciated anew the
Biblical expression: "In the beginning was the Word." For it was
in that German town that the inventor of the printing press,
Johannes ( (Yo-HAN-nes)) Gutenberg ( (GOOT-ten-berg) ) first put
the scholarship of the ages into the hands of millions of
knowledge-hungry readers.
His one invention made possible all the pamphlets and
journals of the Enlightenment and the American Revolution -- from
the call to arms of Thomas Paine to the cool logic of The
Federalist Papers. You might argue that out of that one
of freedom of the press. This is the bicen-
invention sprang the very idea called America.
tennial of freedomotthe
press.
Today, along with the word, we have the image -- images (USIA)
formed by the pixels of color television, and evoked by the
sounds of radio. But while Western democracy broadened as our
knowledge broadened, the circle of democracy and knowledge
narrowed under the communist regimes of Central and Eastern
Europe, and Southeast Asia.
4
For these nations, truth was something to be twisted and
stretched by the brutal hands of authority, manipulated beyond
recognition. The Czech author, Milan Kundera, calls this time
the "Kingdom of Forgetting" -- when whole nations almost forgot
their heroic histories and finest traditions. From Prague to
Phenom Penh, the peoples of these lands never fully gave in to
amnesia, because even in the worst hours of repression, they
could always count on a friendly voice to remind them of the
truth -- the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Radio
Liberty.
Splitinitive
To fully appreciate what these broadcasts do, you need only
ask a listener. Perhaps someone like Huang Ngor ( (Whang-
Nohr) ) whom you probably remember as the Cambodian actor in The
Killing Fields. But Doctor Ngor lived this horror before be
portrayed it on the screen. And when he lived in Cambodia under
the Khmer Rouge, the ownership of a radio was a crime punishable
by death.
Yet, as soon as it was safe to do so, the Cambodian people
dug up their radios, took out the dead batteries, laid them in
the sun and poured water over them. And in this way, they could
get another 15 or 20 minutes of life out of the old batteries,
precious minutes for which many people risked their lives. 11
Remember that: the free news broadcasts which we so easily take
for granted in America, some people must risk death to hear.
( (Insert to come) )
5
Change is coming more easily to the Soviet Union. The
Soviet government once spent half a billion dollars a year to jam
foreign broadcasts so that its people would not learn what their
sons and brothers were doing in Afghanistan. But within the
Soviet media today are many honorable men and women who strive to
report the news, who take glasnost more seriously than the party
line. And that is why more and more Soviet journalists are
earning the respect and admiration of their colleagues abroad.
Even more dramatic signs of change abound. The editor of
Tass speaks to Washington's National Press Club. The subject?
Freedom of information. China made its first conciliatory act by
accrediting a VOA correspondent. And throughout the world, the
Still jammins
the
People
Sjamming of American broadcasts has ceased.
in Republic + of
cuba
But most remarkable of all, Soviet publications that once
china
vilified the Voice of America now praise it. Words of praise and
(Tarti.)
support come from Isvestia. A commentator in Moscow News thanks
USIA.
VOA, and says that it uses ( (and I quote) ) : "our own broadening
sources of information better than we do and without delay return
to us what they have gathered."
Now Radio Free Europe has bureaus in Warsaw and Budapest,
and VOA even has one in Moscow -- an unthinkable development just
a few years ago. The very fact that it is no longer considered
remarkable to link live programs from Washington to Kiev, or from
Chicago and New York to Gdansk and Warsaw is, in itself,
remarkable.
6
How did this happen? It happened in part because of the
power of truth. Czechoslovakia's playwright-president, Vaclav
Havel, paid a very personal tribute to this power on his recent
visit to Washington, when he visited the Voice of America, and
met the employees of its Czech division. It was a very poignant
encounter -- for though Havel didn't recognize any of them by
face, he knew them all by name the instant he heard them speak.
And it is moments like that, that convince me of one sure
thing: I am determined that America will continue to bear witness
to the truth. America must never lose its voice.
Still, we can envision a time when the purpose of Radio Free
Europe and Radio Liberty will be utterly fulfilled. But for now,
these networks, along with VOA and USIA, have two new missions.
First, we can fill a void in reporting between the nations
of Eastern Europe. After all, Eastern Europeans need more than
Robert's Rules of Order. They need to know how the process of
reform is working with their neighbors. So if one nation adopts
a novel path to reform, a pollution control, or currency law, the
others need to be able to benefit from that experiment.
Second, as we help the newly free news services to replace
the old distorted information sources, we can help them avoid the
may not want to assrivate the journalisklay listing
worst forms of a free press, bias, sensationalism and yellow these ills.
(USIA)
journalism. But we need to do even more. So I am instructing
USIA and Radio Free Europe to provide teaching and training for
apprentice journalists in Central and Eastern Europe.
USIA has been training journelists forgears.
Radio Free Europe -we are not sure about, but cancale
Bruce Porter (Exec. Dir,) @ 254-8040. (USIA)
7
The best example of a free press must come from you. The
Peace Corps is teaching English in Eastern Europe as the lingua
franca of business and journalism. But it is not tasked to offer
a model of journalistic excellence. Only the American press
corps can pick up where the Peace Corps leaves off -- and provide
a model of accuracy, fairness and objectivity.
As broadcasters, you can -- and you are -- transferring
American know-how to the East. You are working with VOA to train
and orient foreign broadcasters visiting the United States. Just
in February, the director of Polish radio and television visited
your headquarters, in part to seek the counsel and assistance of
American broadcasters. And you have sent your representatives to
meet with their counterparts in the Soviet Union.
And on top of this, you are helping Americans to invest in
joint ventures to establish new radio and television networks in
the East. So most of all, I am here today to recognize your
energetic international leadership.
We are making the most of an opportunity anticipated forty-
five years ago by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a few months before
he made his last trip to his beloved second home so near here, at
Warms Springs. In one of his last messages to Congress,
President Roosevelt said that of all the changes taking place in
the world, it is communication that will do the most to advance
the cause of peace.
