My life

Our last stop was Senegal, where we visited the Door of No Return on Gorée Island, the point from which so many Africans were taken to slavery in North America. As I had in Uganda, I expressed my regret over America’s responsibility for slavery and the long, hard struggle of African-Americans for freedom. I introduced the large delegation with me “representing over thirty million Americans that are Africa’s great gift to America,” and pledged to work with the Senegalese and all Africans for a better future. I also visited a mosque with President Abdou Diouf, out of respect for Senegal’s overwhelmingly Muslim population; a village that had recovered a section of desert with the help of American aid; and Senegalese troops being trained by American military personnel as part of the African Crisis Response Initiative, which my administration had initiated, our effort to better prepare Africans to stop wars and prevent other Rwandas.

The trip was the longest and most comprehensive ever taken to Africa by an American President. The bipartisan congressional delegation and the prominent citizens who accompanied me, as well as the specific programs I was supporting, including the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, demonstrated to Africans that we were turning a new page in our shared history. For all its problems, Africa was a hopeful place. I had seen it in the faces of the massive crowds in the cities, in those of the schoolchildren and villagers in the bush and on the edge of the desert. And Africa had given me a great gift: in the wisdom of a Rwandan widow and of Nelson Mandela, I had found more peace of mind to face what lay ahead.

On April 1, while we were still in Senegal, Judge Wright granted my lawyers’ motion for a summary judgment in the Jones case, dismissing it without a trial, because she found that Jones had produced no credible evidence to support her claim. The dismissal exposed the raw political nature of Starr’s investigation. Now he was pursuing me on the theory that I had given a false statement in a deposition the judge had said was not relevant, and that I had obstructed justice in a case that had no merit in the first place. No one was even talking about Whitewater anymore. On April 2, to no one’s surprise, Starr said he would press on.

A few days later Bob Rubin and I announced that the United States would block the importation of 1.6

million assault weapons. Although we had banned the manufacture of nineteen different assault weapons in the 1994 crime bill, ingenious foreign gun makers were trying to evade the law by making modifications on guns whose only purpose was to kill people.

Good Friday, April 10, was one of the happiest days of my presidency. Seventeen hours past the deadline for a decision, all the parties in Northern Ireland agreed to a plan to end thirty years of sectarian violence. I had been up most of the night before, trying to help George Mitchell close the deal. Besides George, I talked to Bertie Ahern, and to Tony Blair, David Trimble, and Gerry Adams twice, before going to bed at 2:30 a.m. At five, George woke me with a request to call Adams again to seal the deal. The agreement was a fine piece of work, calling for majority rule and minority rights; shared political decision making and shared economic benefits; continued ties to the United Kingdom and new ties to Ireland. The process that produced the pact began with the determination of John Major and Albert Reynolds to seek peace, continued when John Bruton succeeded Reynolds, and was completed by Bertie Ahern, Tony Blair, David Trimble, John Hume, and Gerry Adams. My first visa to Adams and the subsequent intense engagement of the White House made a difference, and George Mitchell handled the negotiations brilliantly.

Of course, the main credit went to those who had to make the hard decisions, the Northern Irish leaders, Blair, and Ahern, and to the people of Northern Ireland who had chosen the promise of peace over a poisoned past. The agreement would have to be ratified in a referendum by the voters of Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic on May 22. With a touch of Irish eloquence, it became known as the Good Friday accord.