THE WHITE HOUSE

                       Office of the Press Secretary
_________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                        September 24, 1994


                                Remarks by 
                     First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton
                 at the United States Coast Guard Academy
                                     

     Mrs. Clinton:  Thank you so much for that warm welcome, and
for giving me a real chance to see the Coast Guard Academy in
action.  I am very pleased to be here and delighted that my
daughter Chelsea could join me, she and I were looking forward to
this visit.  I would like to thank the Academy for inviting me to
participate in the regimental review.  I must say, seeing all of
you executing your maneuvers out there, so precisely and well,
was very impressive, and it gave me a great deal of pride in the
cadets of this academy.

     As some of you may know, I had the great honor of being able
to participate in the christening of the Columbia, the last of
the Los Angeles class of fast-attack submarines to be added to
our naval fleet.  It was the last christening at which the
submarine would slide into a river.  From now on there will be a
dry-dock procedure in which the submarines will be floated out. 
So I was particularly pleased to have the chance to participate.

     I was thinking about it, as I drove from the Electric Boat
Company across the Thames River to the Academy, of how many times
in my life I have come into contact with the Coast Guard.  I have
seen you and your predecessors to enter this Academy, and those
who enlisted, in so many different settings.  And it is not often
that someone gets to come, as I have been given the honor to
today, to say a simple thank you.  Thank you to the Coast Guard
for your service, and thank you to all of you who are cadets in
planning to serve your country by being in the Coast Guard.  It
is something that we all too often take for granted, because the
capacity for progress and innovation is really the story of the
Coast Guard.

     For 204 years, Coast Guard cutters have kept our waters safe
and secure; Coast Guard personnel have overseen tariffs and
customs; they've broken up ice flows in the Great Lakes and along
the eastern seaboard; they've kept commerce going so that heat
and oil and other necessary products and services could reach
their destinations.  And day after day, as I have traveled around
this country, from Hawaii to Alaska, all up and down our
coastline, I have seen the vital role the Coast Guard plays.  And
now more and more of our fellow citizens are seeing and
understanding as well.  Because they are turning on their
television sets; they are watching Coast Guard cutters intercept
drug traffickers; they are watching Coast Guard spokesmen and
women talk about what is happening in their efforts to save
refugees' lives.  So I believe that, maybe more now than in our
recent history, there is a greater understanding of the critical
role that the Coast Guard plays. 

     Now I imagined, as I stood out there watching the regimental
review, that, especially for those of you swabs out there, the
last several weeks have probably caused you to wonder what you
have gotten yourself into.  I imagine that you wondered why, as
I've been told, you have to square all your corners in Chase
Hall, keep your head as high as in the boat, worry about such
matters as getting demerits for dust-bunnies under your bed,
wonder why you can't relax the weight requirements for your
football team--all the things that bother people about those
first weeks of getting acclimated.  Some of you may have written
some letters home saying that, "Oh my goodness, what have I
gotten myself into?"  And then you look at the first class or you
look at the people who are leading your regiments and you think,
"Well maybe it is a compliment when you keep on going."  And at
that moment you remember the kind of careers and futures that you
are preparing for, and that you are a part of a very important
public service. 

     During the last months, the President has spoken often about
the importance of Americans coming together and working hard to
achieve a sense of community and a sense of common purpose.  He
has said over and over again, that we need to reward responsible
behavior with opportunity.  Because he believes, as I know you
do, that if we give people a chance to fulfill their potential,
if they are willing to work hard and play by the rules, they not
only benefit themselves and their families, they benefit the rest
of us.  This academy is one of those institutions in our society
that serves as an example of how to instill basic values, and
then to exemplify them.  You have done so many important things
in the long and distinguished history of this academy that
demonstrate how people can come together and work to together.  
     
     I must say on a special note, that the way the Coast Guard
has fully integrated women into its ranks--maybe it is possible
to say that the first women in any armed services have been
guaranteed access to every job, every rating and every challenge-
-is a real testimony to your forward looking leadership and to
the way you work together as a team for that common purpose.  The
fact that there are today, 467 women officers in the Coast Guard
ranks, is a real commendation to all who have led the Coast Guard
over the past 20 years.

