Henry M. Jackson

"In matters of national security, the best politics is no politics."

"We all want to put the brakes on the arms race...we all want to achieve arms control...but to those who say we must take risks for peace by cutting the meat from our military muscle, I say you are unwittingly risking war."

"When we have something we feel strongly about — and in this case it is civil liberties and freedom and what this nation was founded upon, that we should do something to implement international law — and it is international law now, the right to leave a country freely and return freely — that we should put that issue of principle on the table knowing that the Russians are not going to agree to it."

"I believe that international terrorism is a modern form of warfare against liberal democracies. I believe that the ultimate but seldom stated goal of these terrorists is to destroy the very fabric of democracy. I believe that it is both wrong and foolhardy for any democratic state to consider international terrorism to be 'someone else's' problem.... Liberal democracies must acknowledge that international terrorism is a 'collective problem.'"

"The danger of Americans being killed, the danger of divisiveness that would accrue from those developments ... are all too real. A superpower should not play that kind of role in a cauldron of trouble, because sooner or later we are going to get hurt."

"At the same time, Kissinger, Carter and détente were condemned as weakening the West by a group of conservative Democrats led by Henry (Scoop) Jackson, a critic of SALT, as well as by key Republicans who were influential in the Ford administration (1974–7), notably his Chief of Staff, Richard (Dick) Cheney, and the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. They drew on advice from commentators such as Richard Perle, Richard Pipes and Paul Wolfowitz who warned about Soviet intentions. The continuity of this group, through 1990s’ opposition to Clintonian liberal internationalism, to the neo-conservative activism of the early 2000s, especially against Iraq, is notable."

"Senator Henry Jackson, a wise and revered statesman and one who probably understood the Soviets as well as any American in history, warned us, "the greatest threat the United States now faces is posed by the Soviet Union." But Senator Jackson said, "If America maintains a strong deterrent—and only if it does—this nation will continue to be a leader in the crucial quest for enduring peace among nations." The late Senator made those statements in July on the Senate floor, speaking in behalf of the MX missile program he considered vital to restore America's strategic parity with the Soviets."