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In Night, concentration camp survivor Elie Wiesel perhaps suffers as much from his own guilt about how he treated his dying father as he does from the depredations the Nazis inflict. While the sick old man in his death throes calls the author’s name, the young man stays away, begrudging his father those agonized cries, which eventually draw the blows of the SS: “I shall never forgive myself. His last word had been my name. A summons. I had not responded.” Yes, the camp and its tortures overwhelm Wiesel, but this internal conflict deepens the story. So it’s odd to me that in later editions of the book, Wiesel cut the passage, claiming it was “Too personal, too private, perhaps . . .”
The Art of Memoir
Mary Karr
Before I went on a negotiating trip, I wrote Nixon an exhaustive memo of the background, of the options, of what I proposed to do. And he invariably read it and made marginal comments. Once I was launched, I wrote him a report every night. I recall very few instances where he ever second-guessed, no instance where he countermanded what we were doing. I can give you an important example. After the secret trip to China in July 1971, we settled on a trip for Nixon at the end of February. But we thought it was too dangerous to have Mao and Nixon meet without preparation, because the risk of disagreement might be too great. So I went to China in October, four months before the Nixon visit, to determine whether we could agree on the outline of a communiqué. I submitted a draft in the traditional form, stressing agreements. But Mao, through [Premier] Zhou [Enlai], had a different concept. He proposed listing disagreements because it was more credible, and then emphasizing the agreements we did reach. We were sitting there without communications. I could have gone home. But I felt absolutely confident that Nixon would agree with me. So we reversed what we had come to do, accepted the Mao scheme, and brought it back to Nixon. And he said, “This is terrific. We needed to do it this way.” He never questioned one line of it. So that was a totally different relationship than now with videoconferences.
Kissinger on Kissinger
Winston Lord, Henry Kissinger
In February 1904, the Japanese struck against the Russian fleet, eventually destroying it at the Battle of the Tsushima Straits; that battle took place after the Japanese had inflicted comparable defeats on the Russian army in the Pacific and in parts of Russian-occupied Manchuria. The Japanese later justified their assault on Russia’s forces in the Far East by pointing to the danger a Russified Korea held out for them. Rikitaro Fujisawa, a prominent Japanese political figure, quoted a friend as saying that the Japanese had to strike against the Russians, because “Korea lies like a dagger, ever pointed towards the heart of Japan,” words that could have easily been spoken nearly half a century later, by the most senior American national security officials. Then he added in his own words, “Korea in the possession of Russia, or even a weak and corrupt Korea which might fall any time an easy prey to the Russian Eagle would place Japan’s destiny in the hands of the unscrupulous ‘Colossus of the North.’ Japan could not accept such a fate. That the Russo-Japanese War was not only a defensive war for Japan but Japan’s struggle for her very existence as an independent nation is too obvious to require either elucidation or explanation.” It was a great way to justify an offensive war—the Koreans, not the devil, made them do it.
The Coldest Winter
David Halberstam
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