8
That was our vision then. That is our vision today. And by
working together, the vision of America is fast becoming a
reality for the world.
Thank you, may God bless you and may God bless the United
States of America.
#
#
#
Document No. 126496SS
WHITE HOUSE STAFFING MEMORANI
2338
3/26/90
3/27/90 4:00 PM
DATE:
ACTION/CONCURRENCE/COMMENT DUE BY:
PRESIDENTIAL REMARKS: NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BROADCASTERS
SUBJECT:
ACTION FYI
ACTION FYI
VICE PRESIDENT
MCCLURE
SUNUNU
NEWMAN
SCOWCROFT
PORTER
DARMAN
ROGICH
BATES
UNTERMEYER
CARD
ROGERS
CICCONI
WINSTON
DEMAREST
PINKERTON
FITZWATER
GRAY
HAGIN
REMARKS:
Please forward any comments directly to Chriss Winston, Rm. 122,
x2930, no later than 4:00 PM, Tuesday, March 27, with a copy to
my office. Thank you.
RESPONSE:
March 28, 1990
TO: CHRISS WINSTON
The NSC staff concurs with the draft speech, with the changes
noted. For policy reasons, we had to change the TV Marti and
international broadcasting sections fairly substantially.
6 ¥ 82 15ates Scowcroft for
James W. Cicconi
Assistant to the President
and Deputy to the Chief of Staff
CC: James W. Cicconi
Ext. 2702
Davis/Martin
Title: NAB2
March 21, 1990
1990 MAR 26 PM 3. 20
Draft: Three
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS: NAB, GEORGIA WORLD CONGRESS CENTER
10 a.m. Monday, April 2, 1990
((Acknowledgements -- President Eddie Fritz, Walt Warthel,
Hank Roeder, Rory Benson, thirty Members of Congress with us
today, etc. ) )
((Someone just told me that this very convention center will
be transformed tonight for a Grateful Dead concert. 11 Imagine
that, The Grateful Dead
I guess I can do that to an
audience if I speak too long.))\\\
It's a privilege to be back before the National Association
of Broadcasters. I can't help but marvel at the huge screens
around us -- ( (you know, if I were as large as my image on these
screens, imagine how easy it would be for me to get my way with
Congress) ) And this convention is also displayed on monitors
around this arena; and from here, beamed around the world.
But there was a. time when most Americans knew their
presidents distantly, from woodcut prints in their weekly
newspaper. The circle of democracy in ancient Athens and Rome
was even more limited, just to those within hearing range of the
debates inside the Parthenon or the Forum. But today, through
free, over-the-air broadcasts, you have brought millions of
living rooms within hearing range; you have made every home a
part of the American forum.
2
In fact, on this very day, you are providing -- for the
6,000 foreign broadcasters in attendance, through your
international seminars and through USIA's Worldnet -- a seminar
for the world. Television, which began as the American forum,
has become the world forum.
And so when a lone brave man stood up to a column of tanks
in Tienanmen Square, the world stood with him.
When the people of Prague sang the first Christmas carols in
almost half a century, the world sang with them. 11
And when the first German took the first hammer to that wall
of shame in Berlin, the world shared in an historic act of
courage \\
These images of democracy belong to the world. But it was
here in America that a free people first explored how to put the
airwaves into the service of democracy.
We did this by accepting regulation, but firmly rejecting
government programming or censorship, and government-ownership of
stations. Now the freedom your association enjoys is the model
the world is following today -- not just in the East, but also
among heavily regulated nations in the West.
This is all part and parcel of a greater trend -- the ever-
increasing free flow of information around the globe. We live in
a time when commodity prices, travel reservations and news flash
from Hong Kong to Tokyo, Tokyo to Bonn, Bonn to Boston, all in
the blink of an eye. Roam among the acres of exhibits in this
convention center and you will find 22 football fields chocked
3
full of the latest gadgets in telecommunications: personal
computers and modems, fax machines, lasers, optical fibers,
satellites -- all strands in a growing web of world
communications, a growing world community, "a global village."
The information industry is not an adornment to modern life.
It is the essence of who and what we are. It is truly an
information age.
Last May, I discussed the future of Europe with the citizens
of Mainz, a German city nestled in the green hills along the
Rhine. And it was while I was there that I appreciated anew the
Biblical expression: "In the beginning was the Word." For it was
in that German town that the inventor of the printing press,
Johannes ( (Yo-HAN-nes) ) Gutenberg ( (GOOT-ten-berg) ) first put
the scholarship of the ages into the hands of millions of
knowledge-hungry readers.
His one invention made possible all the pamphlets and
journals of the Enlightenment and the American Revolution -- from
the call to arms of Thomas Paine to the cool logic of The
Federalist Papers. You might argue that out of that one
invention sprang the very idea called America.
Today, along with the word, we have the image -- images
formed by the pixels of color television, and evoked by the
sounds of radio. But while Western democracy broadened as our
knowledge broadened, the circle of democracy and knowledge
Eitheradd
that took power on many
narrowed under (th) communist regimes of Central and Eastern-
other
confinents.
Europe, and Southeast Asia)
regimesin in
Asia +
Latin America,
or (preferably)
drop R specifies
4
For these nations, truth was something to be twisted and
stretched by the brutal hands of authority, manipulated beyond
recognition. The Czech author, Milan Kundera, calls this time
the "Kingdom of Forgetting" -- when whole nations almost forgot
Havana to
their heroic histories and finest traditions. From Prague to
Phenom Penh, the peoples of these lands never fully gave in to
X
amnesia, because even in the worst hours of repression, they
could always count on a friendly voice to remind them of the
truth -- the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Radio
Liberty, Radio Marti,
To fully appreciate what these broadcasts do, you need only
No,
Sp.
to ask a listener. Perhaps someone like Huang Ngor (Whang
he a
Nohr)), whom you probably remember as the Cambodian actor in The
Critic of
Killing Fields. But Doctor Ngor lived this horror before be
nn
portrayed it on the screen- And when he lived In Cambodia under
Cambadia
policy
the Khmer Rouge, the ownership of a radio was a crime punishable
by death.
