VOLUME XVIII, NUMBER 2, SPRING 2018

A Journal of Political Thought and Statesmanship William Charles R. Voegeli: Kesler: Arthur M. inking Schlesinger, Jr. about Trump Anthony Esolen: Peter C. When Myers: Harry Race Became Talk Sally

Angelo M. Joseph Codevilla: Postell: e Natural e Trouble Law of War with Congress & Peace

Michael Burlingame: David P. Ulysses S. Goldman: Grant Sigmund Freud Paul A. Rahe: John James Fonte: Madison’s American Notes Sovereignty A Publication of the Claremont Institute PRICE: $6.95 IN CANADA: $8.95 mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Essay by Mackubin Thomas Owens The War Revisited

hough north vietnam defeated Third, Burns and Novick do not do justice to But by far the biggest problem with the and absorbed 43 years the war’s purposes, which were serious despite PBS series is that it ignores much of the re- Tago, Americans remain divided over the flawed strategy to achieve them. Vietnam’s visionist scholarship that casts the Vietnam their role in that country, as responses to last geographic position and cultural strengths war in a different light. These interpretations year’s ten-part PBS documentary, The Vietnam made it, as historian wrote contend that the , far from be- War, made clear. A veteran proud of my service years ago, “one of only five or six nations in the ing destined to lose the war, had a number of in Vietnam, I watched the series—purportedly world that is truly vital to U.S. interests.” opportunities to win it. an even-handed examination of the war—and Fourth, The persists in de- According to the conventional assessment, saw one more rendition of the antiwar case, scribing the conflict as a civil war. But as surely embraced by Burns and Novick as if there made by those who didn’t even acknowledge as North Korea invaded South Korea, North were no alternative, the United States could the existence of counter-arguments. Vietnam invaded South Vietnam. The North never have won, given the nature of the war The series, produced by Ken Burns and Vietnamese and their American supporters and the determination of the Vietnamese Lynn Novick, has several problems. First, it have consistently dismissed American scholars, Communists. The key contentions are drea- isn’t really about the war. At the end of the such as the late Douglas Pike, who long ago rily familiar: Southeast Asia in general, and program, the producers tell us, “The Vietnam stated this fact. But in 1983, Vo Nguyen Giap South Vietnam in particular, were not vital War was a tragedy,” one they call “immeasur- and Vo Bam, North Vietnam’s chief strategists strategic U.S. interests. The “domino theory” able and irredeemable.” Still, “meaning can be during the war, admitted that the country’s was false—the fall of South Vietnam to the found in the individual stories.” Communist Party decided in 1959 to begin the Communists would not lead to the collapse Second, the documentary downplays the armed struggle against the Saigon government. of other non-Communist regimes in South- patriotism of those who fought. Contrary to The North Vietnamese subsequently built the east Asia. The South Vietnamese govern- Burns, Novick, and most interpretations, the “Ho Chi Minh” trails to move men and supplies ment, utterly corrupt, never commanded the U.S. military in Vietnam was not an army of to South Vietnam through and Cambo- allegiance of South Vietnam’s people, which unwilling draftees, in which minorities were dia, violating those countries’ neutrality. These meant it was always destined to lose a civil seriously overrepresented. In fact, two thirds events, long before American combat units war to the indigenous Viet Cong. Finally, Ho of those who served—and 73% of those who came to Vietnam in 1965, confirm the U.S. Chi Minh was more of a nationalist than a died—were volunteers. justification for its action in Vietnam. Communist.

