The breaking of a nation’s will to resist is the final object in war....In international power politics, the willingness to accept challenge is far, far more important than physical capacity to wage war. Here we have failed. Currently, ally and enemy alike regard the United States as having lost its will to resist Communism in all other parts of the world with the exception of the United States. [Though we] have affirmed and re-affirmed our commitment...our actions do not follow our words.
—Ernest Cuneo,
syndicated columnist,
April 1970