President Sees U.S. as ‘Guiding Light’

In an upbeat New Year’s Day message, President Clinton said Saturday that America is “well poised” to serve as the world’s “guiding light” in the new millennium.

“Never has the openness and dynamism of our society been more emulated by other countries,” he said in his weekly radio address, which was nationally televised from the Oval Office. “Never have our values of freedom, democracy and opportunity been more ascendant in the world.”

The president also expressed relief that the global celebrations were peaceful and marveled at how “the growing inter-connectedness of the world” allowed billions of people to share “the feelings of goodwill and hope that overcame us all. . . . “

The unprecedented manifestation of a global village, Clinton added, underscores how much “our fate in America increasingly will be tied to the fate of other nations and other people around the world.”

Using the occasion to push his trade policies and argue against isolationism, the president added, “We must have prosperous partners to trade with, secure democracies to share the burdens of peacekeeping, and mutual efforts to combat challenges that know no borders, from terrorism to environmental destruction.”

“To advance our interests and protect our values in this new interconnected world, America clearly must remain engaged. We must help to shape events and not be shaped by them,” Clinton added.

First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton joined in on the brief address, wishing for peace around the world and a better life and education to the disadvantaged.

“And if we can build one America and make our diversity our greatest strength, then perhaps other nations will see the advantage of working to overcome their own ethnic and religious tensions,” said Mrs. Clinton, who is running for Senate in New York.

The first couple looked exhausted, and no wonder.

They spent much of Friday racing from one millennium event to another. And after hosting a black-tie dinner for about 300 guests, they partied on the National Mall and then back at the White House until 3:30 a.m.

Today the Clintons are expected to attend a service at the National Cathedral, where the president is to deliver “a personal prayer for the nation” on the first Sunday of the new millennium and the first lady is scheduled to read “A Litany of Prayers.”

Speaking on Saturday for Republicans in what has become a weekly duel of radio addresses, North Dakota Gov. Edward T. Schafer also struck a note of optimism, predicting that the new millennium will be “the American century too.”