Like apples in a barrel infected by one rotten one, the corruption of Greece would infect Iran and all to the east. It would also carry infection to Africa through Asia Minor and Egypt, and to Europe through Italy and France, already threatened by the strongest domestic Communist parties in Western Europe. The Soviet Union was playing one of the greatest gambles in history at minimal cost. It did not need to will all the possibilities. Even one or two offered immense gains. We and we alone were in a position to break up the play.

The test for aid to poor nations is therefore whether it makes them capable of being productive. If it fails to do so, it is likely to make them even poorer in the - not so very - long run.

The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.

You can't argue with a river, it isgoing to flow.You can dam it up?put it to useful purposes?deflect it, but you can't argue with it.

With a nation, as with a boxer, one of the greatest assurances of safety is to add reach to power.

To leave positions of great responsibility and authority is to die a little, but the time comes when that must be faced.

No man comes out of his own memorandum of conversation looking second best.