Clinton pays tribute to Truman in Independence

INDEPENDENCE, Mo. (AP) -- Former President Bill Clinton took a break from campaigning for his presidential candidate wife and took the stage Thursday on behalf of another Democrat, Harry Truman.

"It's a different world with a different set of challenges," Clinton said. "Oh, we've changed a lot. ... But Truman is still highly relevant in this increasingly interdependent world and our increasingly diverse society."

Clinton spent three days campaigning in neighboring Iowa this week with his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. Thursday, he gave the keynote address at the 50th anniversary celebration of the Truman Presidential Museum and Library.

"The world has three huge problems," he said. "It's unequal and growing increasingly so. It's unstable because of terror and the prospect of global disease threats and weapons of mass destruction. And it's unsustainable because of the threat of unchanged resource depletion.

"If we would like there to be a 100th anniversary celebration of Harry Truman's library, we have to apply the lessons of Harry Truman's legacy to the country today."

Pointing to the recent terror attempts in London and Edinburgh, Clinton said there was a need for communities "in which every one feels a responsibility to the success of the enterprise."

"Think of it, three cars of explosive and nails and apparently all loaded by a cabal of medical doctors from different countries who came to the U.K. to find a home. But they felt no sense of belonging."

Though Clinton mentioned his wife only a handful of times during the hour-long address, he managed to mention campaign issues such as health care reform and the war in Iraq.

"I identified with Harry Truman for many reasons," said Clinton, who launched his own 1992 bid for the presidency from Truman's hometown of Independence. "One of which is the pundits always told him during his first term that he was finished. I heard that a lot.

"The other is that he was nearly wrecked in his presidency by his attempt to provide universal health care for all Americans. Actually, I think we're finally going to get that, and old Harry and I will have the last laugh."

In the early 1990s, Clinton tapped his wife to lead the President's Task Force on National Health Care Reform, a bid to reshape the nation's health care system, but the effort failed.

Aides say Hillary Clinton's own health care plan will be rolled out through a series of speeches focusing on different aspects of health care reform, with the topic of universal coverage to be tackled last.

Bill Clinton said to much applause that the U.S. needed a security policy that includes a strong military, "but no matter how strong it is, one that recognizes it will never be possible to kill or occupy every one that is against us.

"Our policy should be to cooperate with others ... whenever we can."

Clifton Truman Daniel, Truman's grandson, spoke briefly before Clinton and pointed out that he and the library were "born" the same year. But Daniel said all he got on his 50th birthday was a "low-cholesterol diet and a colonoscopy."