It is an act of insanity and national humiliation to have a law prohibiting the President from ordering assassination.

A country that demands moral perfection in its foreign policy will achieve neither perfection nor security.

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

I grew up in Germany during the Nazi period, and I came to this country when I was 15. And then I had to work in a factory because we had no resources. And I went to night school. So, it was not a rational ambition for me to become a world statesman.

When I first saw China, there were no automobiles. There were no supermarkets. There were no high-rise buildings. There were no consumer goods. There were no restaurants that were at least accessible that foreigners could see. It was a Stalinist society, and a very poor Stalinist society. So the economic system has totally changed, and the private sector in the economic system is now the dominant sector. It didn't exist at all as late as 1979.

I wouldn't say it's a split. It's a difference of emphasis. It does exist between, I would say, the State Department and the Defense Department.

The American formal position has been that we oppose violence by governments against their people. That principle should not be abandoned.