Word: blunder
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...speaker was Thomas A. Bailey, Stanford historian, addressing the American Historical Association in Manhattan last week. The mistakes he spoke of were Woodrow Wilson's. Professor Bailey proceeded to cap Woodrow Wilson's 14 points by listing no fewer than 21 "peacemaking blunders" committed by the World War I President. Professor Bailey, author of the most readable modern book on U.S. diplomacy, A Diplomatic History of the American People, scored as "perhaps Wilson's most tragic blunder" his belief "that mankind could attain a kind of international millennium at one bound. He confused the task of making...
...Shocking Blunder...
Terming the Panay bombing "a shocking blunder," Ambassador Saito said that there is "no compensation which mortal man can make that is adequate for the families bereft...
Bailey said these blunders had "resulted in the most far-reaching consequences" and said we were faced with their repetition. Wilson's most tragic blunder, he said, was probably his "assumption (or was it a hope?) that mankind could attain a kind of international millenium at one bound. He confused the task of making peace with Germany, which was an immediate need, with that of remaking the world, which was the long-range need. The resulting treaty failed of both objectives...
...supreme blunder, Bailey declared may be considered by some as "forcing the full text of the League Covenant into the Treaty, for Article X of the Covenant was the rock upon which the ratification finally floundered.... A brief statement committing the signatories to the general principles of the League and making specific provision for a commission to draw it up at a later date, as was done in the case of the World Court, would have insured the ratification of the Treaty and the framing of a covenant in a less hurried fashion and in a saner atmosphere. A League...