Yet, as soon as it was safe to do so, the Cambodian people
dug up their radios, took out the dead batteries, laid them in
the sun and poured water over them. And in this way, they could
get another 15 or 20 minutes of life out of the old batteries,
precious minutes for which many people risked their lives. 11
Remember that: the free news broadcasts which we so easily take
for granted in America, some people must risk death to hear.
( (Let me address an issue that I know is of great concern to
TV Marti.
you
Those of us who have been raised in a free society can
H Our test this week was a success. We overcame the technical
obstacles to delivering a clear TV signal to Havana. We did not
interfere with U.S. broadcasts and we did not cause harmful
for international broadcasting-
interference to Caban 5 brondcasts. We are strictly observing the rules
never fully appreciate how the oppressed yearn for an image -- no
matter how fleeting -- of the outside world. That is why we are
now broadcasting images of freedom on Television Marti to whe
people of Cuba.
(Of course, I know that Mister Castro doesn't like this
he has jammed the TV martisignol,
idea;) and that you have borne the brunt of his threats. I
know that
sincerely hope that he allows us to broadcast Television Marrti to
Castro should have nothing
Cuba, as we have broadcast Radio Marti We certainly de try
to fear from the free flow of ideas, from enter tainment pregrams,
to keep him from broadcast his lengthy speeches to America
and from accurate, nonideslog ical news a bout world events,
over Radio Havana But let me pledge that if anyone jams
tions and interferes with the airwaves of America, your yc
government will stand by you Americans have died in the ceefense
of our right to free speech. We will not let freedom of the
airwaves be compromised now.)]
Change is coming more easily to the Soviet Union. The
Soviet government once spent half a billion dollars a year =IO jam
foreign broadcasts so that its people would not learn what their
sons and brothers were doing in Afghanistan. But within the
Soviet media today are many honorable men and women who struive to
report the news, who take glasnost more seriously than the party
line. And that is why more and more Soviet journalists are-
earning the respect and admiration of their colleagues abroad.
Even more dramatic signs of change abound. The edit= of
Tass speaks to Washington's National Press Club. The subject?
Freedom of information. China made its first conciliatory act by
6
readmitting
accrediting a VOA correspondent. And throughout the world, the
jamming of American broadcasts has ceased.
But most remarkable of all, Soviet publications that once
vilified the Voice of America now praise it. Words of praise and
support come from Isvestia. A commentator in Moscow News thanks
VOA, and says that it uses ((and I quote). : "our own broadening
sources of information better than we do and without delay return
to us what they have gathered."
Now Radio Free Europe has bureaus in Warsaw and Budapest,
and VOA even has one in Moscow -- an unthinkable development just
a few years ago. The very fact that it is no longer considered
remarkable to link live programs from Washington to Kiev, or from
Chicago and New York to Gdansk and Warsaw is, in itself,
remarkable.
How did this happen? It happened in part because of the
power of truth. Czechoslovakia's playwright-president, Vaclav
Havel, paid a very personal tribute to this power on his recent
visit to Washington, when he visited the Voice of America, and
met the employees of its Czech division. It was a very poignant
encounter -- for though Havel didn't recognize any of them by
face, he knew them all by name the instant he heard them speak.
And it is moments like that, that convince me of one sure
thing: I am determined that America will continue to bear witness
to the truth. America must never lose its voice. III
7
Still, we can envision a time when the purpose of Radio Free
Europe and Radio Liberty will be utterly fulfilled. But for now,
groest P.6A
these networks, along with VOA and USIA, have two new missions.
First, we can fill a void in reporting between the nations
of Eastern Europe
After all, Eastern Europeans need more than
Robert's Rules of Order. They need to know how the process of
reform is working with their neighbors. So if one nation adopts
a novel path to reform, a pollution control, or currency law, the
others need to be able to benefit from that experiment.
Second, as we help the newly free news services to replace
the old distorted information sources, we can help them avoid the
worst forms of a free press -- bias, sensationalism and yellow
and we are doing more. we
journalism.
But we need to do even more, /SO I am instructing
are working with
USIA and Radio Free Europe to provide teaching and training for
apprentice journalists in Central and Eastern Europe to help them
develop the practices + organizations of independent media. one way
The best example of a free press must come from you. The is by
Peace Corps is teaching English in Eastern Europe as the lingua
providing
franca of business and journalism. But it is not tasked to offer
teaching
&
a model of journalistic excellence. Only the American press
training
corps can pick up where the Peace Corps leaves off -- and provide for
a model of accuracy, fairness and objectivity.
apprentic
journalist
As broadcasters, you can -- and you are -- transferring
(have participated in) programs
American know-how to the East. You are working with VOA to train
and orient foreign broadcasters visiting the United States. Just
in February, the director of Polish radio and television visited
your headquarters, in part to seek the counsel and assistance of
8
American breaadcasters. And you have sent your representatives to
meet with theeir counterparts in the Soviet Union.
And on ttop of this, you are helping Americans to invest in
joint venturees to establish new radio and television networks in
the East. Soio most of all, I am here today to recognize your
energetic inuternational leadership.
We are mmaking the most of an opportunity anticipated forty-
five years ago by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a few months before
he made his llast trip to his beloved second home so near here, at
Warms Springss. In one of his last messages to Congress,
President Roosevelt said that of all the changes taking place in
the world, itt is communication that will do the most to advance
the cause cf. peace.
That wass our vision then. That is our vision today. And by
working togesther, the vision of America is fast becoming a
reality for the world.
Thank ycou, may God bless you and may God bless the United
States of !meerica.
#
#
#
Davis/Martin
Title: NAB
March 21, 1990
Draft: Two
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS: NAB, GEORGIA WORLD CONGRESS CENTER
10 a.m. Monday, April 2, 1990
((Acknowledgements -- President Eddie Fritz, Walt Warthel,
Hank Roeder, Rory Benson, thirty Members of Congress with us
today, etc. ) )
( (Someone just told me that this very convention center will
be transformed tonight for a Grateful Dead concert. \\ Imagine
that, The Grateful Dead\
I guess I can do that to an
audience if I speak too long.))\\\
It's a privilege to be back before the National Association
of Broadcasters. I can't help but marvel at the huge screens
around us -- ( (you know, if I were as large as my image on these
screens, imagine how easy it would be for me to get my way with
Congress) ) And this convention is also displayed on monitors
around this arena; and from here, beamed around the world.
