Remarks at Swearing-in Ceremony

Secretary Powell, Assistant Secretary General Einaudi, Ambassadors, friends from the Congress, Executive Branch colleagues, family and friends:

Mr. Secretary, thank you for your generous words and your sentiments. I am grateful to President Bush and you for this nomination, and to the Senate for its support through the confirmation process.

Mr. Secretary, I count myself among the most fortunate in the U.S Government these days, for two reasons:

• First, for the last two plus years, since January 22, 2001, I have been privileged to serve the President and Dr. Condoleezza Rice in policy formulation and coordination for the Americas at the National Security Council.

• Second, I now have the opportunity to continue serving the President and you, Mr. Secretary, this time in carrying out these policies on the front lines in the multilateral arena within the hemisphere.

For those of us who care so much about the Americas, it does not get much better than that. And if we add to it the exciting Summit of the Americas agenda, and how we mesh our bilateral and multilateral interests in our “neighborhood,” as President Bush likes to call it, plus the opportunity to work all of this with our new Assistant Secretary and my old friend Roger Noriega, we have heady days, daunting tasks, and real opportunities ahead of us.

The President’s policies in the Western Hemisphere are grounded in basic American ideals and values. President Bush’s emphasis is on promoting democracy and human rights and strengthening democratic institutions to make them more credible and relevant for individual citizens; on advancing trade and investment as engines for economic growth and job creation; on reducing poverty through strengthening education, health and other basic services; and on protecting citizens from international and home grown terrorists, drug traffickers, and international crime organizations, particularly those that traffic in humans.

This agenda represents a shared bipartisan U.S. policy approach for the Western Hemisphere. The challenge for all of us in the Executive Branch is to implement that solidly bipartisan hemispheric policy measurably and effectively. This is the hard part, but also the most exciting part of the job to which I have just signed on.

Multilateral diplomacy is an essential, indeed a vital, element of the Bush administration policy in the Western Hemisphere. Mr. Secretary, you have made that point and carried it out continually, and emphasized it again today with your words about the Democratic Charter, the OAS response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the role of the OAS, the Inter-American Council for Integral Development, and the specialized organizations of the inter-American system in implementing the mandates of the Summits of the Americas process.

You have also underscored the OAS role in Venezuela, particularly with regard to full implementation of OAS Resolution 833, and in Haiti, where OAS Resolution 822 and the presence of the OAS Special Mission are the keys to a democratic solution.

The Organization of American States is indeed a “living, breathing organization” that has adapted to meet the needs of the Hemisphere. Ten years ago at the OAS, fighting corruption in member states or developing a mutual evaluation mechanism for anti-narcotics efforts would have been unthinkable. Not anymore. The OAS has changed, and the OAS needs to keep changing to maintain its preeminent role in the region.

Now there are new challenges, which will require new political will of each of the member states. These include:

• Applying the Inter-American Democratic Charter to all the hemispheric countries, leaving no country out;
• Enhancing those OAS elements that deal with strengthening democracy in efforts to make the institutional changes needed to permit upward social mobility based on equality of opportunity;
• Strengthening institutions in each country to complement the march toward a Free Trade Area of the Americas, which is the key to jobs, growth, and fighting poverty effectively;
• Following through in ways that address realistically the post 9/11 security threats from international and home-grown terrorists, and international crime;
• Helping countries deal effectively with burgeoning domestic crime at a time of high citizen insecurity; and
• Implementing the new growth, investing in people and governance mandates that we hope will emerge from the upcoming Special Summit of the Americas.

What makes dealing with these weighty agendas in the Americas -- our neighborhood -- so satisfying is the people with whom I work. Colleagues and friends from throughout the executive branch, from the NSC to State, Treasury, USTR, AID, DOD, and beyond, I thank you for your dedication and your professionalism. And of course, special thanks to the Western Hemisphere Bureau, and now to my great USOAS mission.

The other part, of course, is the neighbors. In addition to all our professional agendas, I must confess that for years now I have had fun, and thoroughly enjoyed working with, visiting, and living among so many friends throughout the hemisphere. That is why my family and I have spent so much of our lives in the Americas. Many friends from the Americas are here today, and I thank you for your presence and your solidarity.

Public service for the President of the United States of America, particularly for those of us from immigrant stock, is the realized American dream. Such service is made possible by the strong support of family, as Secretary Powell unfailingly and so rightfully points out. Thank you for that.

My family here today, including my mother, brother, and the memory of our father, shares this moment. And so does, of course, Nini, who, has always been with me and who, through her tricultural lens, since our university days, has kept me straight on how the rest of the world perceives and interprets what the United States does and says.

But what is so special for Nini and me today is our children, Tina, Maria and Eddie, and John and Karen, and now, the grandchildren.

The grandchildren’s presence and their joy, their wonderment, their innocence and their dreams bring us back to basics. For what we do and how we do it is our legacy -- to them. And that is very, very important.