27 Jan 10
As fiercely anti-Communist as they were anti-Semitic, Kennedy and Astor looked upon Adolf Hitler as a welcome solution to both of these "world problems" (Nancy's phrase).... Kennedy replied that he expected the "Jew media" in the United States to become a problem, that "Jewish pundits in New York and Los Angeles" were already making noises contrived to "set a match to the fuse of the world."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_P._Kennedy,_Sr.#cite_note-21
27 Jan 10
Originally posted by FMFI don't necessarily think anything was disgraceful about Eisenhower. However he might have been the US President responsible for the most deaths in the 20th century.
Well with an OP like this, the onus is perhaps on you to define what you understand by "disgraceful" and then nominate.
What is it you think was "disgraceful" about Eisenhower?
Disgracefulness is a subjective thing, not easily quantified if at all. What sort of qualities arouse this judgement of "disgracefulness" I cannot give a precise answer. However, being on Hitler's side in WWII is pretty disgraceful.
27 Jan 10
2 edits
Originally posted by AThousandYoungI don't see why it's so difficult. For me, I think, my judgement of what is "disgraceful statesmanship" is encapsulated by citing: "Paris peace negotiations 1968 - Indochina - Bangladesh - Chile - Cyprus - East Timor." Clearly it is then quite possible for me to attach a consequential death toll to that alleged "disgracefulness". The death toll itself is not the substance of the disgrace - perhaps only a measure of its depth.
Disgracefulness is a subjective thing, not easily quantified if at all. What sort of qualities arouse this judgement of "disgracefulness" I cannot give a precise answer.
While I agree with you that Joe Kennedy was an almost peerlessly despicable individual, I am not so sure that he was a significant 'statesman' in 20thC terms. Maybe I'm wrong. But I am interested. That's why I wrote the OP.
27 Jan 10
Originally posted by AThousandYoungI will let Christopher Hitchens tell the story:
What's wrong with the Paris Peace Accords? You think the US should have stayed in Vietnam?
"In the fall of 1968, Richard Nixon and some of his emissaries and underlings set out to sabotage the Paris peace negotiations on Vietnam. The means they chose were simple: they privately assured the South Vietnamese military rulers that an incoming Republican regime would offer them a better deal than would a Democratic one. In this way, they undercut both the talks themselves and the electoral strategy of Vice-President Hubert Humphrey. The tactic "worked," in that the South Vietnamese junta withdrew from the talks on the eve of the election, thereby destroying the "peace plank" on which the Democrats had contested it. In another way, it did not "work," because four years later the Nixon administration concluded the war on the same terms that had been on offer in Paris. The reason for the dead silence that still surrounds the question is that, in those intervening four years, some twenty thousand Americans and an uncalculated number of Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians lost their lives. Lost them, that is to say, even more pointlessly than had those slain up to that point. The impact of those four years on Indochinese society, and on American democracy, is beyond computation. The chief beneficiary of the covert action, and of the subsequent slaughter, was Henry Kissinger."
27 Jan 10
Originally posted by FMFGotcha. Thanks for the education.
I will let Christopher Hitchens tell the story:
"In the fall of 1968, Richard Nixon and some of his emissaries and underlings set out to sabotage the Paris peace negotiations on Vietnam. The means they chose were simple: they privately assured the South Vietnamese military rulers that an incoming Republican regime would offer them a better deal than would a D ...[text shortened]... beneficiary of the covert action, and of the subsequent slaughter, was Henry Kissinger."
27 Jan 10
Originally posted by FMFKissinger should be shot to death. Brought back to life and hanged. Brought back to life and quartered.
Paris peace negotiations 1968. Indochina. Bangladesh. Chile. Cyprus. East Timor.
If he doesn't get the nod as the Most Disgraceful 20thC U.S. Statesman, then who does?
Multiple times.