     I learned a little bit more about the Coast Guard because we
are very privileged in the White House, to have as a White House
Fellow, Lt. Tim Atkins of the Coast Guard, who has been assigned
to the National Security Council, because the role the Coast
Guard is playing in our national security is becoming more and
more significant, and the National Security staff determined that
it needed the kind of representation that Lt. Atkins could bring. 
And he is here with me today, and we are very grateful in the
White House for his service.

     As we move forward, in looking at the future and what it
holds for our country, we can see that in many ways we are
charting very new waters. Because in the most recent assignments
that the Coast Guard has been involved in carrying out--in Cuba
and in Haiti--we've had to make new policy.  We've had to respond
to new circumstances.  In our efforts to create humanitarian
alternatives to war while maintaining our leadership position in
the world, we've had to engage in some new thinking.

     As we have looked out at the post-Cold War era, we know that
we are now confronted with enemies that did not exist before, and
that can turn up unexpectedly in any corner of the globe.  We
have discovered that our capacity to preserve peace and
strengthen democracy is tested from every continent across every
ocean.  And we are finding here at home that some of our most
basic values and institutions are being undermined by cynicism,
intolerance, and hopelessness.  And that is why, on both the
domestic and foreign fronts it is important for the Coast Guard,
and for each cadet, and each member to take seriously the
missions they have been given.

     On the domestic front I am very proud of the contributions
that you've made as cadets to your neighbors here in Connecticut. 
In the "Connecticut Stand Down Program" you are making a
difference in the lives of homeless veterans.  In your work with
the Teen Hot-Line, The Scout Club and the Recreational
Alternatives to Drugs Project you are helping young people find
alternatives to what they find in their own neighborhoods.  And
in your work with the Salvation Army Soup Kitchen and Lawrence
Memorial Hospital you bring helping hands and open hearts to
people who need that kind of support.

     Humanitarianism in our new domestic agenda takes on an even
greater meaning, because we have to show by example the
importance of service, of contributing, of helping build a
stronger more secure community.  We have to, each of us,
determine how we can best make that contribution.  So
domestically, not only in the work that is done on our oceans and
lakes, but right here at this academy people are showing the way.


     And then with respect to national security, I know the
President feels very strongly that the bravery and dedication
shown by your fellow Coast Guard men and women in the recent
months in response to the refugee crises in Cuba and Haiti has
been exemplary.  When the Cuban government, led by Fidel Castro,
responded to its own internal, domestic problems by trying to do
again what it had done in 1980, forcing an exodus of Cubans on
the high seas the Coast Guard was dispatched to the front line. 
Not only were tens of thousands of lives saved, but working in
conjunction with the Navy, the refugees were taken to Guantanamo
where they were held to be processed while negotiations could be
worked out and Castro could be backed down so that we could make
sure that lives were not lost in the meanwhile.

     While this administration has continued to support and
encourage genuine humanitarian aid to Cuba, the United States
government has stopped the flow of money and all flights that
were being used to prop up the rapidly deteriorating Cuban
economy.  And in the migration talks that have just ended a few
weeks ago, the United States has agreed to accept up to 20,000
Cubans each year, but we're not about to be fully...or forced
into accepting floods of refugees as Castro intended.  The
agreement will therefore create orderly, legal and manageable
immigrant flow that could not have happened without the
assistance and leadership of the Coast Guard.

     Similarly, the Coast Guard's response to the plight of the
Haitian people has been one of inspiration as well.  The
President knows that over half of the first class, and many of
the third class cadets, were part of a tremendous humanitarian
mission.  You literally save tens of thousands of lives.  On the
Fourth of July alone, you rescued over 32 hundred Haitians from
72 different boats, nearly doubling the previous one day record.
Because the Coast Guard was there, able to stem the refugee tide
and control it, the United States today will prepare for the
military action that will lead to the peaceful return of
democracy in Haiti.  And once again the Coast Guard is on the
front line of Operation Uphold Democracy, with six aircraft, 14
cutters, several patrol boats, and more than 250 Coast Guard
active-duty and reservists providing for security, search-and-
rescue, and command staff support.

     It is because of the tradition of the Coast Guard--of
bravery, dedication and skill--that the Coast Guard is known for
its humanitarian service.  And I hope that each of you takes
great pride from that designation, because truly that is what all
military services ultimately are attempting to do if they are
part of a democracy's military.  Democracies do not wage war on
one another.  That is why the great effort to further democratize
the world is so important to the keeping of the peace.  That is
why the actions in Cuba and Haiti--the last two undemocratic
regimes in our hemisphere--is so important to the future peace
and stability of our country and our neighbors.  Because
ultimately it is the humanitarian mission that is the long
lasting one that undergirds peace and that is truly the first
line of national security.

