Elliot A. Cohen Quotes

The first essential for a Prime Minister is to be a good butcher.

The President has full responsibility, which cannot be shared, for military decisions in a world in which the difference between safety and cataclysm can be a matter of hours or even minutes.

Peace hath higher tests of manhood, than battle ever knew.

To be a great president you have to have a war. All the great presidents had their wars.

The important thing is the boldness of the President. He will lead opinion and not follow it. He does not want war but will not shrink from it.

For better or worse the country has no alternative other than trust the President when we are at war.

Like Lyndon Johnson, President Obama understands that timidity in a time of troubles is a prescription for failure.

Netanyahu is pressured easily, gets into a panic, and loses his senses... to run a country like Israel a leader needs to have reason and judgment and nerves of steel, two traits he does not have.

Leaders grasp nettles.

The president of the United States actually has to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.

That was my first lesson from Ben-Gurion. Then I saw him making peace, and I saw him making war. He mobilized me before the war. The man was a very rare combination between a real intellectual and a born leader. There is a contradiction between the two.

In matters of war, we undermine presidential credibility at our nation’s peril.

[In wartime] there is almost always an overstretch [for power] by the President.

When you're President you have to make a lot of tough decisions. You have to keep lining them up and making them.

Those who are to conduct a war cannot in the nature of things, be proper and safe judges of whether a war ought to be commenced, continued or concluded.

Candidates for president are always leery of war, but presidents are also Commanders in Chief and have a different perspective…. Presidents are more martial and candidates more peace-loving.

Just as our peace-time system is unsuitable for war conditions, so does it tend to breed peace-time statesmen who are not too well fitted for the conduct of war. Facility in debate, ability to state a case, caution in advancing an unpopular view, compromise and procrastination are the natural qualities - I might almost say, virtues - of a political leader in time of peace. They are fatal qualities in war. Vision, daring, swiftness and consistency of decision are the very essence of victory.

The nation needs"a president with brains; one who can make a plan and carry it out.

This is the sort of decision that presidents must make: Hard choices with insufficient information.

Whenever we get involved in a war, the White House seems to have 3 priorities: We cannot appear to be losing; we must appear to be winning; we must look like we know what we are doing.

To be a great leader, one unfortunately needs a war.

I don’t think we should go to war with one person’s authority..

War room

Being a wartime President is never just about leading the war. It is also about leading a nation at war.

There's this intense media spotlight; there's a need to be transparent, and, 'Oh, by the way, I'm also trying to fight a war at the same time.' It's a challenge, but it goes with the job.