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In short, the Vietnamese Communists were Triumph Forsaken demonstrates that one ing control of his country, a Catholic running too resolute, the South Vietnamese govern- of the main weaknesses of the orthodox view roughshod over a predominantly Buddhist ment too corrupt, and the Americans too clue- is its constricted historical horizon. For the populace. Moyar contends that, in fact, Diem less to fight the kind of war that would have most part, the historians whose views shape was an effective leader who put down the or- secured victory. Vietnam was destined to be the PBS series have assessed the war as if the ganized crime empires that had thrived before a quagmire, and America was destined to lose only important decisions were made in Wash- his rise to power. He was no democrat, but there. As one American veteran, a lieutenant ington and Saigon, neglecting those made in his legitimacy in the eyes of the Vietnamese who fought in Vietnam in 1965, told Burns Hanoi, Beijing, and Moscow. Moyar demon- people rose from his ability to wield power ef- and Novick, “We have learned a lesson…that fectively and provide security for the targets of we just can’t impose our will on others.” Communist insurgency. Indeed, under Diem’s But, of course, war’s only purpose is to im- Discussed in this essay: leadership, the insurgency had been largely pose one’s will on the enemy. A nation that stymied by 1960. directed by Ken does not intend to do so, in the expectation of The Vietnam War, Moyar cites Communist documents that Burns and Lynn Novick. Screenplay achieving a more secure, more just peace, has by Geoffrey C. Ward. Public acknowledge the North’s lack of success in no business resorting to war. Broadcasting Service the period leading up to November 1963, Over the past 20 years, however, observers when Diem was deposed and assassinated in have challenged the conventional assessment. Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam a military coup. Diem’s government had been Some have traced our defeat to a flawed na- War, 1954–1965, by Mark Moyar. killing and capturing Communist cadres in tional strategy devised by civilian policymak- Cambridge University Press, 512 pages, unprecedented number, which had caused ers, especially by Robert McNamara, secre- $56 (cloth), $31.99 (paper) many survivors to defect. Moyar argues that tary of defense from 1961 to 1968. Others by far the greatest U.S. mistake was to acqui- have indicted U.S. military leadership, both A Better War: The Unexamined esce in the coup, a decision that “forfeited the in Washington and Saigon, for adopting a de- Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s tremendous gains of the preceding nine years fective operational strategy. Last Years in Vietnam, by Lewis Sorley. and plunged the country into an extended pe- The producers of the PBS series appear Harcourt, 507 pages, $17.95 (paper) riod of instability and weakness.” oblivious to the revisionist views of writers “I can scarcely believe that the Americans such as Mark Moyar, whose groundbreak- Westmoreland: The General Who could be so stupid,” Ho Chi Minh said of the ing work on the Vietnam war poses the most Lost Vietnam, by Lewis Sorley. coup, understanding its import immediately. important challenge to the assumption that Harcourt, 416 pages, The Hanoi Politburo recognized the opportu- America’s defeat in Vietnam was inevitable. $30 (cloth), $15.95 (paper) nity that the coup afforded the Communists. Lewis Sorley appears briefly in the series, but “Diem was one of the strongest individuals his assessments of Generals William West- First to Fight: An Inside View of the U.S. resisting the people and Communists,” it moreland and Creighton Abrams are not Marine Corps, by Victor H. said. “Everything that could be done in an at- deemed worthy of discussion. Krulak. Naval Institute Press, tempt to crush the revolution was carried out The most astute American observer of 272 pages, $21.95 (paper) by Diem. Diem was one of the most compe- Vietnamese Communism, Douglas Pike, tent lackeys of the U.S. imperialists.” And in- , by William doesn’t get a mention despite the fact that his A Soldier Reports deed, the coup encouraged the Communists Westmoreland. Doubleday, analysis of Communist strategy goes a long to push for a quick victory against the weak 446 pages, out-of-print way in explaining the dynamic of the war. As South Vietnamese government before the these scholars show, the United States was not Americans intervened. In Retrospect: The Tragedy and destined to lose in Vietnam. America’s defeat As conditions continued to deteriorate, Lessons of Vietnam, by Robert S. was the result of bad strategy and bad deci- McNamara. Crown Forum, 414 pages, John Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon Johnson, sions at all levels, from Washington to Saigon. $27.50 (cloth), $18.95 (paper) was forced to consider an American