President Reagan achieved such successes because when you sat in a room with him, there could be over 1,000 people in the room, yet you felt like there was only the two of you, and his wonderful wit would put you at ease. That was a tremendous gift.
President Reagan is now at rest. We mourn his passing, but we are grateful for the gifts he gave us: a safer world, strong economic base, and a renewed belief in America's greatness.
One of the most important post-9/11 efforts made to counter terrorism and the spread of weapons of mass destruction is President Bush's Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI).
I'm sure that President Johnson would never have pursued the war in Vietnam if he'd ever had a Fulbright to Japan, or say Bangkok, or had any feeling for what these people are like and why they acted the way they did. He was completely ignorant.
The problem was with Bill Clinton, the scandals and rumored scandals, the incubating ones and the dying ones never ended. Whatever moral compass the president was consulting was leading him in the wrong direction. His closets were full of skeletons just waiting to burst out.
I wanted all my visits to be official. When I sent the pass back with a note, I had no idea it would antagonize the president. I found out years later that it did.
But here too it should be noted that the President's approach was to first ask the repressive and brutal Taliban to surrender Osama bin Laden to us, and only after that government refused to do that did we invade.
Russia under President Putin is less democratic and less free today than when he assumed office. If Russia cannot fulfill its obligation to the G-8 and maintain a high standard of democratic governance then its membership should be suspended.
