What is the role of the United States in the new century?

November 10, 1999

Several people, including our host Ron Naples, whose burden it was to introduce this lecture, have asked me what exactly I meant to discuss this evening inasmuch as my title was hopelessly vague. That, I confess, was by design, so as to leave me free to say pretty much whatever was on my mind, come November 10, about U.S. foreign relations at the turn of the century. And it seemed to me that I could take any of three approaches. I might, for instance, choose to look backward, reviewing the evolution of American diplomacy and suggesting what lessons to draw from it. That approach would have put me on safe ground, but I rejected it because to talk history would just give you all an excuse not to read my latest book.

four sitting presidents have been assassinated while in office but the first was abraham lincoln,