But there was a time when most Americans knew their
presidents distantly, from woodcut prints in their weekly
newspaper. The circle of democracy in ancient Athens and Rome
was even more limited, just to those within hearing range of the
debates inside the Parthenon or the Forum. But today, through
free, over-the-air broadcasts, you have brought millions of
living rooms within hearing range; you have made every home a
part of the American forum.
2
In fact, on this very day, you are providing -- for the
6,000 foreign broadcasters in attendance, through your
international seminars and through USIA's Worldnet -- a seminar
for the world. Television, which began as the American forum,
has become the world forum.
And so when a lone brave man stood up to a column of tanks
in Tienanmen Square, the world stood with him.
When the people of Prague sang the first Christmas carols in
almost half a century, the world sang with them.
And when the first German took the first hammer to that wall
of shame in Berlin, the world shared in an historic act of
courage
These images of democracy belong to the world. But it was
here in America that a free people first explored how to put the
airwaves into the service of democracy.
We did this by accepting regulation, but firmly rejecting
government programming or censorship, and government-ownership of
stations. Now the freedom of your association is the model the
world is following today -- not just in the East, but also among
heavily regulated nations in the West.
This is all part and parcel of a greater trend -- the ever-
increasing free flow of information around the globe. We live in
a time when commodity prices, travel reservations and news flash
from Hong Kong to Tokyo, Tokyo to Bonn, Bonn to Boston, all in
the blink of an eye. Roam among the acres of exhibits in this
convention center and you will find 22 football fields chocked
3
full of the latest gadgets in telecommunications: personal
computers and modems, fax machines, lasers, optical fibers,
satellites -- all strands in a growing web of world
communications, a growing world community, "a global village."
The information industry is not an adornment to modern life.
It is the essence of who and what we are. It is truly an
information age.
Last May, I discussed the future of Europe with the citizens
of Mainz, a German city nestled in the green hills along the
Rhine. And it was while I was there that I appreciated anew the
Biblical expression: "In the beginning was the Word.' For it was
in that German town that the inventor of the printing press,
Johannes ( (Yo-HAN-nes) ) Gutenberg ( (GOOT-ten-berg)) first put
the scholarship of the ages into the hands of millions of
knowledge-hungry readers.
His one invention made possible all the pamphlets and
journals of the Enlightenment and the American Revolution -- from
the call to arms of Thomas Paine to the cool logic of The
Federalist Papers. You might argue that out of that one
invention sprang the very idea called America.
Today, along with the word, we have the image -- images
formed by the pixels of color television, and evoked by the
sounds of radio. But while Western democracy broadened as our
knowledge broadened, the circle of democracy and knowledge
narrowed in Central and Eastern Europe.
4
For these nations, truth was something to be twisted and
stretched by the brutal hands of authority, manipulated beyond
recognition. The Czech author, Milan Kundera, calls this time
the "Kingdom of Forgetting" -- when whole nations almost forgot
their heroic histories and finest traditions. But the peoples of
Central and Eastern Europe never fully gave in to amnesia,
because even in the worst hours of repression, they could always
2
count on a friendly voice to remind them of the truth -- the
Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty.
To fully appreciate what these broadcasts do, you need only
to ask a listener. Perhaps someone like Huang Ngor ( (Whang-
Nohr) ) , whom you probably remember as the Cambodian actor in The
Killing Fields. But Doctor Ngor lived this horror before be
portrayed it on the screen. And when he lived in Cambodia under
the Khmer Rouge, the ownership of a radio was a crime punishable
by death.
Yet, as soon as it was safe to do so, the Cambodian people
dug up their radios, took out the dead batteries, laid them in
the sun and poured water over them. And in this way, they could
get another 15 or 20 minutes of life out of the old batteries,
precious minutes for which many people risked their lives. \\
Remember that: the free news broadcasts which we so easily take
for granted in America, some people must risk death to hear.
( (Let me address an issue that I know is of great concern to
you. Those of us who have been raised in a free society can
never fully appreciate how the oppressed yearn for an image -- no
5
matter how fleeting of the outside world. That is why we are
now broadcasting images of freedom on Television Marti to the
people of Cuba.
( (Of course, I know that Mister Castro doesn't like this
idea; and that you have borne the brunt of his threats. I
sincerely hope that he allows us to broadcast Television Marti to
Cuba, as we have broadcast Radio Marti. We certainly do not try
to keep him from broadcasting his lengthy speeches to America
over Radio Havana. But let me pledge that if anyone jams your
stations and interferes with the airwaves of America, your
government will stand by you. Too many American men and women
have died defending our right of free speech for us to take any
static from Mister Castro. ))
Change is coming more easily to the Soviet Union. The
Soviet government once spent half a billion dollars a year to jam
foreign broadcasts SO that its people would not learn what their
sons and brothers were doing in Afghanistan. But within the
Soviet media today are many honorable men and women who strive to
report the news, who take glasnost more seriously than the party
line. And that is why more and more Soviet journalists are
earning the respect and admiration of their colleagues abroad.
Even more dramatic signs of change abound. The editor of
Tass speaks to Washington's National Press Club. The subject?
Freedom of information. China made its first conciliatory act by
accrediting a VOA correspondent. And throughout the world, the
jamming of American broadcasts has ceased.
6
But most remarkable of all, Soviet publications that once
vilified the Voice of America now praise it. Words of praise and
support come from Isvestia. A commentator in Moscow News thanks
VOA, and says that it uses ( (and I quote) ) : "our own broadening
sources of information better than we do and without delay return
to us what they have gathered."
