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Each President has to raise all the funds to...

5:47 AM, Tuesday, March 9, 2010 .. Link

Each President has to raise all the funds to build his library, plus an endowment to maintain the facilityThe National Archives then provides the staff to organize and care for its contentsI had pored over the work of several architects and had visited many of the presidential librariesThe overwhelming majority of people who visit them come to see the exhibits, but the building has to be built in a way that preserves the recordsI wanted the exhibit space to be open, beautiful, and full of light, and I wanted the material presented in a way that demonstrated Americas movement into the twenty-first century I chose Jim Polshek and his firm as my architects, largely because of his design for the Rose Center for Earth and Space in New York, a huge glass-and-steel structure with a massive globe insideI asked Ralph Applebaum to do the exhibits, because I thought his work on the Holocaust Museum in Washington was the best I had ever seenI had already begun working with both of themBefore it was over, Polshek would say I was the worst client he had ever had: if he came to see me after a six-month hiatus with only a minor change in the drawings, I would notice and ask him about it I wanted to situate the library in Little Rock because I felt I owed it to my native state and because I thought the library should be in the heartland of America where people who didnt travel to Washington or New York would have direct access to itThe city of Little dolce and gabbana Rock, on the initiative of Mayor Jim Dailey and city board member DrDean Kumpuris, had offered twenty-seven acres of land along the Arkansas River in the old section of town, which was being revitalized and was not far from the Old State Capitol, the scene of so many important events in my life Beyond the library, I knew that I wanted to write a book about my life and the presidency and that I would have to work hard for three or four years to pay my legal bills, buy our hometwo homes, if Hillary won the Senate raceand put aside some money for her and ChelseaThen I wanted to devote the rest of my life to public serviceJimmy Carter had made a real difference in his post-presidential years, and I thought I could, too In mid-month, on the day I left for a ten-day trip to Turkey, Greece, Italy, Bulgaria, and Kosovo, I hailed Kofi Annans announcement that President Glafcos Clerides of Cyprus and Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash would begin proximity talks in New York in early DecemberCyprus had received its independence from the UK in 1960In 1974, the president of Cyprus, Archbishop Makarios, was deposed in a coup orchestrated by the Greek military regimeIn response, the Turkish military sent troops to the island to protect the Turkish Cypriots, dividing the country and creating a de facto Turkish enclave of independence in the northMany Greeks in the north of Cyprus left their homes and moved southThe island had been divided ever since, and chanel quilted cheap handbag tensions had remained high between Turkey and GreeceGreece wanted to end the Turkish military presence in Cyprus and find a resolution that would at least allow the Greeks the possibility of returning to the northI had tried for years to solve the problem and hoped the secretary-generals effort would succeedIt did not, and I would leave office disappointed that Cyprus remained an obstacle to Greek-Turkish reconciliation and to Turkeys being fully embraced by Europe We also finally reached agreement with the Republican leadership on three of my important budget priorities: funding the 100,000 new teachers, doubling the number of children in after-school programs, and, at long last, paying our back dues to the United NationsSomehow, Madeleine Albright and Dick Holbrooke had worked it out with Jesse Helms and the other UN skepticsIt took Dick longer than making peace in Bosnia, but Im not sure anyone else could have done it Hillary, Chelsea, and I arrived in Turkey for a five-day visit, an unusually long stayI wanted to support the Turks in the aftermath of two devastating earthquakes, and to encourage them to continue to work with the United States and EuropeTurkey was a NATO ally and was hoping to be admitted to the European Union, a development I had been strongly supporting for yearsIt was one of a handful of countries whose future course would have a large impact on the twenty-firstcentury worldIf it could resolve the Cyprus problem prada fairy bags with Greece, reach an accommodation with its restive and sometimes repressed Kurdish minority, and maintain its identity as a secular Muslim democracy, Turkey could be the Wests gateway to a new Middle EastIf peace in the Middle East fell victim to a rising tide of Islamic extremism, a stable, democratic Turkey could be a bulwark against its spread into Europe I was glad to see President Demirel againHe was a large-minded man who wanted Turkey to be a bridge between East and WestI made my pitch for that vision to Prime Minister Blent Ecevit and to the Turkish Grand National Assembly, urging them to reject isolationism and nationalism by resolving their problems with the Kurds and Greece and moving toward EU membership The next day I made the same arguments to American and Turkish business leaders in Istanbul, after a stop at a tent city near Izmit to meet with earthquake victimsWe visited with some of the families who had lost everything, and I thanked all the nations that had helped the victims, including GreeceNot long after the Turkish quakes, Greece had an earthquake of its own, and the Turks had returned the favorIf earthquakes could bring them together, they should be able to work together when the ground stopped moving My whole trip became defined for the Turks by the visit to the quake victimsWhen I held a young child in my arms, he reached up and grabbed my nose, just as Chelsea used to do when she was a toddlerA photographer got pleated miu miu handbag a shot of it, and the picture was in all the Turkish papers the next dayOne of them carried it with the headline, Hes a Turk! After my family visited the ruins of Ephesus, including one of the largest libraries in the Roman world and an open amphitheater where StPaul had preached, I participated in a meeting of the fifty-fournation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which had been organized in 1973 to advance democracy, human rights, and the rule of lawWe were there to support the Stability Pact for the Balkans and a resolution of the continuing crisis in Chechnya that would end the terrorism against Russia and the excessive use of force against noncombatant ChechensI also signed an agreement with the leaders of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, and Georgia committing the United States to support the development of two pipelines that would carry oil from the Caspian Sea to the West without going through IranDepending on what kind of future Iran chose to pursue, the pipeline agreement could prove to be of enormous consequence to the future stability of both the producing and consuming countries I was fascinated by Istanbul and its rich history as the capital of both the Ottoman Empire and the Roman Empire in the EastIn another attempt to promote reconciliation, I visited the ecumenical patriarch of all the Orthodox churches, Bartholomew of Constantinople, and asked the Turks to reopen the Orthodox monastery in tiffany heart link necklace Istanbu

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