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Early in life, as a witness to the limitless tragedy of World War I, I felt grow in me a determination to act, to work with others to influence the c… - Paul Nitze
" "Early in life, as a witness to the limitless tragedy of World War I, I felt grow in me a determination to act, to work with others to influence the course of history and not supinely to accept what, in the absence of will and action, might be the world's fate. I came to Washington in the summer of 1940 with Jim Forrestal. I have been here, with short exceptions, ever since. For almost five decades I have played some role in the affairs of state, working with others to bend what otherwise might have been called the "inevitable trends of history." Some of the outcomes were wholly satisfactory, some marginally successful, and some were failures-but, on the whole, they were better, I think, than would otherwise have come about. On balance, we were fortunate in the opportunities for significant action the fortune of history opened up for us. It cannot be the good fortune of all mankind to live in Athens under the leadership of a Pericles, in Florence under the Medici, in the United States under a Washington or a Lincoln. Nor is it the usual fate of mankind to live under a Cleon, a Nero, a Stalin or a Hitler and thus have an unambiguous case for withdrawal from government or opposition to it. The usual case is a mixed one in which the task of the man of general wisdom and with a taste for politics is to manage, to deal with, to nudge the existing situation toward the best that is within the realm of the politically possible, to find such scope as he can for his courage, his fortitude, and his willingness to view facts with an open mind. When given half a chance, the combination of courage and an open mind can do wonders.
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About Paul Nitze
Paul Henry Nitze (16 January 1907 – 19 October 2004) was an American politician who served as U.S. Deputy Secretary of the Defense, U.S. Secretary of the Navy, and Director of Policy Planning for the U.S. State Department. He is famous for being the principal author of the policy paper NSC 68 (1950) and a co-founder of Team B. From 1950 on, he helped shape Cold War policy over the course of numerous presidential administrations from that of Harry Truman to that of Ronald Reagan.
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Paul Henry Nitze
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Additional quotes by Paul Nitze
The fact is, I see no compelling reason why we should not unilaterally get rid of our nuclear weapons. To maintain them is costly and adds nothing to our security. I can think of no circumstances under which it would be wise for the United States to use nuclear weapons, even in retaliation for their prior use against us. What, for example, would our targets be? It is impossible to conceive of a target that could be hit without large-scale destruction of many innocent people. The technology of our conventional weapons is such that we can achieve accuracies of less than three feet from the expected point of impact. The modern equivalent of a stick of dynamite exploded within three feet of an object on or near the earth's surface is more than enough to destroy the target.
As for the so-called rogue states that are not inhibited in their actions by the consensus of world opinion, the United States would be wise to eliminate their nuclear capabilities with the preemptive use of our conventional weapons — when necessary, and when we have unambiguous indication of these countries' intent to use their nuclear capability for purposes of aggrandizement. The same principle should apply to any threat emanating from unstable states with nuclear arsenals. By simply having our intelligence services read their mail, we can tell if there is compelling reason to take preemptive action.
If there is little or no middle ground in the struggle for peace with justice, what resources of will and of national sacrifice are we entitled, or ethically called upon, to put into the effort to cause a system compatible with superior values to prevail? What risks are we entitled to take with the awful hazard of a nuclear war? What guidelines emerge from a comprehensive analysis of the full range of pertinent considerations? The concept of an ethical framework that has objective validity, over and beyond the values of the individual or societal groups and to which man can aspire to have some degree of understanding, seemed to me to be necessary for there to be a well-founded sense of direction to a foreign policy.
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