Now Radio Free Europe has bureaus in Warsaw and Budapest,
and VOA even has one in Moscow -- an unthinkable development just
a few years ago. The very fact that it is no longer considered
remarkable to link live programs from Washington to Kiev, or from
Chicago and New York to Gdansk and Warsaw is, in itself,
remarkable.
How did this happen? It happened in part because of the
power of truth. Czechoslovakia's playwright-president, Vaclav
Havel, paid a very personal tribute to this power on his recent
visit to Washington, when he visited the Voice of America, and
met the employees of its Czech division. It was a very poignant
encounter -- for though Havel didn't recognize any of them by
face, he knew them all by name the instant he heard them speak.
And it is moments like that, that convince me of one sure
thing: I am determined that America will continue to bear witness
to the truth. America must never lose its voice. III
Still, we can envision a time when the purpose of Radio Free
Europe and Radio Liberty will be utterly fulfilled. But for now,
these networks, along with VOA and USIA, have two new missions.
7
First, we can fill a void in reporting between the nations
of Eastern Europe. After all, Eastern Europeans need more than
Robert's Rules of Order. They need to know how the process of
reform is working with their neighbors. So if one nation adopts
a novel path to reform, a pollution control, or currency law, the
others need to be able to benefit from that experiment.
Second, as we help the newly free news services to replace
the old distorted information sources, we can help them avoid the
worst forms of a free press -- bias, sensationalism and yellow
journalism. USIA and VOA should first point to their past
directors as exemplary models Edwin R. Murrow, John Houseman
and John Chancellor But we need to do even more. So I am
instructing USIA and Radio Free Europe to provide teaching and
training for apprentice journalists in Central and Eastern
Europe.
The best example of a free press must come from you. The
Peace Corps is teaching English in Eastern Europe as the lingua
franca of business and journalism. But it is not tasked to offer
a model of journalistic excellence. Only the American press
corps can pick up where the Peace Corps leaves off -- and provide
a model of accuracy, fairness and objectivity.
As broadcasters, you can -- and you are -- transferring
American know-how to the East. You are working with VOA to train
and orient foreign broadcasters visiting the United States. Just
in February, the director of Polish radio and television visited
your headquarters, in part to seek the counsel and assistance of
8
American broadcasters. And you have sent your representatives to
meet with their counterparts in the Soviet Union.
And on top of this, you are helping Americans to invest in
joint ventures to establish new radio and television networks in
the East. So most of all, I am here today to recognize your
energetic international leadership.
We are making the most of an opportunity anticipated forty-
five years ago by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a few months before
he made his last trip to his beloved second home so near here, at
Warms Springs. In one of his last messages to Congress,
President Roosevelt said that of all the changes taking place in
the world, it is communication that will do the most to advance
the cause of peace.
That was our vision then. That is our vision today. And by
working together, the vision of America is fast becoming a
reality for the world.
Thank you, may God bless you and may God bless the United
States of America.
#
#
#
Davis/Martin
Title: NAB
March 29, 1990
Draft: Four
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS: NAB, GEORGIA WORLD CONGRESS CENTER
10 a.m. Monday, April 2, 1990
((It's good to see President Eddie Fritts, Walt Warthel,
Hank Roeder, Rory Benson, and I see that about thirty Members of
Congress are with us today. ))
((Holy Cow, Harry Caray. That was some pitch. But when
it comes to singing, don't quit your day job.
((You know, I started out in baseball in college, and now
George Junior is turning it into a family tradition with the
Texas Rangers. The Carays are doing the same -- with "Skip"
Caray right here in Atlanta announcing for the Braves. And now I
understand that Skip's son is getting into the act. But you know
something, Harry -- Skip has got a nice, laid-back style.
((In fact, if he was a radio station, he'd be easy
listening. 11 And you'd be heavy metal. )) III
It's a privilege to be back before the National Association
of Broadcasters. I can't help but marvel at the huge screens
around us -- ((you know, if I were as large as my image on these
screens, imagine how easy it would be for me to get my way with
Congress)). And this convention is also displayed on monitors
throughout
-around this arena; and from here, beamed around the world.
But there was a time when most Americans knew their
presidents distantly, from woodcut prints in their weekly
newspaper. The circle of democracy in ancient Athens and Rome
2
was even more limited, just to those within hearing range of the
debates inside the Parthenon or the Forum. But today, through
free, over-the-air broadcasts, you have brought millions of
living rooms within hearing range; you have made every home a
part of the American forum.
In fact, on this very day, you are providing -- for the
6,000 foreign broadcasters in attendance, through your
international seminars and through USIA's WORLDNET -- a seminar
for the world. Television, which began as the American forum,
has become the world forum.
And so when a lone brave man stood up to a column of tanks
in Tiananmen Square, the world stood with him. When the people
of Prague sang the first Christmas carols in over forty years,
the world sang with them. And when the first German took the
first hammer to that wall of shame in Berlin, the world shared in
an historic act of courage.
build
These images of democracy belong to the world. But it was
here in America that a free people first explored how to put the
airwaves into the service of democracy.
We did this by accepting regulation, but firmly rejecting
government programming or censorship, and government-ownership of
stations. Now the freedom your association enjoys is the model
the world is following today -- not just in the East, but also
among, heavily-regulated nations in the West.
Individuals are learning that information empowers.
Policymakers are learning that if they raise barriers to trade,
3
or raise spending and taxes too high, then people will seek
opportunity elsewhere. More and more, average citizens are
making the most of their freedom, taking responsibility for the
quality of their lives.
Later today, I will visit a General-Electric plant in
Cincinnati, where the workers did what no government industrial
policy could do -- transform foreign investment into foreign
business. Then, we will go to Indianapolis, where the city works
with citizens to spruce up the urban forest, 30,000 trees this
year alone. Compare this spirit of volunteerism to Eastern
Europe, the scene of one environmental disaster after another.
There is a lesson here for us: public responsibility is the sum
total of a million private commitments born of freedom.
