Kennedy, trying not to offend a NATO ally, took essentially the same position he maintained during the conflict in Albany, Georgia: that it was a matter for the local parties to decide for themselves. This earned him a barrage of criticism for his implied recognition of merit in the Dutch colonial claims. With his shy humor and dogged grit, Kennedy gamely faced hecklers in more than one country. Later he reflected that no amount of East-West debate on the claims of democracy against communism would dispel the global preoccupation with race and economics. “There wasn’t one area of the world
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