Some 900 guests gathered in tents on the mansion's sweeping South lawn, where they were serenaded by opera stars Thomas Hampson and Renee Fleming in the clear spring evening.

Marking the grave Kosovo crisis, Clinton toasted the gathering by hailing NATO's next years as "a future in which we define national greatness by its commitment to human rights and mutual respect, and not to ethnic and religious bigotry."

NATO Secretary General Javier Solana said "we must be prepared to act in support of the principals ... to bring adjust peace to Kosovo."

The dignitaries dined on chicken with fire roasted onions, cumin-scented sweet potatoes and corn and pepper chili orange and mango salad for starters.The entree was an unorthodox filet of bison (aka buffalo) with baby vegetables and a cabernet sauce, accompaniedby marinated tomato and mozzarella salad with shallot-chive dressing.

Dessert, of course, was a 50th NATO Anniversary cake, which was washed down with a 1985 Schramsberg Cremant.

NATO summiteers were also bagging big-ticket booty from their US hosts.Clinton loaded down the 19 bigwig members with a custom-made Tiffany medallion and a white porcelain bowl decorated with all the nations' flags, and stamped with t e US presidential seal.

The lesser Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council EAPC members got a crystal bridge sculpture entitled "partnership" which is set on a granite base. Clinton loves bridges and used the metaphor of a "bridge to the 21st century" in almost every campaign speech in 1996.

Spouses were not forgotten. The First Lady bestowed a white porcelain plate with the 19 flags to the leaders' better halves -- all women -- while the EAPC spouses are each taking home a Tiffany sterling silver compact and an oval porcelain box in the shape of the White House.

The Vice-President's wife, TipperGore, was not to be found wanting in the hospitality department. She gave the leaders' spouses a porcelain box of the mansion she lives in with her husband Al.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright offered a pewter desk box to her NATO counterparts and a crystal globe with an obelisk etched in the center to the EAPC foreign secretaries.