“Mr. President,” he began, occasionally glancing at his notes, “more than three years have elapsed—years of bitterness, struggle and sacrifice—since I withdrew our forces and installation from this beautiful city that, open and undefended, its churches, monuments, and cultural centers might, in accordance with the rules of warfare, be spared the violence of military ravage. The enemy would not have it so, and much that I sought to preserve has been unnecessarily destroyed by his desperate action at bay—but by these ashes he has wantonly fixed the future pattern of his own doom.”
