Barry Goldwater Quotes
I have always favored withdrawing recognition from Russia.
Barry Goldwater, 1909-1998, U. S. Senator (Republican AZ), Republican Nominee for President, Quoted in U. S. News & World Report, September 2, 1963
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
In the 2016 Presidential Election, the Russians hacked into the Democratic National Committee computers and released material harmful to Hillary Clinton. President Obama started with some sanctions but successor President Trump, who benefited from the Russian interference, made no effort to act against Russia to the distress of many of his own party like Graham.
Misha Saakashvili, the President of Georgia, the ex-Soviet State, had a good bit of support in American political circles and decided to start a military conflict with Russia attacking a disputed area whose people had rejected Georgia and preferred the Russian affiliation and control. He was confident that the US would protect him from major retaliation. The Russians first moved troops into the attacked area and then started attacking Georgia military assets. Rice and the Russian Foreign minister were negotiating a cease fire on which they agreed to details and were going to impose them on Georgia. However, Lavrov demanded that Georgia President Saakashvili be deposed. Either nation had the power to do this, and both had in many past instances deposed or overthrown the leaders of other nations—democratically elected or not. This quote is very interesting because in this particular case the United States was stating its idealistic policy and not its “real-politic: that it exhibited in helping to bring down and depose democratically elected in Iran, Chile, Vietnam, Venezuela, Haiti, and others. Ironically, there were many in the US who wanted Saakashvili deposed for unilaterally starting a military conflict Russia that had to involve the U. S.
He was discussing the conflict in the Ukraine between keeping their historical economic relationships with Russia and being more involved with Europe and the West. He observed that the Ukraine has been for centuries not only and integral part of Russia but played a huge role in the Russian Revolution of 1917. Kissinger urged Ukraine independence and relations with both Russia and Europe and not making the Russians feel that they have little or no influence over what was not very long ago a critical part of their country.
Kennan was talking about the Russians, but the same principle seems to hold with any autocratic government and in some cases even democracies. However, the tradition of secret diplomacy with no transparency is established even in many democracies. Great Britain and France, for example conduct most of their diplomacy in secret as do less democratic governments and tyrannies. They expect us to keep negotiations confidential, which causes American diplomats to be torn between the American view of transparency and the tradition of confidentiality.
Barry Morris Goldwater was an American politician, statesman, businessman, United States Air Force officer, and author who was a five-term Senator from Arizona (1953–1965, 1969–1987) and the Republican Party nominee for president of the United States in 1964. Goldwater is the politician most often credited with having sparked the resurgence of the American conservative political movement in the 1960s. Despite his loss of the 1964 presidential election in a landslide, many political pundits and historians believe he laid the foundation for the conservative revolution to follow, as the grassroots organization and conservative takeover of the Republican party began a long-term realignment in American politics helped to bring about the "Reagan Revolution" of the 1980s. He also had a substantial impact on the libertarian movement.
