In his Foreign Policy article “The Human Reality of Realpolitik,” written in 1971, two decades before he became national security adviser, Lake had complained that the human dimensions of a policy were rarely discussed. “It simply is not done,” Lake wrote. “Policy—good, steady policy—is made by the ‘tough-minded.’…To talk of suffering is to lose ‘effectiveness,’ almost to lose one’s grip. It is seen as a sign that one’s rational arguments are weak.”
