In the last decade, political partisanship and disunity in the United States have paralyzed the nation. I lived through the tumultuous 1960s and 70s when many observers thought we might not celebrate our 200th birthday (1976) as one nation of 50 states. The Lyndon Johnson-Robert McNamara miscues in the Vietnam War divided the nation more than any one event since the Civil War, and the slogan “better red than dead” was popular in some circles.