THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary
(Cologne, Germany)

For Immediate Release
June 20, 1999

PRESS BRIEFING BY
NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR SANDY BERGER

Hotel Mondial am Dom
Cologne, Germany

MR. BERGER: Good afternoon. Let me give you a report on the Yeltsin-Clinton meeting, which just broke up. It lasted about an hour. It was a very good meeting, very constructive, very positive, and I believe very productive.

[...]

President Yeltsin presented President Clinton with a very interesting gift. He said that when he had come into office -- or at least several years ago -- he had asked all of the agencies of the Russian government to declassify any and all material related to President Kennedy, and President Kennedy's assassination, both military and civilian archives, as well as private archives. And he presented to the President today a document which contains the material that was the result of this review -- that has apparently taken several years.

The President expressed gratitude for this. He said that President Kennedy's both life and death is a subject of enormous interest and fascination to the American people, and this is something that they will find very important and useful.

Q What's in it?

MR. BERGER: I don't read Russian and I don't know -- I haven't had a chance to look at it.

Q It's in Russian?

MR. BERGER: The documents appear to be in Russian; whether there is a translated version or not, I don't know.

Q -- a bomb shelter of some sort?

MR. BERGER: During the meeting, I was trying to pay attention to meetings, so I didn't read the documents. (Laughter.) I'm sorry.

Q -- news cycle. (Laughter.)

MR. BERGER: I'm sure that those documents will be reviewed carefully and all interesting elements will be made public.