Good evening everyone and welcome to the New York Historical society. I am Louise Mirrer the ceo and im thrilled to welcome all of you two are beautiful auditorium. This Evenings Program is presented in conjunction with our exhibition vietnam war in 1945 to 1975 which i hope you had a chance to say but if not it is on view through april 22, so i hope you will return during regular museum hours to see it. Our program Edward Lansdale and the american tragedy in vietnam is the petraeus lecture on leadership. We created the series five years ago as a permanent way to honor two great americans roger hertog and David Petraeus who both won our history maker awarded 2013 that like to thank mr. Hertog for his incredible leadership and support and now as chair and marriages of New York Historical and general petraeus for his leadership and for his generous participation over the past four years and this illustrious lecture series. Thanks so much to both of you. [applause] i would like to thank a
Ree rwanda, not just myself. It is a mission for rwanda. The acronym if you recall, it was una, the United Nations aid mission for rwanda but unfer doesnt really work so he takes the mi in mission and takes out the f. Hes really committed to that word for. He is a complex individual. I think having this is very full and very long account is helpful in kind of he charted very well the complexities of this thing on the ground and in his own personal motivations enter into this. I think that is very helpful in envisioning this thing from a holistic perspective. You had a comment. It kind of goes back to what we were talking about. He says he got a phone call from an american staffer. He doesnt even know who they are and what they do. What page are we on. 499. He tgoes he told me his estimates said it would take the death of rwanda to justify the death of an american soldiers. I mean thats what it is. It puts pedestal higher. Thats not the idea behind human rights. Thats what the United Na
U. N. Responded to the genocide. Now American History tv in prime time features a panel on totalitarianism and communist governments focusing on world war ii, the cold war and americas involvement in the middle east. This 90minute event was hosted by the James Madison program at princeton university. The association for the study of free institutions and texas tech university. On behalf of the directors, i want to express our gratitude to the James Madison program for inviting us to cosponsor this panel on Foreign Policy and the challenges of totalitarianism. This is a privilege for me personally also when i arrived at princeton in the fall of 1986, the age of 17, one of the faculty that i met early on was a young scholar then in his first year as an assistant professor. That was robby. Ive been very pleased to work with him on a number of occasions over the last nearly 30 years. I can hardly believe it. Now you may be unaware that the madison prap was under some pressure to recind the
This week on q a, yuval levin. Yuval levin, your wikipedia site has in the second sentence, he has been called, quote, probably the most influential conservative intellectual of the obama era. Whats that mean . Thats a very good question. I wonder by whom. I think its jonathan chait. Ok. Well then probably, in the course of criticizing me for something or other, but i guess what it means you know an intellectual in politics is a person who tries to connect events and practical questions to deeper currents, theoretical or philosophical currents. There are narrower definitions. You know paul johnson, the Great British historian, wrote a book called intellectuals in the 80s in which he said that an intellectual in politics is actually a person who tries to remake the world in the image of some theory he has. In that sense, there probably is no such thing as a conservative intellectual, but i think if you take a broader view of it and a notion that an intellectual tries to connect theory a
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