Since the world is again in dramatic search of a new equilibrium, it is not surprising that the future of Europe is a major subject of debate among those concerned about international affairs. Many of the present terms of the discussion were set at the end of World War II—in February, 1945, to be more precise, at Yalta. A careful reading of the Yalta Papers leaves doubt that the three men who sat around the conference table understood clearly the ramifications of the new order they were establishing. Convinced as they were that their solutions were of a temporary nature, they devoted most of their time to jockeying for short-range advantages. In the background, however, were greater historic forces of which these men were the puppets.

It's our last chance to get the whole business of killing back onto a healthy basis. Imagine in the spanking dawn of our century a youth with dark fiery eyes, a lopsided tangle of curly hair awkward in its profusion, body and limbs … still those of a mere stripling. But what experience was available to temper that growing strength! The Boer War, three long years of fighting at the cost of ten thousand lives: scene of the first concentration camps (the British), the first guerrilla warfare (the Boers). Can you doubt that our youth fought on the side of those doughty Boers in their struggle for freedom?

What are the imperatives for strategic thinking for the seventies? At the beginning of the seventies the United States adheres even more firmly to a policy of minimum or finite deterrence. Our power at all other levels of war and deterrence is increasingly challenged or outstripped. Even the possible vulnerability of our nuclear forces is tolerated for the sake of strategic disarmament treaties to come. It is difficult to tell the difference, for example, between editorials on strategic questions in the New York Times over the past two or three years and Dulles's “more bang for a buck” policy. The upshot seems clearly to be a i greater reliance on the most politically immoral nuclear posture imaginable, namely, Mutual Assured Destruction.

There was a time during the sixties when Catholics, intoxicated with what we were convinced had come to us bottled in bond from Vatican II, were among the most optimistic predictors around. In our more extravagant moments some of us talked and wrote as if we were inspired by a scenario drawn up at a summit meeting presided over by Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg and Bob Dylan. Some of this optimism was still present when Commonweal brought out its “Church in the Year 2000” issue (October 31, 1969), though by then the more pronounced thing was the wrath of those who had begun to discover how laggard the Church was in its efforts to live up to the scenario that had been prepared for it.

Once again the American public is subjected to reports about the sensational effects of bombing against North Vietnam and its offensive in the South. New guided, or “smart,” bombs and the hitting of targets far beyond anything authorized at the height of the 1965-68 campaign have led to spectacular claims for the efficacy of air power in blunting the thrust of North Vietnam's Easter offensive. The Pentagon emphasis is now almost exclusively upon the success of air power in achieveing military goals; far less is claimed, at least publicly,, for bombing as a means of ending the war.

Somewhere in the National Archives of the United States lies one of the very first, if not the first, diplomatic correspondence between this country and Vietnam. On August 16, 1849, President Zachary Taylor wrote to “His Majesty the Magnificent King of Anam.” The letter reads in part:

Great and Good Friend!

To you, my Brother, the Great and Mighty King of Anam, I send love and goodwill, in this letter, by the hands of Mr. Joseph Balestier, my faithful and trusty Envoy and Minister to South Eastern Asia, to whom I give express orders to deliver it into your own Royal hands in order that you may understand how greatly I have been grieved to hear it said, that the Captain of one of my warships had misbehaved himself, four years ago, (which I have only heard of lately, for the first time, because your country is so far from mine) by landing men from his ship in Toorong Bay and firing on your people, and killing and Wounding some of them….

The recent invasion of South Vietnam and the intense fighting of the past five months draw attention once again to the human cost to the Vietnamese people of the continuing war. I am not here referring to battle casualties which, although terrible, can at least be regarded as “legitimate” in war. Nor am I including those refugees who, although their plight may be tragic, are at least still alive. South Vietnam has had, in fact, a remarkable record in coping with refugees and has maintained it yet again in respect of the 750,000 who fled before the invader from the fighting zones.

In 1970 I was told by a ranking SED (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschland) party member: “If you think Walter Ulbricht has been a severe taskmaster, wait until he steps down and his crown prince, Erich Honecker, takes the party leadership. Ulbricht at first tried to imitate the Soviet Union slavishly, but he finally came to see that Germany is not the Soviet Union, that the DDR would have to develop its own brand of socialism. Honecker is much more subservient to Moscow than Ulbricht and much more blind to the social and political importance of the Christian Church.” In the mid-fifties, Ulbricht learned that persecuting the Church did not pay political, social or economic dividends.