escalation of the war in order to save South Vietnam. He Lacking the Will PAV N: People’s Army of Vietnam, did not, as many have argued, use the August by Douglas Pike. Da Capo Press, 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident as an excuse to n triumph forsaken, one of the most 384 pages, out-of-print escalate U.S. involvement. That claim is belied important books written on the Vietnam by the fact that Johnson saw intervention only Iwar, Mark Moyar, now a senior advisor at After Tet: The Bloodiest Year in Vietnam, as a last resort to avoid defeat in South Viet- the U.S. Agency for International Develop- by Ronald Spector. Free Press, nam and, he thought, the subsequent toppling ment, posed a stark challenge to the conven- 400 pages, $29.95 of the Southeast Asian dominoes. Indeed, most tional view. Published in 2006 by Cambridge observers at the time criticized Johnson for not University Press, the first of two projected responding forcefully enough to the Tonkin volumes, Triumph Forsaken focuses on the pe- strates the Clausewitzian principle that war Gulf incident. Major U.S. ground intervention riod from the defeat of the French by the Viet is a struggle between two active wills, show- did not begin until nearly a year later. Minh in 1954 to the eve of Lyndon Johnson’s ing that the North Vietnamese strategy was Moyar argues that Johnson rejected several commitment of major U.S. ground forces in greatly affected by U.S. actions. aggressive strategic options formulated by the 1965. Moyar’s thesis is that the United States Nothing illustrates the orthodox-revisionist Joint Chiefs of Staff. These included offensive had ample opportunities to ensure the surviv- divide more than the respective treatments of ground operations by South Vietnamese forces al of South Vietnam, but failed to develop the South Vietnam’s president . in Laos to interdict the People’s Army of Viet- required strategy. In the orthodox view, Diem was a tyrant los- nam (PAV N) lines of supply down the Ho Chi

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Minh Trail and similar actions north of the Marine Force, Pacific. But the most influen- war. They were assiduously combing the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). The chiefs also tial historical criticism of Westmoreland’s countryside within the beachhead, try- recommended major airstrikes. But Johnson conduct of the war has come from Lewis ing to establish firm control in hamlets instead accepted the advice of civilian advisers Sorley, a career Army officer who served in and villages, and planning to expand the who were enamored of academic “limited war” Vietnam, earned a doctorate in history from beachhead up and down the coast. theories such as the one espoused by Thomas Johns Hopkins, and is the author of A Bet- Schelling, who advocated gradual escalation as ter War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Westmoreland believed the Marines should, a means of signaling U.S. intentions. Reject- Tragedy of America’s Last Years in Vietnam instead, “have been trying to find the enemy’s ing these more aggressive options meant that (1999) and Westmoreland: The General Who main forces and bring them to battle, thereby Johnson was left with the choice of abandon- Lost Vietnam (2011). putting them on the run and reducing the ing South Vietnam, a step fraught with grave The PBS documentary ignores the critical threat they posed to the population.” international consequences, or fighting a de- debate between the Army and the Marines The Marines employed an approach in fensive war within South Vietnam at a serious over how to fight the war. Westmoreland’s Vietnam, the “Combined Action Program,” strategic disadvantage. operational strategy emphasized the attrition first used in Haiti, Nicaragua, and Santo Do- Would more aggressive actions have suc- of the PAV N in a “war of big battalions”— mingo in the 1920s and ’30s. “Marine Corps ceeded? We don’t know for sure, but I was multi-battalion, and sometimes even multi- experience in stabilizing governments and personally persuaded in 1983 by Douglas division sweeps through remote jungle areas combating guerrilla forces was distilled in lec- Pike, then director of the Indochina Archive in an effort to fix and destroy the enemy with ture form at the Marine Corps Schools…be- at U.C. Berkeley, based on a paper he deliv- superior fire power. The battle of the Ia Drang ginning in 1920,” Krulak wrote. The lectures ered at a Wilson Center symposium on the Valley in November 1965 was an example of appeared in Small Wars Manual in 1940, later war. He observed that “the initial reaction his preferred approach. adopted as an official publication. of Hanoi’s leaders to the strategic bombings The battle convinced Westmoreland that According to Krulak, the Marine Corps and air strikes that began in February 1965— his concept was correct. In a head-to-head approach in Vietnam had three elements: