Most foreign policies that history has marked highly, in whatever country, have been originated by leaders who were opposed by experts.

A nation riven by factions, in which the minority has no hope of ever becoming a majority, or in which some group knows it is perpetually outcast, will seem oppressive to its members, whatever the legal pretensions.

Before the Freedom of Information Act, I used to say at meetings "The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer." [...] But since the Freedom of Information Act, I'm afraid to say things like that.

To revolutionaries the significant reality is the world which they are fighting to bring about, not the world they are fighting to overcome.

America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests.

People are now starting to explain the Cold War. Even in the crises at that time the survival of millions of people was at stake. And we (the USA) had to threaten the other super power with retaliation to prevent it from doing something to us. Today we live in a world in which a lot of things are in flux. That creates a lot of fear. But it is also a time of great opportunity. And I would call on today's statesmen to not allow their thinking to be directed by fear.

The superpowers often behave like two heavily armed blind men feeling their way around a room, each believing himself in mortal peril from the other, whom he assumes to have perfect vision.