"I was intellectually convinced that Hanoi would settle only if deprived of all hope of victory by a determined military strategy. But I was emotionally close to many of the more moderate of the protesters who had been my contemporaries at university; therefore I was also the principal advocate in the administration for negotiations for a political solution to give the people of Indochina a genuine opportunity to choose this future. It turned out to be a rough ride, rougher by far than I imagined when I started on the task. Since then, the categories of our national debate on Vietnam have remained largely unchanged, compounded with the passage of time by an amnesia that suppresses events but remembers encrusted hatreds. A balanced judgment on Vietnam continues to elude us - and therefore the ability to draw lessons from a national tragedy which America inflicted on itself."
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Anti-communists from the United StatesCentenariansUnited States Secretaries of StateDiplomats of the United StatesNobel Peace Prize laureates
Original Language: English
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Sources
Ending the Vietnam War: A History of America's Involvement in and Extrication from the Vietnam War (2003)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henry_Kissinger
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