11
These commitments result from the ever-increasing free flow
of information around the globe. We live in a time when
commodity prices, travel reservations and fast-breaking news
flash from Hong Kong to Tokyo, Tokyo to Bonn, Bonn to Boston, all
in the blink of an eye. Roam among the hundreds of exhibits in
this convention center and you will find 22 football fields
chocked full of the latest gadgets in telecommunications:
personal computers and modems, fax machines, lasers, optical
fibers, satellites -- all strands in a growing web of world
communications, a growing network linking all of us, "a global
village."
4
The information industry is not an adornment to modern life.
It is the essence of who and what we are. It is truly an
information age.
Last May, I discussed the future of Europe with the citizens
of Mainz, a German city nestled in the green hills along the
Rhine. And it was while I was there that I appreciated anew the
Biblical expression: "In the beginning was the Word." For it was
in that German town that the inventor of the printing press,
Johann ((Yo-HAN)) Gutenberg ((GOOT-ten-berg) first put the
scholarship of the ages into the hands of millions of knowledge-
hungry readers.
His one invention made possible all the pamphlets and
journals of the Enlightenment and the American Revolution -- from
the call to arms of Thomas Paine to the cool logic of The
Federalist Papers. You might argue that out of that one
invention sprang the very idea called America.
Today, along with the word, we have the image -- images
formed by the pixels of color television, and evoked by the
sounds of radio. But while Western democracy broadened as our
knowledge broadened, the circle of democracy and knowledge
narrowed under communist regimes that took power on many
continents.
For these nations, truth was something to be twisted and
stretched by the brutal hands of authority, manipulated beyond
recognition. The Czech author, Milan Kundera, calls this time
the "kingdom of forgetting" -- when whole nations almost forgot
5
their heroic histories and finest traditions. From Havana to
Prague to Phnom Penh, the peoples of these lands never fully gave
in to amnesia, because even in the worst hours of repression,
they could always count on a friendly voice to remind them of the
truth -- the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty
and Radio Marti.
To fully appreciate what these broadcasts mean, you need
only ask someone who listened to them. Sichan Siv, now with my
White House staff, is a Cambodian-American who lived through the
horror of the killing fields. And he has told me that when the
Khmer Rouge took control of a village, they very first items they
confiscated were the radios; for if they respected and feared
anything, it was the power of free information. But even under
the threat of death, men and women like Sichan were so hungry for
news from the outside world that they would turn on a hidden
transistor radio at the lowest possible volume, and put it flush
to one ear.
11 So remember this: The free news broadcasts that
we so easily take for granted in America, some people must risk
death to hear.
608
And that is why I have directed the operation of TV Marti be
ing
carried out with scrupulous adherence to international law. The
Cuban government has no reason to regard the free flow of ideas -
to
- from entertainment programs and from accurate, unbiased news
about world events -- as provocative. And, finally and most
important, I want to tell you, the members of the NAB, that in
all that we do together, your President will stand by you.
6
But I have also come here to ask something of you. I ask
you to stand with me. I ask you to stand for the best tradition
of America. I ask you to, once again, stand for freedom. 1111
If we broadcast freedom, our message will be heard. Look to
the Soviet Union, where Soviet publications that once vilified
the Voice of America now práise it. Words of praise and support
even come from Izvestia. A commentator in Moscow News thanks
VOA, and says that it uses ( (and I quote) ) : "our own broadening
sources of information better than we do and without delay return
to us what they have gathered."
Now Radio Free Europe has bureaus in Warsaw and Budapest,
and VOA even has one in Moscow -- an unthinkable development just
a few years ago. The very fact that it is no longer considered
remarkable to link live programs from Washington to Kiev, or from
Chicago and New York to Gdansk and Warsaw is, in itself,
remarkable.
How did this happen? It happened in part because of the
power of truth. Czechoslovakia's playwright-president, Vaclav
Havel, paid a very personal tribute to this power on his recent
visit to Washington, when he visited the Voice of America, and
met the employees of its Czech division. It was a very poignant
encounter -- for though Havel didn't recognize any of them by
face, he knew them all by name the instant he heard them speak.
And it is moments like that, that convince me of one sure
thing: I am determined that America will continue to bear witness
to the truth. America must never lose its voice.
7
Still, we can envision a time when the purpose of Radio Free
Europe and Radio Liberty could be utterly fulfilled. But for
now, these networks, along with VOA and USIA, must continue in
Eastern Europe until change is complete. Free stations and
newspapers are still struggling to take root. Their access to
their Western colleagues is still erratic. We need to be there
now more than ever before -- to describe and explain our own two
centuries of experience in building a democracy.
We can also assist the Eastern Europeans in sharing among
themselves their own experiments in democracy. After all,
Eastern Europeans need more than Robert's Rules of Order. They
need to know how the process of reform is working with their
neighbors. So if one nation adopts a novel path to reform, a
pollution control, or currency law, the others need to be able to
benefit from that experiment.
And, we must also look ahead to the challenges of a new
century. To prepare for our future role, I have directed that an
interagency review be conducted of U.S. government international
broadcasting. And, of course, we will be looking for advice from
many outside the government.
After all, when it comes to setting an example of a free
press, the best example must come from you. The Peace Corps is
teaching English in Eastern Europe as the lingua franca of
business and journalism. But it is not tasked to offer a model
of journalistic excellence. Only the American press corps can
8
pick up where the Peace Corps leaves off -- and provide a model
of accuracy, fairness and objectivity.
As broadcasters, you can -- and you are -- transferring
American know-how to the East. You are working with VOA to train
and orient foreign broadcasters visiting the United States. Just
in February, the director of Polish radio and television visited
your headquarters, in part to seek the counsel and assistance of
American broadcasters. And you have sent your representatives to
meet with their counterparts in the Soviet Union.
And on top of this, you are helping Americans to invest in
joint ventures to establish new radio and television networks in
the East. So most of all, I am here today to recognize your
energetic international leadership.
We are making the most of an opportunity anticipated forty-
five years ago by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a few months before
he made his last trip to his beloved second home so near here, at
Warm Springs. In one of his last messages to Congress, President
Roosevelt said that of all the changes taking place in the world,
it is communication that will do the most to advance the cause of
peace.
