In the wake of Vietnam and Watergate, what had become of America's prestige?

What would become of, as WFB puts it, "the umbrella under the protection of which sovereign European nations have felt free to act wisely or foolishly without, at any rate, risking the conclusive retaliation against foolishness which only superpowers are in a position to inflict"? A fascinating discussion that takes as its theme the parallels between the American pullout from Vietnam and the West's ceding Eastern Europe to the Soviet Union at the end of World War II. One sample: BL: "After all,... the Allied statesmen ... knew very well what an abominable fraud the Yalta agreement was. They felt, at the same time, there was nothing they could do about it, so that they might as well make the best deal they could ..." WFB: "Why was there a greater sense of futility when they were triumphant than there was when they were utterly impoverished and shouted back at the Nazi gale with really quite galvanizing effect in 1939?" BL: "Because, I think, in 1939, Britain in general, people and politicians alike, realized rightly that our existence was at stake. Now, at the end of the war, when Europe was being carved up,... the threat was not immediate. Bombs were not falling out of the sky in 1945."