Bill Clinton: “Well, first of all, I wasn't even familiar with this document. I didn't know it was issued. I don't know who wrote it.…”

“Well, first of all, I wasn't even familiar with this document. I didn't know it was issued. I don't know who wrote it. But let me back up and say, when you are in a period where the Government has had heavy-handed involvement in the economy and then things start to change and arrangements are unsettled, that's a point where, in general, civil societies are vulnerable to corruption. Also, human nature being what it is, there will nearly always be someone somewhere who is doing something wrong. So what you want, however, is a system where the incentives are to be honest; where there are disincentives, sanctions, for being dishonest; and where you're moving in the right direction. I told President Menem--we had a talk about this last night. I was complimenting President Caldera of Venezuela because he took the lead in making sure that our hemisphere--we have, basically, the only convention against corruption of any hemisphere in the world. And I said to President Menem, and I said to the young people at the townhall meeting yesterday, what my experience is, just from my life in politics. And that is that if a civil society can maintain a vigorous free press, an economy that works, and you can just preserve democracy, time takes care of a lot of this. That is, I believe that 20 years from now, an American President will be sitting here and either you will be sitting here or your successors will be, and I will predict to you that if democracy survives in Argentina, which I believe it will, there will be less corruption, but you could still ask a question about corruption. Do you see what I mean? You could still ask. So what my advice would be here, because this country has come so far so fast, moving away from some of its darkest moments not very long ago and also moving away from the heavy-handed control of the state over the economy, that the focus should be on maintaining a vigorous and safe free press, making sure that the economy operates according to internationally accepted norms, and preserving democracy. I had a great talk not very long ago with Senator Dole, who was my opponent in the last election. We have quite an interesting and good relationship, I think, and he was in Congress for 35 years. So I said to him, ``Bob''--the Washington press was full of something at the moment, I can't even remember what it was--I said, ``Bob, is Washington more honest today, or less, than 30 years ago?'' He said, ``It's not close. They're much more honest.''”