“Gentlemen do not read each other’s mail,” said Secretary of State Henry Stimson of his 1929 decision to shut down “The Black Chamber” that decoded the secret messages of foreign powers. “This means war!” said FDR, after reading the intercepted instructions from Tokyo to its diplomats the night of Dec. …
“I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people,” said Edmund Burke of the rebellious Americans. The same holds true of Islam, the majority faith of 49 nations from Morocco to Indonesia, a religion that 1.6 billion people profess. Yet, some assertions appear true. …
“Whatever they thought they could ultimately achieve, they’ve already failed,” says President Obama of the Boston Marathon bombers. “They failed because the people of Boston refused to be intimidated. They failed because as Americans we refuse to be terrorized.” Bostonians did react splendidly. From first responders to folks who gave …
“When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” So said Richard Nixon in his interviews with David Frost. Nixon was talking about wiretaps and surreptitious entries to protect lives and safeguard national security in a violent and anarchic war decade. The Nixon haters pronounced themselves morally …
Three days after Ambassador Chris Stevens was assassinated, Jay Carney told the White House press corps it had been the work of a flash mob inflamed by an insulting video about the Prophet Muhammad. As the killers had arrived with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons, this story seemed noncredible on …
“Iran is not seeking to have the atomic bomb, possession of which is pointless, dangerous and is a great sin from an intellectual and a religious point of view.” Thus did supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declare in February that Iran’s possession of atomic weapons would be a mortal sin …
Is the Senate trying to reignite the Cold War? If so, it is going about it the right way. Before departing for a five-week vacation, the Senate voted to declare Abkhazia and South Ossetia to be provinces of Georgia illegally occupied by Russian troops who must get out and return …
“Like a fire bell in the night,” wrote Thomas Jefferson in 1820, “this momentous question … awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union.” Jefferson was writing of the sudden resurgence of the slavery issue in the debate on Missouri’s entry …
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