“Vietnam is about halfway around the world from Washington. It's as large as the major European nations, with nearly 130,000 square miles… Its ancient recorded history goes back to 111 B. C… We entered (that country) with considerable ignorance.”
Goldwater (1988)
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Barry Goldwater 32
American politician 1909–1998Related quotes

1963, Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty speech

Whilst composing Also Sprach Zarthustra, Strauss made this joke about the Bavaria weather to his friend, the conductor Max von Schillings. Quoted in Kurt Wilhelm, Richard Strauss - an intimate portrait, page 73.
Other sources

Taking Chances (1944)

“A nation which is ignorant of its history cannot properly make choices about its future.”
St Andrew's Day (November 30, 2007)
Source: Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter (2003), Ch. III The Poet: How to Party

Audiovisions: cinema and television as entr'actes in history By Siegfried Zielinski http://books.google.com/books?id=Rw5FzPcwaPkC&lpg=PA215&dq=gudrun%20ensslin&as_brr=1&pg=PA215#v=onepage&q=gudrun%20ensslin&f=false

Introduction to "Small Print", Fiddler Fair (Baen, 1998), p. 18

1990s, Schafer interview (1995)
Context: In case you haven't noticed, we live in a world that is for the first time in all of recorded human history unlikely to have a major war. There used to be this country called the Soviet Union; it's not there anymore. The reason is our technology was better than theirs. Probably what pushed the Russians over the edge was SDI. It was really a combination of SDI and CNN. They realized they couldn't beat us so they decided to change the ball game.