President Tackles Foreign Policy

President Clinton was in San Francisco Friday morning to deliver a foreign policy address.

Aides who had seen an early draft of the foreign policy address described it as a broad review of the international scene. Among the topics said to be covered are peace in the Middle East, expanding trade, the situations in Kosovo and Northern Ireland, and the threat terrorism poses to U.S. security.

"The purpose of the speech is for the president to lay out his vision for continuing American leadership and supporting peace, prosperity and freedom into the next century," said one White House official who had reviewed a draft.

Before the address, Mr. Clinton was meeting with William Perry, the former defense secretary, to hear his views on U.S. policy toward North Korea, which Perry recently visited.

After arriving in California Thursday night, Mr. Clinton attended a million-dollar fund-raiser for Democratic Senate and Representative campaigns.

At the fund-raiser, he delivered an upbeat message about the Democrats' prospects for regaining control of Congress in 2000.

The president spent Thursday in Arizona, speaking to senior citizens about his plans to save Social Security and Medicare.

In a speech prepared for his first stop at the Tucson Convention Center Thursday afternoon, Mr. Clinton, who met earlier this week with congressional leaders, said Republicans "are rethinking their indiscriminate" across-the-board tax cut proposal.

But, Mr. Clinton added, "The Republican alternative package of tax cuts -- no matter how targeted, no matter how appealing, apparently will still crowd out Medicare."

As lawmakers on Capitol Hill wade into the annual budget process, President Clinton is insisting that 77 percent of the federal surplus be devoted to shoring up Social Security and Medicare. The White House said it senses an emerging consensus among Republicans that 62 percent of the surplus should be dedicated to Social Security, but the additional 15 percent that the president wants for Medicare is less certain.

"Until we agree to use the surplus to strengthen Medicare, we cannot say we have met the test of future agreements," Mr. Clinton told about 1,000 local residents, many of them senior citizens, packing the music hall here.

President Clinton hasn't outlined specifics, but he has called for overhauling Medicare to extend the lifetime of the program to 2020. Without significant changes, the system will go bankrupt in about a decade.

On Saturday, Mr. Clinton is scheduled to head to Park City, Utah, where he and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton will celebrate daughter Chelsea's 19th birthday at a ski resort. The first family plans to remain at the resort until Tuesday.

Written By Kevin Galvin