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

Leaders are responsible not for running public opinion polls but for the consequences of their actions.

The enemies you make by taking a decided stand generally have more respect for you than the friends you make by being on the fence

I would say the special experience of American wartime policy in the last 40 years, from Vietnam on, is that the war itself became controversial in the country and that the most important thing we need in the current situation is, whatever disagreements there may be on tactics, that the legitimacy of the war itself does not become a subject of controversy. We have to start with the assumption, obviously, that whatever administration is conducting a war wants to end it.

It was a Greek tragedy. Nixon was fulfilling his own nature. Once it started it could not end otherwise.

You should not think that you can shape history only by your will. This is also why I'm against the concept of intervention when you don't know its ultimate implications.

I think an appeal to American idealism and willingness to sacrifice would be an important contribution, because what is happening now in many countries, not yet in the United States, but in many European countries, it's the inability of government to ask for sacrifices of its people.