Fortune and American "Idealism"

"Since the days of Woodrow Wilson, American foreign policy has been conducted with a smug and self-righteous hypocrisy perhaps unmatched by any nation in the history of mankind. But recently there have been signs that this may be changing, and that, at least in some areas, a brutal candour may increasingly come to reveal the naked reality beneath the glossy surface. While this will serve the cause of truth, the new frankness is not an unmixed blessing; for it may well mean that our rulers consider us so softened and deadened by decades of propaganda that we will accept any of the naked truth, however harsh, without a murmur of protest or indignation. And the rulers appear to be right."