Here’s a quote that appears especially timely:
We stand in greater danger of defeat from lack of will than from any mistakes likely to follow from a show of purpose.
Did some politician or pundit utter that pronouncement to describe the war on terror? No, Harry Truman’s national security advisers included that language in NSC-68, a 1950 document that remained secret for 25 years.
Ronald Reagan used the language in a 1977 radio address, as recorded in Reagan In His Own Hand (Touchstone, 2001). His goal was to boost awareness of the Soviet threat — just as the Carter administration was starting its disastrous course of foreign policy.
