News Release

May 4, 1998

First Meeting of the Millennium Committee to
Save America's Treasures Convened at the White House

Washington, D.C. — First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton welcomed National Trust President Richard Moe and the members of the Millennium Committee to Save America's Treasures to the White House on Monday, May 4, for an inaugural briefing about the project. The Committee, composed of business, philanthropic, and nonprofit leaders, has been organized by the National Trust to assist in the campaign to bring private resources to the Save America's Treasures program.

After opening remarks by the First Lady, Richard Moe made a presentation on the endangered landmarks, artifacts, archival material, and works of art that need both public and private support for preservation. Brief remarks were also made by Master Sergeant Thomas Williams, describing his grassroots response to mobilize volunteers to clean up Congressional Cemetery after hearing of the site's plight on the History Channel's Eleven Most Endangered program; Rebecca Rimel, president of the Pew Charitable Trusts, announcing a $5 million gift to the restoration of the Star Spangled Banner; and David Altschul, announcing a "Millennium Celebration CD" by Warner Records, with proceeds to go to the Save America's Treasures program.

Mrs. Clinton also announced she would take a two-day tour by bus of historic sites in the mid-Atlantic region this summer, to see for herself how pressing the need for preservation is. Without preservation, she said, it will be hard to erase the bleak image of the future that young people now get through popular culture.

"You have road-warrior movies, you have apocalyptic visions, you have people living under bubbles because the environment has been so degraded," Mrs. Clinton said. "There's not an image of the kind of optimistic, positive future that certainly we were raised with and that I believe in to this day.

"Part of that is because we may have gotten a little out of touch with our past," she said. "We've got some hard decisions to make ourselves on whether we will continue to honor our past, or whether we'll get so caught up in cyberspace and the global economy that being American seems somehow less significant."

President Clinton's proposed budget for fiscal 1999 contains $50 million for historic preservation, and the committee hopes to stimulate private contributions to go along with that money.

The briefing was followed by a luncheon with Mrs. Clinton in the State Dining Room. Also representing the National Trust at the meeting were Board Chairman Nancy Campbell, Vice Presidents Peter Brink and Ed Norton, Chief of Staff David Brown, and Director of Communications Liz Wainger.

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