Clergyman's

For the past generation, Americans have regretted that in Vietnam, we let the passions of the moment and a lack of healthy skepticism toward presidential claims obscure a clear-headed assessment of our national interests. The result was that we were driven into a costly, divisive, and ultimately counterproductive expansion of a war that lacked adequate public support. Let's not spend the next generation wondering how we came to repeat that mistake.
- Paul Nitze

For the past generation, Americans have regretted that in Vietnam, we let the passions of the moment and a lack of healthy skepticism toward presidential claims obscure a clear-headed assessment of our national interests. The result was that we were driven into a costly, divisive, and ultimately counterproductive expansion of a war that lacked adequate public support. Let's not spend the next generation wondering how we came to repeat that mistake.
- Paul Nitze

In our view, all-out war promises the least success in achieving the objectives we have outlined.
First, it would not necessarily discourage other potential aggressors. Defeating Saddam Hussein promptly in an all-out war would send an unequivocal signal that this aggression had not been tolerated. But if casualties were high, U.S. sentiment probably would be driven toward a more isolationist posture. Many Americans would be dismayed by the carnage and resentful that our allies were not paying a similar price. They could be expected to oppose any comparable U.S. role in the future. The message would be that the United States had neither the inclination to work in concert with other nations nor the stomach to repeat the anti-Iraq action. Many of our current collaborators, who are ambivalent at best about the war option, might also lose interest in future cooperation with us. A world of growing brutality and chaos would become a likely prospect.
- Paul Nitze

One of the most dangerous forms of human error is forgetting what one is trying to achieve. In the gulf crisis, it is crucial that we look beyond our anger at Saddam and remind ourselves of precisely what U.S. interests are in the crisis and what we seek to accomplish.
- Paul Nitze

Our main goal should be to establish a precedent for a new post-Cold War era, in which the community of nations, working through the United Nations and other organizations, can insure that would-be aggressors do not profit from invasion, coercion and force.
- Paul Nitze

Some people say there are two policies in the executive branch … one is mine and the other is the president's, which is marginally so. Some of the things I've said are different from what the president has said, but all the things I have said have been approved by the president.
- Paul Nitze