I'd describe myself as a pragmatist tinged with idealism.

For over ten years, bombs rained down on every village and hamlet in South Vietnam, and no one budged. It took the coming of a Communist 'peace' to send hundreds of thousands of people out into the South China Sea, on anything that could float, or might float, to risk dehydration, piracy, drowning . . .

The United Nations has become a place where many countries seek to achieve a lynching of the United States by resolution.

It is an endless procession of surprises. The expected rarely occurs and never in the expected manner.

I'm a participant in the doctrine of constructive ambiguity.

Americans have always had an ambivalent attitude toward intelligence. When they feel threatened, they want a lot of it, and when they don't, they regard the whole thing as somewhat immoral.