That was our vision then. That is our vision today. And by
working together, the vision of America is fast becoming a
reality for the world.
Thank you, may God bless you and may God bless the United
States of America.
Document No. 126496SS
WHITE HOUSE STAFFING MEMORANDUM
3/26/90
3/27/90 4:00 PM
DATE:
ACTION/CONCURRENCE/COMMENT DUE BY:
PRESIDENTIAL REMARKS: NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BROADCASTERS
SUBJECT:
4:20pm
ACTION FYI
ACTION FYI
VICE PRESIDENT
MCCLURE
SUNUNU
NEWMAN
SCOWCROFT
PORTER N/C
DARMAN
FYI- Porter is
BATES
strongly echoing
CARD
Pinks comments
CICCONI
DEMAREST
b
FITZWATER
GRAY
HAGIN
REMARKS:
Please forward any comments directly to Chriss Winston, Rm. 122,
x2930, no later than 4:00 PM, Tuesday, March 27, with a copy to
my office. Thank you.
RESPONSE:
James W. Cicconi
Assistant to the President
and Deputy to the Chief of Staff
Ext. 2702
Davis/Martin
Title: NAB
March 21, 1990
1990 MAR 26 PM 3. 20
Draft: Three
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS: NAB, GEORGIA WORLD CONGRESS CENTER
10 a.m. Monday, April 2, 1990
( (Acknowledgements -- President Eddie Fritz, Walt Warthel,
Hank Roeder, Rory Benson, thirty Members of Congress with us
today, etc. ) )
((Someone just told me that this very convention center will
be transformed tonight for a Grateful Dead concert. Imagine
that, The Grateful Dead
I guess I can do that to an
audience if I speak too long. ))\\\
It's a privilege to be back before the National Association
of Broadcasters. I can't help but marvel at the huge screens
around us -- ( (you know, if I were as large as my image on these
screens, imagine how easy it would be for me to get my way with
Congress) ) And this convention is also displayed on monitors
around this arena; and from here, beamed around the world.
But there was a time when most Americans knew their
presidents distantly, from woodcut prints in their weekly
newspaper. The circle of democracy in ancient Athens and Rome
was even more limited, just to those within hearing range of the
debates inside the Parthenon or the Forum. But today, through
free, over-the-air broadcasts, you have brought millions of
living rooms within hearing range; you have made every home a
part of the American forum.
2
In fact, on this very day, you are providing -- for the
6,000 foreign broadcasters in attendance, through your
international seminars and through USIA's Worldnet -- a seminar
for the world. Television, which began as the American forum,
has become the world forum.
And so when a lone brave man stood up to a column of tanks
a
in Tienanmen Square, the world stood with him.
When the people of Prague sang the first Christmas carols in
over forter years
almost half a century, the world sang with them.
And when the first German took the first hammer to that wall
of shame in Berlin, the world shared in an historic act of
courage.
These images of democracy belong to the world. But it was
here in America that a free people first explored how to put the
airwaves into the service of democracy.
We did this by accepting regulation, but firmly rejecting
government programming or censorship, and government-ownership of
stations. Now the freedom your association enjoys is the model
the world is following today -- not just in the East, but also
among heavily-regulated nations in the West.
This is all part and parcel of a greater trend -- the ever-
increasing free flow of information around the globe. We live in
Fast breaking
a time when commodity prices, travel reservations and news flash
from Hong Kong to Tokyo, Tokyo to Bonn, Bonn to Boston, all in
hundreds
the blink of an eye. Roam among the acres of exhibits in this
convention center and you will find 22 football fields chocked
3
full of the latest gadgets in telecommunications: personal
computers and modems, fax machines, lasers, optical fibers,
satellites -- all strands in a growing web of world
network linking allagies,
communications, a growing world community, "a global village."
The information industry is not an adornment to modern life.
It is the essence of who and what we are. It is truly an
information age.
Last May, I discussed the future of Europe with the citizens
of Mainz, a German city nestled in the green hills along the
Rhine. And it was while I was there that I appreciated anew the
Biblical expression: "In the beginning was the Word." For it was
in that German town that the inventor of the printing press,
Johannes ( (Yo-HAN-nes)) Gutenberg ( (GOOT-ten-berg)) first put
the scholarship of the ages into the hands of millions of
knowledge-hungry readers.
His one invention made possible all the pamphlets and
journals of the Enlightenment and the American Revolution -- from
the call to arms of Thomas Paine to the cool logic of The
Federalist Papers. You might argue that out of that one
invention sprang the very idea called America.
Today, along with the word, we have the image -- images
formed by the pixels of color television, and evoked by the
sounds of radio. But while Western democracy broadened as our
knowledge broadened, the circle of democracy and knowledge
that took power on many
narrowed under the communist regimes of Central and Eastern
continents.
Europe, and Southeast Asia.
4
For these nations, truth was something to be twisted and
stretched by the brutal hands of authority, manipulated beyond
recognition. The Czech author, Milan Kundera, calls this time
the "Kingdom of Forgetting" -- when whole nations almost forgot
Havana to
their heroic histories and finest traditions. From Prague to
Phenom Penh, the peoples of these lands never fully gave in to
amnesia, because even in the worst hours of repression, they
could always count on a friendly voice to remind them of the
truth -- the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Radio
Liberty, Radio morti.
To fully appreciate what these broadcasts do you need only
to ask a listener. Perhaps someone like Huang Ngor ((Whang-
Nohr) ) whom you probably remember as the Cambodian actor in The
Killing Fields. But Doctor Ngor lived this horror before be
uniest
portrayed it on the screen. And when he lived in Cambodia under
the Khmer Rouge, the ownership of a radio was a crime punishable
by death.
Yet, as soon as it was safe to do so, the Cambodian people
dug up their radios, took out the dead batteries, laid them in
the sun and poured water over them. And in this way, they could
get another 15 or 20 minutes of life out of the old batteries,
precious minutes for which many people risked their lives.
