This seminar has dwelt, in the papers presented, on general—universal if you will—aspects of the ethical dilemmas of violence, revolution, and reform. I want to address myself to the personal problems involved in the ethical response to these same issues. I am not a theologian and therefore cannot speak with authority on the religious, at least the doctrinal, aspects of that ethical response. For me personally, the touchstone of any religion is not its revelations but its ethical teachings. I therefore see no essential difference between the religious and the ethical response to the questions of violence, revolution, and reform. Thus, I can speak to you only as what I am: an historian whose outlook upon revolution.has been determined by the study of history and by living in this revolutionary age.

Most Americans agree that our protracted involvement in the defense of South Vietnam has become a watershed in our security commitment to the Third World, but there is less agreement on what the central “lesson of Vietnam” is. For a few persons, “no more Vietnams” means the virtual renunciation of our non-nuclear military commitments, but for most of us, including the President, the ambiguities and frustrations of Vietnam mean that we should be even more selective about our active military participation in the future than in the past.

When the United States fostered the recovery and underwrote the security of Western Europe she had more than sentiment to impel her. That salient zone is a pivotal sector of the world balance, and while she may station fewer of her own troops upon its soil, she can entertain no total disengagement from it. But there is another West European item, the future of the Common Market, which calls for a fresh American scrutiny. The West will be better off if Western Europe acquires more of an ability to stand on its own feet. Gaullism, however, revealed a less modest goal, one that was not confined to France and did not vanish with the departure of General de Gaulle. On the contrary, it may have gained new leverage from his downfall.