em- documented later by defectors and other wit- clash, an outnumbered U.S. force spoiled phasis on pacification of the coastal areas in nesses—was enormous dismay and apprehen- an enemy operation and sent a major PAV N which 80% of the people lived; degradation of sion. They feared the North was to be visited the ability of the North Vietnamese to fight by intolerable destruction which it simply by cutting off supplies before they left North- could not endure.” But as it became increas- ern ports of entry; and engagement of PAV N ingly apparent to Hanoi that the air campaign Was America’s and Viet Cong main force units on terms fa- was severely circumscribed, North Vietnam- defeat vorable to American forces. Westmoreland, ese leaders concluded that the United States according to Krulak, made the “third point lacked the will to do what victory required. in Vietnam the primary undertaking, even while deem- Pike then made an extraordinary claim, phasizing the need for clearly favorable condi- comparing the 1965 air campaign to the inevitable? tions before engaging the enemy.” “Christmas bombing” of 1972. Officially The Army-Marine Corps debate can best known as Linebacker II, this massive, around- be understood by looking at the PAV N strat- the-clock attack far exceeded in intensity any- force reeling back in defeat. But for Krulak, Ia egy, another element the PBS series ignores. thing that had gone before. Hanoi was stunned. Drang represented an example of fighting the According to Douglas Pike’s PAV N: People’s “While conditions had changed vastly in seven enemy’s war—what North Vietnamese gen- Army of Vietnam (1986), the Vietnamese years,” Pike continued, “the dismaying conclu- eral Vo Nguyen Giap predicted would be “a Communists followed a strategy they called sion to suggest itself from the 1972 Christmas protracted war of attrition.” As Krulak noted dau tranh (struggle) consisting of two opera- bombing was that had this kind of air assault in First to Fight (1984), by 1972, “we had man- tional elements: dau tranh vu trang (armed been launched in February 1965, the Viet- aged to reduce the enemy’s manpower pool by struggle) and dau tranh chinh tri (political nam war as we know it might have been over perhaps 25 percent at a cost of over 220,000 struggle). These operational elements were within a matter of months, even weeks.” U.S. and South Vietnamese dead. Of these, envisioned as a pincers designed to crush the 59,000 were Americans.” enemy. Armed struggle had a strategy “for General Westmoreland For his part, Westmoreland was critical regular forces” and another for “protracted of the Marine Corps approach in Vietnam, conflict.” Regular-force strategy included nother revisionist argument, which unlike his own, took counterinsurgen- both high tech and limited offensive warfare; also ignored by the PBS documen- cy seriously and emphasized small wars. In his protracted conflict included both Maoist and Atary, holds that even with the mistakes memoir, A Soldier Reports (1976), Westmore- neo-revolutionary guerrilla warfare. Political which hamstrung U.S. policy and strategy in land writes: struggle included dich van (action among the Vietnam, the United States came close to vic- enemy), binh van (action among the military), tory after 1968. This argument turns on op- During those early months [1965], I was and dan van (action among the people). erational strategy—how the war was actually concerned with the tactical methods that As Pike observes, to resist dau tranh both fought in Vietnam. The focus of this debate is General Walt and the Marines employed. arms of the pincer had to be blunted. U.S. General William Westmoreland, commander They had established beachheads at Chu and South Vietnamese forces decisively de- of U.S. Military Assistance Command, Viet- Lai and Da Nang and were reluctant to feated armed dau tranh. Pike contends that nam (COMUSMACV). go outside them, not through any lack of “the American military’s performance in this An early Westmoreland critic was Marine courage but through a different concep- respect was particularly impressive. It won ev- General Victor Krulak, commander of Fleet tion of how to fight an anti-insurgency ery significant battle fought, a record virtually

