At the ceremony, I was introduced by Joe Dawson of Corpus Christi, Texas, who, as a young captain, was credited as being the first officer to successfully reach the top of the forbidding bluffs of Normandy under withering German fire. Almost 9,400 Americans died on D-day, including thirty-three pairs of brothers, a father and his son, and eleven men from tiny Bedford, Virginia. I acknowledged that those who survived and had returned to the scene of their triumph “may walk with a little less spring in their step and their ranks are growing thinner. But let us never forget, when they were young, these men saved the world.”
The next day I was in Paris to meet with Mayor Jacques Chirac, speak to the French National Assembly in the Palais Bourbon, and attend a dinner hosted by President François Mitterrand at the Elysée Palace. Mitterrand’s dinner ended about midnight, and I was surprised when he asked me if Hillary and I would like to see the “New Louvre,” the magnificent creation of Chinese-American architect I. M. Pei. Mitterrand was seventy-seven and in ill health, but he was eager to show off France’s latest masterpiece. When François, U.S. ambassador Pamela Harriman, Hillary, and I arrived, we found that our tour guide was none other than Pei himself. We looked at the magnificent glass pyramid, the restored and adapted old buildings, and the excavated Roman ruins for more than an hour and a half. Mitterrand’s energy never flagged as he supplemented Pei’s narrative to make sure we didn’t miss anything. The final day of the trip was a personal one, a return to Oxford to receive an honorary degree. It was one of those perfect English spring days. The sun was shining, a breeze was blowing, and the trees, wisteria, and flowers were all in bloom. In brief remarks, I referred to the D-day commemoration, then said,
“History does not always give us grand crusades, but it always gives us opportunities.” We had plenty of them, at home and abroad: restoring economic growth, extending the reach of democracy, ending environmental destruction, building a new security in Europe, and halting “the spread of nuclear weapons and terrorism.” Hillary and I had had an unforgettable week, but it was time to get back to those “opportunities.”
The day after I returned, Senator Kennedy’s Labor and Human Resources Committee reported out a health-care reform bill. It was the first time legislation providing universal coverage had ever even made it out of a full congressional committee. One Republican, Jim Jeffords of Vermont, had voted for it. Jeffords encouraged me to keep reaching out to Republicans. He said that with a couple of amendments that wouldn’t gut the bill we could pick up a few more votes.
