Probably as good a time as any to re-link the Mother Jones piece "Daniel Ellsberg on the Limits of Knowledge":
https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/02/daniel-ellsbe...
Linked on HN numerous times but largely only discussed here:
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Ellsberg had access to the information Kissinger had and still thought the Vietnam war was unjust and unwinnable.
It’s hard to imagine what Kissinger knew that would drastically change my perception on him.
The Vietnam war was unjust and unwinnable.
JRK got us into it, and Nixon got us out of it while navigating the complexities of China, the cold war, and a potential WW III if we appeared too weak.
JFK and Johnson deserve the blame for starting the war, by the end of Johnson’s term it was obvious the public wanted out of the war and he was negotiating the end of it. Nixon and Kissinger extended the war for political reasons. They met behind the American governments back with the south Vietnamese and convinced them to hold out for a better deal from the republicans, and they withdrew from talks and tanked Johnson’s peace deal. They eventually negotiated almost the same deal but worse after many American lives, and many more Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian lives were spent. By all appearances, for nothing more than electing Nixon.
and Kissinger got the Nobel Peace Prize
Great link!
I wonder whether we look at this with new eyes in light of the recent discussions in Congress around UAP.
I think it illuminates the profound insight of Ellsberg’s commentary if, even for the sake of argument, you entertain the idea of non-human life being amongst that information and then, as he describes, imagine sitting and being briefed on any number of topics from any number of perspectives knowing that you know there to be non-human life, that they don’t, and that if they did they would see the world very differently as you have come to.
Of course I think Ellsberg’s perspective holds regardless of what that significant unknown information is (so long as it is significant) - true might of adversaries, how close we’ve come to various failure scenarios, what tech we’ve actually developed, who shot Kennedy etc.
Non human life? Like cats?
Haha good pickup. I meant "non-human intelligence", but cats still tick that box too.
It's also a good reminder that public judgement isn't worth much for any personality who had access to lots of bonafide top secret information.
A lot of sensitive diplomatic and military records from even the 60s are yet to be declassified, so the final verdict of future historians will likely rest on much different information then we can access today.
Can you give any examples of somebody that was unjustly vilified by the public until top secret information was released that exonerated them?
Not necessarily 'unjustly vilified', but most of Edgar Hoover's biography were done before the extend on soviet spying in the US was declassified. It talked about a very interesting podcast on a previous comment [1].
For example, Harry Truman, and his sacking of MacArthur. Now that there's been more info released regarding Army biowarfare programs in the late 40s/early 50s, recruitment of the Japanese specialists immediately after WW2, etc...
That's all very fine but worthless for people voting today.
How is this relevant? The voter's estimation of worth barely influence Kissinger types at all.