The putative leader of the Wise Men, Dean Acheson, was hardly one to be faced down by anyone, whether Dean Rusk or Tom Hayden. It is really crucial for Garfinkle to establish that the claims of the antiwar movement that the war was not winnable, and a waste of lives, are false. In other words, what was illegitimate yesterday cannot be legitimate today, and will lead us to perdition. Readers will have to decide for themselves if Garfinkle's case is persuasively stated, resting as it does upon the sins of the historians of the antiwar movement. But that was not so.
Religion is indeed an important theme here.
Garfinkle thanks Richard John Neuhaus for grasping the central points of the book. The true heroes are the repenters. Adam Garfinkle himself, who, by his own statements really was only on the fringes. All the guiltier, it appears, for not having abandoned the faith of the fathers sufficiently so as to deserve to be truly forgiven today. This work may be copied for non-profit educational use if proper credit is given to the author and the list.