Boris Yeltsin in Wichita

President Boris Yeltsin speech today at Wichita State, so tonight we're presenting a speech in its entirety. Yeltsin arrived at McConnell Air Force Base late this morning, and after a quick visit to the Dold Food Plant, he addressed several hundred people. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. As President of the Wichita State University, it is my pleasure to welcome you to our 1992 Eisenhower Forum Board lecture. Senator Dole, Senator Casabomb, Congressman Glickman, Governor Finney, distinguished guests, friends from Wichita and about the state of Kansas, members of the university community, students and friends.

It is with great pride that we welcome Boris Yeltsin, President of Russia, to our city and our campus today. At this time, I'd like to introduce the United States Senator Nancy Casabomb. Senator Casabomb was born and raised in America's heartland.

She is currently in her third term in the United States Senate, representing the people of Kansas, and pleased to introduce her to introduce President Yeltsin, Senator Casabomb. Thank you, Dr. Armstrong, Governor Finney, Senator Dole, we're all delighted to welcome you, President Yeltsin and Mrs. Yeltsin to Kansas. It's a real thrill to have you visit here. Yesterday, you won over all our colleagues in a joint session of the United States Congress. You spoke to the end of communism and the birth of freedom. You promised openness and collaboration in helping us achieve freedom around the world. I would just like to say, Mr. President, that I know why you're here.

You were invited by the best tour guide that you could possibly have, Senator Bob Dole. These are times of great hope and of great promise. I'm not sure, President Yeltsin, that you knew, and I'm sure you did, that our major crop in Kansas is hard, red, winter wheat, which was brought to Kansas in the 1870s by immigrants who came from Russia. We've been grateful for that gift that has been so prosperous and fertile in our soil. We now share a commitment to democracy and freedom. We have been both allies and adversaries.

But I am convinced that you, Mr. President, as someone who grew up on a farm whose family roots have gone back through generations on a farm, having still in you a courage and a conviction and an independence that has enabled you to jump on the tanks and proclaim freedom, and will sustain you in your efforts as we work together for freedom and democracy. Join me, please, in welcoming the President of the Russian Federation, Boris Yeltsin. Thank you. First of all, let me say that I'm sorry I'm not properly tired.

I have a jacket, I just give it away to the general manager of Dolde. But I still have my pants on. Dear friends, students, employees of the University of Kansas, Senators of the Congress, Governor of the State, Mayor of the city, President of the University, and other departments. Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends, members of the faculty, members of the student body, senator, congressman,

Governor Mayor of the state of Kansas, President of the Kansas University, well and other bosses around here. I look at today in the eyes of the future of America. And my task as president of today's freedom in Russia, as president who took 150 million people with his choice, I want to connect with the United States with such contacts and such friendship so that you, in the future, when you will work to live in your family, you will never think that between us will be war or war. There will be only cooperation, only partnership, only friendship between presidents,

members of the Congress, Senators, parliament, members of the students, representatives, members of the American family and the Russian family. I'm meeting today. You understand Russian, don't you? I'm meeting today with the future of America. And my task as president of free Russia, the first freely elected president of the 150 million Russian people, is to... I think that my task here is really to say that what I want to do is to make sure that you, or your children or grandchildren, have the fear of war or hostility between our two countries.

No. What we want is cooperation and friendship. Friendship between our presidents, between our parliaments, between our students, and finalists. We worked well these two days with President Bush and representatives, representatives of Senators, administrations of the United States. For two days, we achieved something like this, for many decades. If, in order to sign up for the agreement, the agreement of strategic nuclear war to 30 percent, it was necessary to stop the negotiations for 15 years.

Then, with President Bush, it took five months and two days to sign up for the agreement yesterday. It took three times to sign up for the agreement. The number of 30 nuclear weapons and almost to take off the threat of the world, especially yesterday in the Congress, that we, in one side of the party, started to remove the fear of the war, the most heavy and strong rockets of the USSR-18 in the country. We are more and more powerful than the enemy, and we are more and more powerful than the enemy. So, with such a friendly or anything. We did it. We signed us in just 39 documents with 7 documents and we signed two presidents, two leaders of the country. We have accomplished a very important and very meaningful work together with President Bush over the past two days. We have had very good and very interesting and fruitful contacts with members of the Senate

Senate and the House of Representatives with members of the administration of the United States of America. Let me tell you this, over the past two days we have accomplished something that in the past it would have taken us dozens of years to accomplish. Just think that it had taken us about 15 years to negotiate 33 percent reductions in our strategic offensive arms and it took President Bush and myself just five months and two days to agree on a drastic reduction in nuclear weaponry by a factor of three, thereby dispelling whatever doubts or whatever misgivings we might have with regard to the future of civilization. As I said yesterday in Congress, during the joint session of the American Congress, we are now removing from alert our most ominous, our heaviest, murved SS-18 missiles which used to be targeted on the cities of the United States of America.

