ABSTRACT
A speaker always finds a good reason — more or less good — for allowing himself a digression even if he wants to stay within his bounds. In the very interesting previous meetings of this Conference we have heard many remarkable and correct judgments about the state of the world in general, including détente, peaceful competition, the defense of and threat to liberal democracy, and even war. First of all, we would be doing too much honor to the terrorists, raising them more or less to the level of our free democracies, with the consequence that we should, strictly speaking, grant them the status of war fighters, something which we have denied them and rightly so. After all, they feel more fear of kidnappers who take away their husbands than of so-called political terrorists who blow up party offices or public buildings or occasionally shoot political leaders.
