The warning message we sent the Russians was a calculated ambiguity that would be clearly understood.

Then came the hostage crisis during which Carter did nothing to rattle the ayatollahs who hung tough until Ronald Reagan was inaugurated, when they suddenly backed down.

That's not a lie, it's a terminological inexactitude.

You know, it's very clear, as one looks back on history again of the Cold War that, following the crisis in Cuba, following the Khrushchev - beating down of Jack Kennedy in Vienna, that President Kennedy believed that we had to join the battle for the Third World, and the next crisis that developed in that regards was Vietnam.

Syria is a terrorist state by any definition and is so classified by the State Department. I happen to think Iran is too. Iraq, Iran, Syria, they're all involved.

We didn't do anything wrong, but among the lessons learned, given the magnitude of the problems we now face in Afghanistan, a major U.S. force on the ground would convince the world we were in for the long-haul recovery of a country devastated by 21 years of warfare.

I'm the only American alive or dead who presided unhappily over the removal of a vice president and a president.