11
Remember that the free news broadcasts which we so easily take
for granted in America, some people must risk death to hear.
( (Insert to come))
Buts
5
Change is coming more easily to the Soviet Union. The
Soviet government once spent half a billion dollars a year to jam
foreign broadcasts so that its people would not learn what their
sons and brothers were doing in Afghanistan. But within the
Soviet media today are many honorable men and women who strive to
report the news, who take glasnost more seriously than the party
line. And that is why more and more Soviet journalists are
earning the respect and admiration of their colleagues abroad.
Even more dramatic signs of change abound. The editor of
Tass speaks to Washington's National Press Club. The subject?
Freedom of information. China made its first conciliatory act by
?
readmitting
accrediting a VOA correspondent. And throughout the world, the
jamming of American broadcasts has ceased.
But most remarkable of all, Soviet publications that once
vilified the Voice of America now praise it. Words of praise and
support come from Isvestia. A commentator in Moscow News thanks
?
VOA, and says that it uses ( (and I quote) ) : "our own broadening
sources of information better than we do and without delay return
to us what they have gathered."
Now Radio Free Europe has bureaus in Warsaw and Budapest,
and VOA even has one in Moscow -- an unthinkable development just
a few years ago. The very fact that it is no longer considered
remarkable to link live programs from Washington to Kiev, or from
Chicago and New York to Gdansk and Warsaw is, in itself,
remarkable.
6
How did this happen? It happened in part because of the
power of truth. Czechoslovakia's playwright-president, Vaclav
Havel, paid a very personal tribute to this power on his recent
visit to Washington, when he visited the Voice of America, and
met the employees of its Czech division. It was a very poignant
encounter -- for though Havel didn't recognize any of them by
face, he knew them all by name the instant he heard them speak.
And it is moments like that, that convince me of one sure
thing: I am determined that America will continue to bear witness
to the truth. America must never lose its voice.
Still, we can envision a time when the purpose of Radio Free
could
Europe and Radio Liberty will be utterly fulfilled. But for now,
these networks, along with VOA and USIA, have two new missions.
NSC
insert
First, we can fill a void in reporting between the nations
of Eastern Europe. After all, Eastern Europeans need more than
Robert's Rules of Order. They need to know how the process of
reform is working with their neighbors. So if one nation adopts
a novel path to reform, a pollution control, or currency law, the
others need to be able to benefit from that experiment.
Second, as we help the newly free news services to replace
the old distorted information sources, we can help them avoid the
worst forms of a free press bias, sensationalism and yellow
journalism But we need to do even more. So I am instructing
USIA and Radio Free Europe to provide teaching and training for
apprentice journalists in Central and Eastern Europe.
7
The best example of a free press must come from you. The
Peace Corps is teaching English in Eastern Europe as the lingua
franca of business and journalism. But it is not tasked to offer
a model of journalistic excellence. Only the American press
corps can pick up where the Peace Corps leaves off -- and provide
a model of accuracy, fairness and objectivity.
As broadcasters, you can -- and you are -- transferring
American know-how to the East. You are working with VOA to train
and orient foreign broadcasters visiting the United States. Just
in February, the director of Polish radio and television visited
your headquarters, in part to seek the counsel and assistance of
American broadcasters. And you have sent your representatives to
meet with their counterparts in the Soviet Union.
And on top of this, you are helping Americans to invest in
joint ventures to establish new radio and television networks in
the East. So most of all, I am here today to recognize your
energetic international leadership.
We are making the most of an opportunity anticipated forty-
five years ago by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a few months before
he made his last trip to his beloved second home so near here, at
Warms Springs. In one of his last messages to Congress,
President Roosevelt said that of all the changes taking place in
the world, it is communication that will do the most to advance
the cause of peace.
8
That was our vision then. That is our vision today. And by
working together, the vision of America is fast becoming a
reality for the world.
Thank you, may God bless you and may God bless the United
States of America.
#
#
#
28 March
NABCall Chris Winston
From -
Demoret
Mi Dates phonecon of you
To fully appreciate what these broadcasts mean, you need
only ask someone who listened to them. Sichan Siv, now with my
White House staff, is a Cambodian-American who lived through the
horror of the killing fields. And he has told me that when the
Khmer Rouge took control of a village, the very first items they
confiscated were the radios, for if they respected and feared
anything, it was the power of free information. But even under
this threat of death, men and women like Sichan were so hungry
for news from the outside world that they turn on a hidden
transistor radio at the lowest possible volume, and put it flush
to one ear.
Others buried their radios, and as soon as it was safe to do
so, dug them up, took out the dead batteries, laid them in the
sun and poured water over them. And in this way, they could get
another 15 or 20 minutes of life out of their old batteries,
precious minutes for which many risked their lives. So
remember that: the free news broadcasts that we so easily take
for granted in America, some people must risk death to hear.
They know that no nation can claim sovereignty over the NOTTROL
airwaves. They know that ideas, ideals and the airwaves respect
no borders. And the world knows that international law allows
America and every other nation to broadcast the truth to the
oppressed; and that moral law obliges us to do so.
I understand that many of you are deeply concerned about
Television Marti, and how this may affect your business. I share
2
your concern. And I am here today to tell you, that if anyone
tries to bully the members of this association, your President
will stand by you. you.\\\\
But I have also come here to ask something of you. I ask
you to stand with me. I ask you to stand for the best tradition
of
America. I ask you to, once again, stand for freedom. \\\
AND ThAT is why I have directed ThAT OUR opseation
of TV MARTI be CARRIE'E out with SCRUPULOUS
Adharance To INTERNATIONAL LAW. we ARE
doing RSR. ETSRY SFFORT is BEING made
To be NON PROVOCATIVE:, The CubAN
Government Should have Nothing to FEAR FRom
The FREE Flow of ideas, FRom ENteRTainment PRograms,
AND FROM ACCURATE, /VON-125dogical news ABout WORLD
Events. AND it is important For The CAUSE of FREEdom
EVERY whise MAT ine seek to MAKE This INFORMATION
AVAILABLE To The CUbAN people