We are now… There is no way we will ever be even potential adversaries, no, we are friends. We made it, we signed 33 agreements of which seven agreements were signed by the two presidents. I came to the United States to ask for help, no, Russia, the city and the big country. Yes, it has survived for 70 years, it has been practically a rapist, totalitarian, communism and in August of the first year of the year, in the time of Putin, when we had won Putin, and you remember

how I was standing on the tank, the movement of communism, the movement of totalitarianism, and we became Russia's free, we want to go to democratic, free Putin on the market relations, so that the rights of citizens of the United States of America will also be protected by international agreements as well as the United States of America. I have not come to the free land of America to ask for handouts. Russians are people who know what dignity and freedom means. It is true that for 70 years, ours has been a country of totalitarian and communist rule. It has been a country of slavery, however you might recall back in August 1991, when we vanquished the coup plotters, and I was standing on top of a tank and addressing the free

Russian people, and I said that communism and totalitarianism have collapsed, that's the end of it, Russia is a free country, and what we want is democracy, freedom, free enterprise, to make sure that human rights and the rights of individual are protected in Russia just as they are protected in the United States. When I was making my presentation at the joint session of the United States Congress yesterday, human rest assured that part of my heart, part of my soul went into my speech

just as well as a small fraction of the heart of every of the 150 million Russians. What I was saying was coming from the very bottom of my heart, I was very frank and candid and very sincere, and I will do what I promise to do. I came to the United States to reach out to you, to the United States, to reach out to you for a handshake, and it was a handshake with the President of the United States with members of the U.S. Congress, and it has been a handshake with American people, and now

I want to reach out to you, students and members of the faculty of Kansas University. The United States, and the United States, are a handshake with the United States, and I want to reach out to you for a handshake with the United States, and I want to reach out to you for a handshake with the United States, and I want to reach out to you for a handshake with the United States, It is true that Russia is having a hard time now.

On January the 2nd this year, we took an unprecedented step, known in the history of my country, whereby we're shook off the shackles of totalitarian slavery and pledged headlong into a new market economy. We'll liberalize prices, we'll liberalize wages, we want to make our people free. It is true that those decisions are very unpopular, but I think you will agree with me when I say that this is inevitable at the first stage of any economic reform. However, what counts is that in spite of all the hardship that our people are going through now, our people, the Russian people, and particularly the Russian youth, do understand pretty well, they have the wits to really understand that,

that what they have in store is more freedom, much more than what they used to have one three or ten years ago, and this is for the sake of, this is for what we're working. We need to create a special, young, arachismic club,

a special, young center for the fact that you're a young man, and the science was working in the space, and the young man participated in the construction and in the flight to the cosmic ships and in the creation of these ships. I am convinced that this is the only way, only in the space of power, creating a global system of control and all the space, and we agreed to create such a system that will be controlled by space, by the same space, all the planes that fly in the sky, the railway and each of them in a car, and this is real, and this is going to talk to the United States, and this is going to talk to our students of our Russian academy, which became Russian after Lamanosov through so many hundreds of years. We signed a number of important agreements yesterday. These are agreements that provide

for expanded cooperation between the two countries, including a very important agreement, concerning joint space exploration of exploitation projects between the United States of America and Russia. After all, why, what sense does it really make to reinvent the bicycle? Why do we have to pursue federal efforts doing exactly the same thing in Russia and in the United States? Why can't we put our unique expertise together, and why I'm saying expertise, I mean both research, development, and basic and applied research? Why couldn't we join our hands, and then we will be able to work miracles, going to Mars, and carrying out other types of joint projects to explore and use outer space at 50% of the cost, by the way, which is very important. I paid a visit to the Air and Space Museum a couple of days ago back in Washington, DC, and in my presentation there I said that it is probably a good idea to think in terms of

establishing some sort of youth clubs or youth centers in both countries or establishing some sort of joint youth centers where our young people, who are interested in science and research and development, could join their efforts together in particular in designing spacecraft, and possibly even in manning our future joint space stations. It is only by that common endeavor that we can achieve meaningful results. We're also thinking about establishing a global monitoring space-based system to provide assistance to other spacecraft, to aircraft in the Earth atmosphere, to railroads, and even to privately owned cars. This is a realistic prospect. This is something that we can do, I'm sure, and this is something that our researchers and scientists are already giving thought to. Why did I come to Kanzas? They were in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York. That's what I mean.

They didn't tell me, but I studied the history of Kanzas, that Kanzas is the first freedom, the first freedom of the United States. This is the first United States to be born. This is the state from where the United States has come from. In this country, and not only in this country, but in all the United States. I came to see this machine, to see people in your eyes. I saw the machine, I came, I saw it. This is the 100th Center of the United States. We get 16. This is the

machine that we brought you. You can't get it from the 100th Center, but from the 16th Center. 75 years ago, we also received almost as many of you. That's what we did in the entire system. And that's why we destroyed this system once and forever. I will tell you this, because there is no force that this 96th year can bring me to this presidency. No, there is no such thing. Let's look at who is from us. It's not good. I will never go to the 96th year. No, until I get to the reform, there was no return. And there is no other way.