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unparalleled in the history of warfare.” But Fighting was still heavy, as exemplified by the Allies never dealt successfully with politi- two major actions in South Vietnam’s A Shau cal dau tranh, which led ultimately to defeat. Valley during the first half of 1969: the 9th Ma- NIU PRESS Pike observes that a constant struggle ex- rine Regiment’s Operation Dewey Canyon and isted between Giap and the professional gener- the 101st Airborne Division’s epic battle for als, on the one hand, and party leader Truong “Hamburger Hill.” But now PAV N offensive BESIEGED Chinh and the political generals, on the other. timetables were being disrupted by preemptive LENINGRAD From 1959, when the Lao Dong Party in Ha- allied attacks, buying more time for “Vietnam- noi decided to launch dau tranh in the South, ization,” the shift of military responsibilities Aesthetic Responses until 1965, the political was dominant. The from the U.S. to South Vietnam. to Urban Disaster emphasis on armed struggle became prevalent In addition, rather than ignoring the insur- afterwards, until mid-1968. Four more shifts gency and pushing the South Vietnamese aside Polina Barskova in emphasis would occur between 1969 and as General Westmoreland had done, Abrams “[This] is a sophisticated, 1975, according to Pike. followed a policy of “one war,” integrating all immensely rich explora- aspects of the struggle against the Commu- The Later Years nists. The result, says Sorley, was “a better war” tion of what the author in which the United States and South Viet- calls ‘siege spatiality.’ . . . The prose is lively, precise, uring his time as commander in namese essentially achieved the military and and elegant.” Vietnam, Westmoreland focused U.S. political conditions necessary for South Viet- —Andreas Schönle, coeditor of The Europeanized Dattention on military victory, especial- nam’s survival as a viable political entity. Elite in Russia, 1762–1825 ly the part of the strategy that relied on regu- Many commentators, including some au- lar forces. But he ignored the political struggle thors of official Army histories, argue that the ISBN 978-0-87580-772-0 232 pp., paper, $49.00 and the “protracted conflict” element of armed changes from Westmoreland to Abrams were struggle. Accordingly, he did little to train the evolutionary, primarily stemming from the fail- STATE OF Vietnamese army, a policy endorsed by Secre- ure of the Tet Offensive, which cost the PAV N tary of Defense McNamara, who claimed that and Viet Cong so many casualties that they MADNESS by the time the Vietnamese were trained, the had to change their strategy and tactics. But Psychiatry, Literature, Americans would have won the war. extensive recordings that Sorley used to write In A Better War, Sorley examines the largely A Better War conclusively refute such an in- and Dissent After Stalin neglected later years of the conflict, conclud- terpretation. After Tet, the PAV N tried three Rebecca Reich ing that the war in Vietnam “was being won times in the next 12 months to achieve major on the ground even as it was being lost at the military victories through general offensives, “Reich demonstrates the peace table and in the U.S. Congress.” Sorley even though it continued to suffer very heavy truly insidious nature argues that Westmoreland’s tactics, which em- casualties with nothing to show in return. It of state-sponsored phasized the attrition of PAV N forces in a “war was not until after Tet 1969 that Vietnam’s psychiatric discourse and practice after Stalin.” of the big battalions,” squandered four years of Communists abandoned this approach. —Angela Brintlinger, coeditor of Madness and the public and congressional support for the war. Unfortunately, the specter of Robert Mc- “Search and destroy” operations, that is, were Namara has led analysts to over-emphasize Mad in Russian Culture usually unsuccessful, since the enemy could the early years of the war at the expense of the ISBN 978-0-87580-775-1 280 pp., hardcover, $60.00 avoid battle unless it was advantageous for him fighting after Tet 1968. All too often, the his- to accept it. But they were also costly to the tory of the war has been derailed over the ques- American soldiers who conducted them and tion of when McNamara turned against the NEW IN PAPER the Vietnamese civilians who were in the area. war and why he didn’t make his views known HITLER’S Creighton Abrams succeeded Westmore- earlier. But as Colby observed in a review of land as commander shortly after the 1968 Tet McNamara’s disgraceful memoir, In Retrospect PRIESTS Offensive, joining Ellsworth Bunker, who (1995), by limiting serious consideration of the Catholic Clergy and had assumed the post of U.S. ambassador military situation in Vietnam to the period to South Vietnam the previous spring, and before mid-1968, historians leave Americans National Socialism William Colby, a career CIA officer who -co with a record “similar to what we would know ordinated the pacification effort. Abrams’s if histories of World War II stopped before Kevin P. Spicer approach was similar to that of Krulak and Stalingrad, Operation Torch in North Africa, “Deeply researched the Marines, emphasizing not the destruc- and Guadalcanal in the Pacific.” and deeply disturbing. tion of enemy forces per se but protection of Most studies examining the period after Spicer’s treatment of the South Vietnamese population by con- Tet emphasize the diplomatic attempts to ex- trolling key areas. He then concentrated on tricate the U.S. from the conflict, treating the ‘Hitler’s priests’ is absolutely convincing.” attacking the enemy’s “logistics nose” (as op- military effort as nothing more than a holding — posed to a “logistics tail”): since the North action. For example, historian Ronald Spec- ISBN 978-0-87580-788-1 385 pp., paper, $25.00 Vietnamese lacked heavy transport within tor’s After Tet: The Bloodiest Year in Vietnam South Vietnam, they had to pre-position (1993), compares Vietnam to World War I: supplies forward of their sanctuaries before each conflict was a “stalemate” but “neither (800) 621-2736 www.niupress.niu.edu launching an offensive. side was prepared to admit this fact.” Both

