Bill Clinton: “Seoul November 21, 1998 Mr. President, thank you for your kind words and your kind welcome to Korea. I am very conscious…”

“Seoul November 21, 1998 Mr. President, thank you for your kind words and your kind welcome to Korea. I am very conscious that this visit, my third to Korea as President, comes at a pivotal time in the history of this great nation. In that regard, Mr. President, I would like to thank you for giving my fellow Americans and me the opportunity to have dinner tonight with such a broad range of people from every aspect of Korean society. And especially, thank you for having so many young people here, for it is their lives that will be most affected by the decisions we must make. First, this is a moment of opportunity, on the 50th anniversary of your Republic, to complete what you, Mr. President, have called Korea's second nation building, securing in freedom the gains of your remarkable postwar transformation. It is also a challenging moment, for the Korean people have suffered from the whims of economic disruption and dislocation that have blown so strongly throughout all Asia. We in the United States have been heartened by the signs that your efforts at reform and recovery are beginning to succeed. Mr. President, if Korea is on the right path--and I believe it is-- it is not simply because economists have given good advice and leaders have made wise choices. More fundamentally, it is because a free people have given their leaders a mandate to confront problems with candor and the legitimacy to call for shared sacrifices.…”