When asked for your views, by the press or others, remember that what they really want to know is the President's views.

Now, settle down, settle down. Hell, I'm an old man, it's early in the morning and I'm gathering my thoughts here.

If a prospective Presidential approach can't be explained clearly enough to be understood well, it probably hasn't been thought through well enough. If not well understood by the American people, it probably won't 'sail' anyway. Send it back for further thought.

Congress, the press, and the bureaucracy too often focus on how much money or effort is spent, rather than whether the money or effort actually achieves the announced goal.

To gain support in U.S. Congress and from other nations requires clarity, an acceptable mission and an explicit outcome.

The implication that there was something wrong with the war plan is amusing.

Control your own time. Don't let it be done for you. If you are working off the in-box that is fed you, you are probably working on the priority of others.