WASHINGTON -- With an extravagant fireworks display ready to dance up the sides of the Washington Monument as the 20th century ticked away, President Clinton welcomed the new millennium appealing for "a new birth of freedom."

Donning a tuxedo and prepared to dance into the new year, the president shook the hands of 300 guests from the worlds of entertainment, government, academia and business at the White House. In black tie and formal gowns, they streamed into the East Room for a roast lamb dinner and champagne toasts.

Clinton offered three of them -- to his guests, his wife and humanity's "shared future."

"By far my most solemn prayer for this new millennium is that we will find somehow the strength and wisdom in our hearts to keep growing together, first as one America and then as one people on this ever-smaller planet we all call home," Clinton said.

Next he was leading his guests to join thousands of ordinary Americans -- and a national television audience -- at a star-filled and fireworks-lit party at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial, the hallowed place where Martin Luther King Jr. gave voice to his dream.

From there, the plan was all-night dancing at the White House, ending with breakfast at sun-up.

But all was not fun. Clinton had solemn, hopeful words.

"In the new century, we may not be able to eliminate hateful intolerance," he said, "but we will see the rise of healthy intolerance of bigotry, oppression and abject poverty in our own communities and across the world."

And for his final speech of the century, he quoted Lincoln.

"Let us pledge," he said in his short prepared speech, "that the new millennium will bring, in the words of the Great Emancipator, 'a new birth of freedom."'

The White House called the finale "an unforgettable midnight moment."

The three-hour $12 million show competed for the home audience with the customary Times Square celebration.

One difference: In New York the ball of light was descending as the century's last seconds ticked away while here the white light of fireworks was cascading up the sides of the 555-foot Washington Monument, lighted by a fuse that raced along the reflecting pool from the Lincoln Memorial.

On the program were big names: former fighter Muhammad Ali, basketball's Bill Russell, show business' Robert Duvall and Diane Keaton.

Standing at the East Portico of the White House, the president; first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in a floor-length black silk dress with rhinestone buttons down its front; and daughter Chelsea, wearing a dark blue taffeta dress and a stand-up collar, received their guests.

Among them: Robert De Niro, Julie Harris and Bono from show business composer John Williams, who was contributing an original work to the evening; historians John Hope Franklin and Arthur Schlesinger; playwrights Edward Albee, Neil Simon and August Wilson; Olympian Carl Lewis; musician Dave Brubeck and poet laureate Robert Pinsky.

Throughout the day, Clinton was kept up to date on the initially untroubled Y2K computer rollover and on events in a far-off Kremlin, where Boris Yeltsin, an unlikely and sometimes uncertain partner, peacefully yielded the presidency of Russia.

Clinton and his wife, sitting with an audience of diplomats in the soaring, arched-glass atrium of the Ronald Reagan Federal Building, listened as children from Bangladesh, Indonesia, Jordan, Mexico, Nigeria and Russia asked for a new century built on peace, prosperity, security, unity, and cooperation.

"For all the billions of people who came before us," said Clinton, "it has been left to this generation to lead the world into a new millennium, to use our freedom wisely, to walk away from war and hatred toward love and peace."

"When people look back on this day 100 years from now, may they say ... that in the 21st century our children went further, reached higher, created bigger and accomplished more because love and peace proved more powerful than hatred and war."

Clinton began Millennium Day at the National Mall, craning his neck to watch skydivers float to safe landings. He helped stow artifacts of 20th century America -- including Army dog tags and a public library card -- into a time capsule to be opened at the end of the 21st century.

The president found a happy omen in the beautiful January weather -- crisp but clear. "The sun is still rising on America," he said.

But the serious celebrating was an evening affair, starting with dinner and dancing in the White House and a pair of tents covering both the Rose Garden on the west side of the mansion and the First Ladies Garden on the east.