“Listen Henry, Cambodia won the war,” Nixon said, but what did he think about that “generation of peace” line? Kissinger thought it was terrible, an opinion he had shared with Safire.33 He would have preferred a more “manly” closing. You cannot have the president of the United States “being a pacifist,” he had grumbled. But in speaking with Nixon, he assured him it was a fine phrase—another “major step forward again.”
