Bill Clinton: “First of all, I think it would be difficult to overstate the significance of this election to the American people for…”

“First of all, I think it would be difficult to overstate the significance of this election to the American people for many reasons, first of all, our own history of racial division. We, after all, fought a great Civil War over slavery, and we continue to deal with our own racial challenges today. So all Americans, I think, have always been more drawn to the problems and the promise of South Africa than perhaps other nations have been. Secondly, our own civil rights movement has, for decades, had a relationship with the antiapartheid movement in South Africa. So this will be a great sense of personal joy to many, many Americans who have been involved in this whole issue personally. And finally, it's important to the United States because of the promise of harmony and prosperity in South Africa and what that might mean, not only to South Africa but to many other nations in the region and to the prospect of a revitalization, a new energy, a new peace, a new sense of possibility throughout at least the southern part of Africa. So it's very important.”