FROM THE OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS

Thank you, Don Marron and David Abshire, and all of you involved with the Center for Study of the Presidency, for this great honor. Let me also say how pleased I am to be honored with Senator Howard Baker. After six and a half years in government, I have gained a deep appreciation of the importance of having Congressional leaders in both parties who, when the partisan skirmishing is done, are willing to work together, to cross party lines and to find common ground to get things done. Throughout his career, Howard Baker has exemplified that spirit of cooperation, and a commitment to making our complex system of government work.

By honoring me this evening, you honor the large number of highly capable, hard working and dedicated public servants --appointed and career -- with whom I have had the privilege to work over the last six and a half years. I accept this honor on their behalf. These people deserve the support and respect of all of us. And I might add, I think that those who denigrate public service -- as some political leaders have from time to time -- do our country a great disservice. You also honor our President, since anything any of us in his Administration has done on the major issues has been under his highly active leadership. It has been the President who has had to make and take responsibility for so many politically and substantively tough decisions, including those that have contributed greatly to the strong economic conditions we have had in our country over the past six and a half years.

During my tenure in the Administration I have gained, I believe, some understanding of how the Presidency works, just as many of you have from your own days in government. While there are many requisites for a successful Presidency, I would like to focus on two interrelated qualities. First, a President must have a clear vision -- a strong sense of what he or she wants to do -- and coherent strategies consistently followed, for achieving that vision. Second, a President must then have the willingness to make tough unpopular decisions in the face of strong opposition.

Historians will certainly debate the meaning and impact of the Clinton Administration's policy decisions, as they would for any Administration's decisions.

I believe that they will conclude that entering office after twelve years of enormous fiscal deficits and at a time of economic unease, this President made tough decisions on the economy with a consistent vision. These include the 1993 deficit reduction program that prevailed by only one vote in the House and with the Vice President's tie breaker in the Senate, the strenuous effort to secure passage for the North American Free Trade Agreement, despite broad opposition -- including among his political allies; the decision in the face of overwhelming popular opposition to undertake the Mexican support program during what some have called the first financial crisis of the 21st Century; and the many controversial decisions -- which were sound in my view -- involved in combating the Asian financial crisis.

Making these decisions was made all the more difficult by the atmosphere in which our elected officials must govern -- something which seems to me deeply troubling as I think about my six and a half years in Washington. Twenty-four hour reporting, the conversion of policy issues into personal attacks, the tendency to make thirty-second sound bite judgments, all discourage decision making that involves risk. So, too, do two even more fundamental factors. Major decisions are inherently uncertain, and so necessarily involve probabilistic judgments. But, decisions are judged solely on the basis of their results, rather than on the quality of the probabilistic decision making itself. Moreover, we are all human, and we all make mistakes. But Washington has no tolerance for mistakes, and requiring perfection must certainly be the enemy of good decision making.

How to try to improve all of this is both critically important, and not at all clear --at least not to me. One way, though, that we can all contribute to creating a better environment for decision making is to increase understanding among the American people about the opportunities and risks involved in the major issues facing the nation. For example, as we look forward, I am particularly concerned with -- as are many of you -- the need to maintain and strengthen America's leadership role in the world. However, at a time when our economic well being, as well as national security and other interests, are enormously affected by what happens outside our borders, the voices urging us to turn inward are growing louder and stronger, both among the public at large and in official Washington. The antidote, it seems to me, is public understanding, and that, in turn, could produce a better environment for the difficult decisions of the interdependent world of the new century.

If you speak to those who have worked in and out of government for the past twenty or thirty years, no matter their party allegiance, they often point to a great deterioration in the conditions that surround policy makers at the highest levels of government. Even in the six and a half years I have been in Washington, the atmosphere is generally thought to have grown worse. It seems to me that you at the Center for Study for the Presidency, who are intensely focused on the inner workings of that office, can play a very important bipartisan role in trying to determine how to change this dynamic and to foster conditions that will help and not hinder Presidents in making tough decisions. I believe this is critical, for the sake of future Presidents, but much more importantly, for the citizens they will serve.

Thank you, again, for this honor, and for the opportunity to speak with you this evening.