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The SPEAKER of the House presided.

The Doorkeeper, the Honorable James T. Molloy, announced the Vice President and Members of the U.S. Senate who entered the Hall of the House of Representatives, the Vice President taking the chair at the right of the Speaker, and the Members of the Senate the seats reserved for them.

The SPEAKER. The Chair appoints as members of the committee on the part of the House to escort His Excellency Vaclav Havel into the Chamber:

The gentleman from Missouri [Mr. ];

The gentleman from Florida [Mr. ];

The gentleman from Michigan [Mr. ];

The gentleman from Maryland [Mr. ];

The gentleman from New York [Mr. ];

The gentleman from New York [Mr. ];

The gentleman from Illinois [Mr. ];

The gentleman from Georgia [Mr. ];

The gentleman from Michigan [Mr. ];

The gentleman from California [Mr. ];

The gentleman from Oklahoma [Mr. ]; and

The gentlewoman from Rhode Island [Ms. ].

The VICE PRESIDENT. The President of the Senate, at the direction of that body, appoints the following Senators as members of the committee on the part of the Senate to escort His Excellency Vaclav Havel into the Chamber:

The Senator from Maine [Mr. ];

The Senator from California [Mr. ];

The Senator from Rhode Island [Mr. ];

The Senator from South Carolina [Mr. ];

The Senator from Delaware [Mr. Author:Joseph Robinette Biden];

The Senator from Arkansas [Mr. ];

The Senator from Michigan [Mr. ];

The Senator from Illinois [Mr. ];

The Senator from Kansas [Mr. ];

The Senator from Wyoming [Mr. ];

The Senator from Mississippi [Mr. {{sc|Cochran];

The Senator from South Carolina [Mr. {{sc|Thurmond}}];

The Senator from Indiana [Mr. {{sc|Lugar}}];

The Senator from Minnesota [Mr. {{sc|Boschwitz}}]; and

The Senator from South Dakota [Mr. {{sc|Pressler}}].

The Doorkeeper announced the ambassadors, ministers, and charges d’affaires of foreign governments.

The ambassadors, ministers, and charges d’affaires of foreign governments entered the Hall of the House of Representatives and took the seats reserved for them.

The Doorkeeper announced the Cabinet of the President of the United States.

The members of the Cabinet of the President of the United States entered the Hall of the House of Representatives and took the seats reserved for them in front of the Speaker’s rostrum.

At 11 o’clock and 8 minutes a.m., the Doorkeeper announced the President of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.

The President of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, escorted by the committee of Senators and Representatives, entered the Hall of the House of Representatives, and stood at the Clerk’s desk.

[Applause, the Members rising.]

The SPEAKER. Members of the Congress, it is my great privilege and I deem it a high honor and personal pleasure to present to you His Excellency Vaclav Havel, President of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.

[Applause, the Members rising.] {{custom rule|lzt|100}} {{hi|1em|ADDRESS BY HIS EXCELLENCY VACLAV HAVEL, PRESIDENT OF THE CZECHOSLOVAK SOCIALIST REPUBLIC}}

(The following address was delivered in Czech, with a simultaneous translation in English.)

President HAVEL. Dear Mr. Speaker, dear Mr. President, dear Senators, and Members of the House, ladies and gentlemen:

My advisers advised me to speak on this important occasion in Czech. I don’t know why. Perhaps they wanted you to enjoy the sweet sounds of my mother tongue.

The last time they arrested me, on October 27, of last year, I didn’t know whether it was for 2 days or 2 years. Exactly 1 month later, when the rock musician Michael Kocab told me that I would probably be proposed as a Presidential candidate, I thought it was one of his usual jokes.

On the 10th of December 1989, when my actor friend Jiri Bartoska, in the name of the Civic Forum, nominated me as a candidate for the office of President of the Republic, I thought it was out of the question that the Parliament we had inherited from the previous regime would elect me.

Nineteen days later, when I was unanimously elected President of my country, I had no idea that in 2 months later I would be speaking in front of this famous and powerful assembly, and that what I say would be heard by millions of people who have never heard of me and that hundreds of politicians and political scientists would study every word I say.

When they arrested me on October 27, I was living in a country ruled by the most conservative Communist government in Europe, and our society slumbered beneath the pall of a totalitarian system. Today, less than 4 months later, I am speaking to you as the representative of a country that has set out on the road to democracy, a country where there is complete freedom of speech, which is getting ready for free elections, and which wants to create a prosperous market economy and its own foreign policy.

It is all very extraordinary.

But I have not come here to speak for myself or my feelings, or merely to talk about my own country. I have used this small example of something I know well, to illustrate something general and important.

We are living in very extraordinary times. The human face of the world is changing so rapidly that none of the familiar political speedometers are adequate.

We playwrights, who have to cram a whole human life or an entire historical era in a 2-hour play, can scarcely understand this rapidity ourselves. And if it gives us trouble, think of the trouble it must give to political scientists, who spend their whole lives studying the realm of the probable. And have even less experience with the realm of the improbable than us, the playwrights.

Let me try to explain why I think the velocity of the changes in my country, in Central and Eastern Europe, and of course in the Soviet Union itself, has made such a significant impression on the face of the world today, and why it concerns the fate of us all, including you Americans. I would like to look at this, first from the political point of view, and then from a point of view that we might call philosophical.

Twice in this century, the world has been threatened by a catastrophe; twice this catastrophe was born in Europe, and twice you Americans, along with others, were called upon to save Europe, the whole world and yourselves. The first rescue mission—among other things—provided significant help to us Czechs and Slovaks.

Thanks to the great support of your President Wilson, our first President, Tomas Garrigue Masaryk, could found our modern independent state. He