The War: Conflicting Advice

He who is not sage and wise, humane and just, cannot use secret agents. And he who is not delicate and subtle cannot get the truth out of them.

—Sun Tzu, The Art of War

On the battlefield in Viet Nam and at the peace talks in Paris, the counsel of U.S. intelligence analysts weighs heavily. For it is as true today as it was around 400 B.C., when Sun Tzu wrote China's oldest manual of arms, that those whose trade is to uncover an enemy's secrets "receive their instructions within the tent of the general and are intimate and close...

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