Messrs. Buckley and Galbraith had been favorite fencing partners on many platforms, but this was the latter's first appearance on Firing Line, prompted by the publication of Ambassador's Journal: A Personal Account of the Kennedy Years. We get the flavor of their style of thrust and parry right from the start (JKG: "Oh, sure, it was a great piece of nonsense, I should- I was greatly tempted to take it out; but once you start improving your record by hindsight-well, you know yourself where it leads, you've done so much of it..." WFB: "Well, I may be guilty of heresies, but I don't remember deserting any of my heresies." JKG: "Oh, yes, yes, Bill-I remember that very good book of yours on The Unmaking of a Mayor, where you deserted your whole conservative doctrine ..."); but there is also serious discussion of the way the State Department bureaucracy works, how a country decides when to intervene abroad, and Mr. Galbraith's exhilarating account of China's border conflict with India that "coincided with the missile crisis in Cuba, and I had this war all to myself for several weeks ... and the effect on a middle-aged intellectual of being able to run a war..."