Only immediate assertion of leadership by the United States could prevent war in the next decade...The President and the Secretary of State must shoc… - Dean Acheson

On the France's Indochina involvement: "They were engaged in the most dangerous of all activities – deceiving themselves...France was engaged in a task beyond her strength, indeed, beyond the strength of any external power unless it was acting in support of the dominant local will and purpose."

I must plead guilty as any of escaping into immediate busywork to keep from the far harder task of peering into a dim future, which, of course, should be one of a diplomat's main duties.

Force can overcome force, but a free society cannot long steel itself to dominate another people by sheer force.