          There is much ahead of you as you finish your careers
here at the academy, because you will be taking your positions in
the Coast Guard in a time of great change in our country.  It is
a time of challenge but also insecurity.  My friends and I
sometimes think about what it was like when we were growing up at
the height of the Cold War.  In fact, when I heard reference to a
job I held in 1973 in the introduction, I thought many of you
were not even born in 1973, and that caused me to pause, but when
I talk with many of my friends, and we think back to the 1950s
and early 1960s, when we were actually doing nuclear air-raid
drills in our school halls, when we would go out and sit down
next to our lockers and put our heads down between our legs -- as
though that could have protected us from a nuclear holocaust --
when I think about how in so many ways the world was a simpler
place beacause we knew who our enemies were. They were there on
that big map: the Soviet Union, and China, and the other
communist countries in Eastern Europe.  We knew what their goals
were, to spread communism and to undermine us, or as Khrushchev
boasted, to "bury us."  

     Yes it was a dangerous time, and thank goodness we are no
longer living with the threats we once faced as a nation.  Thank
goodness that our country is dismantling the nuclear weapons that
used to be pointed at us in the former Soviet Union.

     But when an era changes, when authoritarian or totalitarian
states become fledgling democracies, when walls are torn down,
there is also a great deal of confusion that goes along with
that, because the old rules no longer apply.  We have to begin to
sort out how do we all deal with new nations that didn't even
exist five years ago.  We have to determine what our real
national security interests are.  We have to understand that even
though the clear picture of good versus evil is not so clear and
understood as it was before, that we have to continue to show our
leadership.  But it requires a new kind of leadership.  It
requires new ways of thinking and new ways of acting.  Never
before, I believe, have we so required creative, thoughtful
military leadership.  People who have a broad depth of knowledge
about economics, and sociology, and science, and the emerging
issues that not only affect the United States but the entire
world.  So many of the problems we are going to face I could not
even have dreamed of when I was in college.  

     Who would have thought that environmental degradation, that
the kinds of problems that arise from the erosion of the soil,
from the polluting of the waters, would be undermining many of
the states in central Africa and northern Africa, that would lead
to internal wars that might spill over borders?  Who would have
thought that weapons would become so mobile that thugs and gang
leaders in small countries could dominate large parts of those
countries because of the weapons which they have?  So many things
are different now and they demand a new creative response.  And
as certainly as this President and this administration are
working through it, it will also be part of your job as well.  

     Every era poses challenges to those who not only live in it
but want to really make the most of their lives.  No time is ever
easy.  But now we have some particular challenges.  It is easy to
get discouraged; it is easy to fall pray to the quick answers,
the simple solutions, the 30-second sound bites.  Your education
here will prepare you to think more deeply, and thoughtfully, and
analytically about what faces you, the Coast Guard, and your
country.  Because we will, I predict, in the next few years,
continue to kind of sway back and forth as a nation, as we begin
to try to find our way into this new territory, for which there
is no guidebook for this new world that we are creating as we go
along.  And part of the balance that we have to strike is between
those who believe that America must retreat, that we have to
become isolated, and those who continue to urge us to take our
rightful position as leader of this world--the strongest nation
anywhere on the planet, whose democracy and ideals are beginning
to take root.

     The battle between cynicism fueled by a media that is more
interested in sensationalism and very exciting confrontations
instead of the hard work of solving problems will have to be
fought.  Ultimately, it will come down to a real battle between
hope and fear.  Will we be optimists about our future, or will we
give in to those who would divide us, set us apart, create war
and anxiety among us?  You would not be here at this academy if
you were not a positive person with an optimistic view about your
own life and the life of your country.  This is, if not the most,
one of the most competitive academic college environments
anywhere in the country.  You have been chosen from among
thousands of applicants.  You owe yourself, you owe this academy
and ultimately, I would argue, you owe this country which not
only makes your education possible, but has made your opportunity
for this education possible, your highest degree of dedication. 
Not only as a member of the Coast Guard, but as a citizen of this
nation.  We need you now, more than ever.  And based on what I
know and what I have seen, I believe you are ready to meet that
challenge.  

     Thank you all and God bless you.

                             END.