Word: vietnam
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...division of the United States Army--the squash-playing division--marched into Cambridge on Saturday, and by the time the last volley had ricocheted off of Hemenway's walls, the men in green had suffered their worst defeat since Vietnam...
Despite this recent collection of ambiguous policy statements, Vance's record does offer one important indication of his approach to foreign policy--his years of service during the Vietnam War. Robert McNamara originally brought Vance into the Kennedy Administration where he served in a variety of Defense Department positions. By 1968 Vance had become convinced that the time had arrived for negotiations and he served as one of America's top diplomats at the Paris peace talks. Throughout the entire period, both as war planner and negotiator, Vance strengethened his reputation for technical competence but could not be branded...
...traditionally answered the call of Democratic presidents. These men had been biding their time in corporate boardrooms and Wall Street law offices waiting for the moment when they could return to Washington. They had been the "best and the brightest" in their day and they gave their country Vietnam. And now one of their number has been appointed Secretary of State...
While the burdens of Vietnam should not be placed solely upon the shoulders of Cyrus Vance, neither should he be welcomed back to government service with unquestioning complacency. That he has been so welcomed is an unsettling measure of how quickly and easily many observers forget the disasters of the past. Vance played his own particular role during the Vietnam years, a role that is not vitiated by his late support for negotiations, which in and of itself offers no evidence of assumptions questioned or lessons learned...
...longer receive military hardware. Similarly, in his introductory press conference, Vance emphasized the importance of a "concern, and a deep concern for human rights and the problem of human rights" as a guiding principle in American foreign policy. But given his record as a war planner during the Vietnam years, the latter statement seems conspicuously phrased to offer more a prompted declaration of loyalty to Carter's campaign promises than a substantive measure of personal belief...