Here, according to the mythology of the liberals, was a peaceful little country that Nixon attacked. The fact that there were four North Vietnamese d… - Henry Kissinger

Blessed are the people whose leaders can look destiny in the eye without flinching but also without attempting to play God.

I was intellectually convinced that Hanoi would settle only if deprived of all hope of victory by a determined military strategy. But I was emotionally close to many of the more moderate of the protesters who had been my contemporaries at university; therefore I was also the principal advocate in the administration for negotiations for a political solution to give the people of Indochina a genuine opportunity to choose this future. It turned out to be a rough ride, rougher by far than I imagined when I started on the task. Since then, the categories of our national debate on Vietnam have remained largely unchanged, compounded with the passage of time by an amnesia that suppresses events but remembers encrusted hatreds. A balanced judgment on Vietnam continues to elude us - and therefore the ability to draw lessons from a national tragedy which America inflicted on itself.

Every civilization that has ever existed has ultimately collapsed... History is a tale of efforts that failed, of aspirations that weren’t realized.... So, as a historian, one has to live with a sense of the inevitability of tragedy.