And I will tell you that in order to really come to the level of our people, as well as the level of life of Americans, and I understand that you have problems. I saw now when I came to the whole world, people, living in the city of Uchitu, in the end of the world, in my hands, the real knowledge of the whole world of the American smile that does not appear to me as a representative of the Russian people. I thank you for such meeting. Thank you, good luck to you in the future. The presentation of your university, your city of Uchitu, your famous state of Kansas. Maybe the one who comes to the president, but the first free elected president of Russia

has come to the end of the year, not in another state. Now you can ask me, why the hell did you come to Kansas? I'm not... Not New York, Chicago, or LA. I mean, there's a profound reason for this. I have been studying your history. I've been reading some very important briefing papers on this, and I think I know something about the history of the state of Kansas. I think that this state is called first in freedom, first in bread state. Is that correct? I think it is... I should treat you please. It is also important to know that your grandfathers and great-grandfathers played a very important role in the history of the United States.

They were the people who courageously fought slavery, but also throughout the United States. So I came to this state, I came to Kansas, to see that bread, and to see those free freedom-loving people. I have been... On my way to Wichita University, I saw some very beautiful fields of wheat out there, not far from the university. And Senator Dold told me that the average yield here is about 60 bushel per acre, while we took us some time to convert that into kilograms and tons. But I guess if we compare that in Russia, the yield would be about seven, maybe eight bushel. And just think that 75 years ago Russian farmers had the same yield back in my country.

So this is what our communist system did to us, and this is why we destroyed that system. And there is no coming back. There are simply no forces. Take my word for it. There is no way I can be forced out of the office. There are three constitutional provisions in my country. One is for health reasons. Is there anyone around here who's healthy that I am? Let's compete. The second is resignation. It can bet a hundred bucks I'll never resign before 1996. Certainly not before our reform effort becomes irreversible.

And there are no other constitutional provisions under which I could be impeached or forced out of the office. So what I want to do is try and take the first steps toward making sure that the standard of living of Russian people in my home country begins to come closer to the standard of living of the average American citizen. I do know that you have problems. I do know that you are going through some hardships in certain areas. I have seen on my way to the university here. I've seen some very beautiful people who live here in Wichita, Kansas. And I think I saw here what people called a broad American smile. Those people were smiling at me. But they were not smiling at me personally. I think they were smiling at the people whom I represent. So I want... Thank you very much for coming.

I want to say good luck to you, ladies and gentlemen and dear friends. Good luck to the United States of America, to Wichita, to the state of Kansas. And thank you very much again for giving this beautiful welcome to the first freely elected Russian president who came to the United States and visited the state of Kansas. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm sorry, I really had the intention of reading this thick paper here. But I thought you would those loves, so I just discarded them.

And by the way, talking about how I want to summon an issue of summons to the president of Wichita University or president of any country of the world to join me in a ten. And we'll see who is fitter. Thank you very much. Our craftsmen have been working on this in the same art style for hundreds of years already.

This is a gift from the bottom of my heart. Thank you, President Jeltsin. Before we conclude, I would like to introduce two Wichita State University students. Can you recognize the ten here?

Mr. President, our student body vice president, Diana Beck. Dimitri Antoniara. Dimitri is new to Wichita. He's been here only seven months. He's a student from Russia studying economics in the Frank Barton School of Business. His father is the general manager of the Pizza Hut in Moscow. In our excitement to meet the president, we have left our gifts over in our seats, as well as our speeches.

You want to use mine? Dimitri is here to translate as a Russian student. President Jeltsin, on behalf of the students of Wichita State University, we'd like to present you with a few tokens from the university. And to express our gratitude for coming to our university and showing interest in the student body.

Mr. President, I'm sorry I cannot reciprocate. I'm afraid to take my fans off.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much for these very kind words. I'll make a point of going to that restaurant to the Pizza Hut in Moscow and convey your best regards to Dimitri's father.

I hope he will not ask me to pay in dollars. And I'm talking about the seal I submitted a draft law for consideration by our parliament to replace the old seal of the Soviet Union, the hammer and sickle, by the old Russian seal with an eagle on it. Mr. President, it's all together fitting that you are here in Wichita, a center for entrepreneurial activity.

To foster continuing goodwill between our countries and to emphasize our university's enthusiasm for your success thus far. I would like to present you on behalf of the university to $10,000 fellowships for Russian students. We invite them to study business at the W. Frank Barton School of Business at the Wichita State University. We hope they may join us here next fall, and we believe that this is just a beginning for a successful and valuable partnership with our friends in Russia.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much for this very generous gift. We do need young businessmen, young professionals. We cannot make a transition to a market economy. We cannot integrate ourselves into the new Europe and the new world order without young businessmen. I know that the university is preparing excellent businessmen. I ask if this is possible for the president of the university to organize the best student of every year at the university.

I want to thank again for this very generous gift. I know a lot about the School of Business at Wichita State University. I would like to ask you, Mr. President, to institute five fellowships of $5,000 each named after President Jelsen to mark the best students every year. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much. There again the speech and warm reception at Wichita State. We invite you to see more detailed coverage.

Thank you very much. Number four, constantly shouting feed me at the top of his lungs. Number one, a little too long and the number one, a folk park, committed by Boris Jelsen while in Washington. That's a good question.

Thank you very much.