Claremont Review of Books w Spring 2018 Page 40 mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm the Communists and anti-Communists, he and Richard Nixon’s administration threw forces to remain in the south. Then, in an observes, made maximum efforts to break the away the successes achieved by American and act that shames the United States to this day, stalemate during 1968. South Vietnamese arms. Congress cut off military and economic as- Sorley disagrees, arguing that to truly un- sistance to South Vietnam. Finally, President derstand the Vietnam war, it is imperative to Chances of Survival Nixon resigned over Watergate and his suc- come to grips with the years after 1968. He cessor, Gerald Ford, constrained by Congress, contends that far from constituting a mere he proof lay in the communists’ defaulted on promises to respond with force holding action, the approach followed by 1972 Easter Offensive, the biggest of- to North Vietnamese violations of the peace the new team constituted a positive strategy Tfensive push of the war, greater in mag- terms. for ensuring the survival of South Vietnam. nitude than either the 1968 Tet Offensive or We cannot say with assurance that South Bunker, Abrams, and Colby operated from a the final assault of 1975. The U.S. provided Vietnam would have survived after 1975. But different understanding of the war. They -em massive air and naval support and there were its chances of survival were much improved ployed diminishing resources in manpower, inevitable failures on the part of some Army by Abrams’s approach. It is impossible not to materiel, money, and time as they raced to of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) units. speculate about the opportunities and advan- render the South Vietnamese capable of de- But all told, the South Vietnamese fought tages that were lost by not pursuing Abrams’s fending themselves before the last American well, blunting the Communist thrust, then re- approach, rather than Westmoreland’s, from forces were withdrawn. In the process, they capturing much of the territory that had been America’s entry into the war. came very close to achieving the goal of a vi- lost to Hanoi. The point is not that the Vietnam revision- able nation and a lasting peace. Finally, so effective was the 11-day “Christ- ists’ argument is unassailable. It is, rather, that The dominant assessment’s defenders have mas bombing” campaign (Linebacker II) later a major public television documentary series replied that Sorley’s argument is refuted by that year that the British counterinsurgency that never even acknowledges the existence the fact that South Vietnam did fall to the expert, Sir Robert Thompson, commented, of more than one interpretation of the war is North Vietnamese Communists. They have “You had won the war. It was over.” But three either lazy or dishonest, doing a disservice to repeated the claim that the South Vietnam- years later, despite the heroic performance of the program’s subject and viewers, as well as ese lacked the leadership, skill, character, and most ARVN units, South Vietnam collapsed to the troops who fought in that conflict. endurance of their adversaries. Sorley has ac- against a cobbled-together PAV N offensive. knowledged the shortcomings of the South What happened to cause this reversal? Mackubin Thomas Owens is dean of academics Vietnamese and agrees that the U.S. would First, the Nixon Administration, in its for the Institute of World Politics in Washing- have had to provide continued air, naval, and rush to extricate the country from Vietnam, ton, D.C., a senior fellow of the Foreign Policy intelligence support. But, he contends, the forced the South Vietnamese government Research Institute (FPRI) in Philadelphia, and real cause of U.S. defeat was that Congress to accept a cease-fire that permitted PAV N editor of Orbis, FPRI’s quarterly journal.

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Claremont Review of Books w Spring 2018 Page 41 “ e Claremont Review of Books is an outstanding literary publication written“A consistently by leading fine scholars product, and whichcritics. I always It covers read a withwide pleasurerange of topicsand in intellectual trenchant andprofit.” decisive language,—George combining Weigel learning with wit, elegance, and judgment.” Paul Johnson

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