The first one goes to Newsweek, for asking Henry Kissinger to write a piece entitled, yes, 'What Vietnam Teaches Us.'
The second goes to Kissinger himself, for actually writing the following sentences:
When the United States goes to war, it should be able to describe to itself how it defines victory and how it proposes to achieve it. Or else how it proposes to end its military engagement and by what diplomacy. In Vietnam, America sent combat forces on behalf of a general notion of credibility and in pursuit of a negotiation whose content was never defined. The credibility point was reflected in an amazing Bundy statement quoted by Goldstein: that it would be better for America's credibility to lose after sending 100,000 men than not to have resisted Hanoi at all.
Even richer:
A reviewer cannot pretend to sum up a generation's travail in a book review. A few observations will be in order:
- THE ADMINISTRATION AS WELL AS CRITICS SHOULD CONDUCT THEIR DEBATES WITH THE RESTRAINT IMPOSED BY THE KNOWLEDGE THAT THE UNITY OF OUR SOCIETY HAS BEEN THE HOPE OF THE WORLD. [His Bold]
And finally:
Throughout history, every problem America had recognized had proved soluble by the application of resources and idealism. Vietnam proved obdurate.
The absurdity of the first sentence immediately above is surpassed only by the callousness of the second sentence. Yes, indeed, Vietnam "proved" obdurate. Presumably the millions of deaths are represented in that final word. What a disgrace that Kissinger is allowed to expound on this topic--at length--in a major mainstream publication.
--Isaac Chotiner