Word: reston
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Reston the reporter had been nurtured on war. As a mainstay in the London bureau during World War II, he learned daily that war reporters write for the censors. Wartime censorship made sense to Reston; he often has said that reporters must not delve into areas in a way that might threaten the country's safety. The lessons learned by Reston the war reporter helped form the values of Reston the columnist. Referring to Vietnam in his 1965 lecture, he said, "It is clear in this time of half-war and half-peace that the old principle of publish...
...what is the national interest? Reston himself seemed unsure. He remembered the days when the United States led the march of history against Fascism. But in 1965 he saw a government marked by confusion instead of high-minded principles; a war waged with apologies, and not with dignity...
...Despite Reston's skepticism toward the Kennedy-Johnson administration's policy in Vietnam, Reston could not bring himself to condemn the policy. He talked instead of "the fundamental question of ends and means," saying he had to have more facts before he could accept the necessity of America's war against the North Vietnamese...
Before the Gulf of Tonkin incident in August 1964, Reston opposed further U.S. involvement in Vietnam because he was unconvinced that the future of South Vietnam was vital to American security. When President Johnson began to claim that that was the case, Reston was satisfied--but only briefly. By 1965 he saw that the war could not continue without a massive U.S. ground troop commitment, and he knew that although Americans were unwilling to give up the end of halting communism, they were equally unwilling to use the means of such a large commitment...
...Reston the unflagging optimist became Reston the disillusioned cheerleader. America the great nation had become, for him; the helpless giant. He wrote, "If there has been a decline in American optimism it is not because we do not know how to solve our problems, but because we do not yet know how to discuss them. The politicians insist on pretending that everything is soluble--that we can achieve almost unlimited ends with limited means--and while the people would like to believe it, they increasingly have their doubts" (June 6, 1965 column...