What really mattered to him, as it had mattered so often to Americans in the postwar era, was the credibility of his country's commitment in its larger battle against Communism in the world. To show weakness on one part of the globe was to risk disaster on other parts. Rusk put this point clearly. "The integrity of the U.S. commitment," he said in 1965, "is the principal pillar of peace throughout the world. If that commitment becomes unreliable, the communist world would certainly draw conclusions that would lead to our ruin and almost certainly to a catastrophic war. "43
