Fred Thompson, senator, actor, lawyer, radio host and, yes, former AEI visiting fellow, passed away on Sunday at 73.
Former senator Fred Thompson speaking at AEI in 1999.
There will be encomia aplenty for Thompson, whose peripatetic career fitted a man of wide interests and talents. Most who knew him will recall his larger than life personality, his sonorous voice, his wry humor. But he was a clear and principled thinker as well, which is why we welcomed him at AEI.
Consider this warning, delivered in a speech at AEI in April, 2004, which still resonates so strongly to this day:
… these predictions of defeat have profound consequences in the real world. In every war, military historians will tell you, that there is a strategic center of gravity, a tipping point that determines in what direction the larger conflict will go. The strategic center of gravity for this war is American willpower.
Our enemies know this. They know that they cannot defeat us in any conventional military contest, so instead their aim is to demoralize us and to shake our resolve. They know that their only hope is gruesome, made-for-television atrocities to undermine the confidence of the American public. Their purpose is not even to win, but to convince us that we cannot win, to break our will, to convince us to cut and run.
From the AEI family to the Thompson family he so loved, our condolences.
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