*EPF101 12/11/00
White House Report, Monday, December 11, 2000
(Russia/Pope, Clinton Presidential Library) (460)

CLINTON SPEAKS WITH RUSSIA'S PRESIDENT PUTIN ABOUT POPE

President Clinton, in remarks to reporters at the White House midday December 9, said he had talked with Russia's President Vladimir Putin December 8 and Putin had told him that he was going to pardon U.S. citizen Edmond Pope, the businessman Russia found guilty of spying for the United States and sentenced to 20 years last week.

"I talked to him (Putin) yesterday and he told me he was going to do it, and we've had several conversations about this. I'm very appreciative of his action," Clinton said, noting that Pope is not in good health. Asked if the United States has to give Russia something in return, Clinton said: "There was no deal. We just had a discussion about it."

In a brief, formal statement issued later in the day of December 9, Clinton said he welcomed Putin's "statement of his intent to pardon and release" Pope.

"It will be a great relief to all Americans when Mr. Pope is finally freed and reunited with his family. We want to see him home and safe as soon as possible," Clinton said.

CLINTON UNVEILS PLANS FOR HIS PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY

President Clinton has unveiled the architectural plans for his Presidential library to be built in Little Rock, Arkansas which will preserve for history the papers and actions of his eight years in office.

Speaking December 9 in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Clinton said he wanted a building that was both "beautiful and architecturally significant, that people would want to walk in a hundred years from now."

The Center, to be built in Little Rock, Arkansas, will feature a reproduction of the Oval Office, an orientation theater, gift shop, classrooms, a caf?and Great Hall. Ground breaking for the center will begin in 2001, and it is expected to be completed in the spring of 2004.

Clinton said he wants "the relationship that this library would have to the University of Arkansas to be focused on public service. I want more and more people to want to go into public service. And we are going to offer a master's degree in public service; but in addition to that, I'm going to attempt to set up partnerships with employers all across America to get them to come and send their young executives to our place for a couple of months as a kind of an orientation in preparation for doing a year of public service in the national, state or local governments all across the country."

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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