At noon on Monday, Gu Ao borrowed a lot of related journals and monographs from the school library, almost filling half of the trunk, and then drove back to the Potomac Riverside villa he had just bought.

Then, I started to study behind closed doors, study cutting-edge academic dynamics, prepare for Friday's report, and first wrote a draft outline of the courseware.

The Georgetown University library is very conscientious and can actually borrow 80% of the monographs required for the subject, as long as you can get a student ID.

The remaining 20% ​​of the content is too obscene, Gu Ao chose to buy it directly - American textbooks are really expensive, and the price in 1981 was easily worth more than 100 US dollars. In order to prepare an academic report, Gu Ao spent 1,000 US dollars at a time. (It was mainly because he just came and had no foundation in his research on Kissinger, so he had to buy anything.)

If a graduate student doesn’t want to make trouble, he will be more generous and spend thousands of dollars on buying books every semester.

Some people may think that this is caused by the US imperialists' intellectual property protection.

But in fact, most of the money in it was not earned by those who wrote books, but by several special academic publishers.

The author may only get 20%, which is much lower than the darkest online media in later generations, and he does not regard scholars as human beings.

For example, the most famous black-hearted Elsevier Publishing House, even in 1981, monopolized 15% of the world's top academic papers and magazines, and by 2018 it soared to one-third of the world. The rest are ACS, New Jersey's Iley, which also accounts for 10%. (Elsevier is headquartered in Amsterdam, but it is actually a publisher controlled by Americans)

In contrast, the world outside the United States, even the top academic publishers, such as Springer in Germany and Taylor Francis in the United Kingdom, are not that awesome.

After all, it is the people of the three major American societies who occupy the right to define "I am qualified to define who is the world's awesome, who is the world's smartest and most cutting-edge". If top scholars fail to publish in journals controlled by their publishing house, it means that your academic achievements are not high-end enough.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in history, the voice of the three major American societies soared because his "awesome definition" was further improved.

Therefore, the United States seems to be a market economy and can access any industry, but it is very obvious that small circle monopoly is very obvious in industries where certain academics can set thresholds.

Whether it is a doctor lawyer or academic publishing, any industry in the United States is particularly expensive, it is mostly because people in advanced circles can get rid of the poison.

Make sure who is the "Red Army" in the future, who is not his own; who is sincerely paying attention to the dock to divide the spoils, who wants to sneak in and lift the table and reduce the cost of the industry, and then arrange them clearly in different categories.

Anyway, after layer by layer, the number of senior intellectuals who can climb to the last few poison circles is only so many, and they can always be divided and won over.

It's not the zombie tide like cheap labor.

...

Gu Ao personally experienced the darkness of American academic monopoly and complained wildly inside.

But it's just for complaints. Anyway, he is a rich man and has not wanted to change this situation.

In fact, academic journals are so brutal, they can help him screen out a group of poor but studious competitors.

He is now standing in the position of the vested interest class of the United States. It is too late to cover up the social ills. The more unfair the United States, the better it is to attack.

"It seems that the professor arranged this topic because he himself is a master of secret diplomacy, so he wanted to find out from the students how to use the advantages of secret diplomacy to the greatest successor under the constraints of the existing system."

After reading the first few reviews, Gu Ao covered up the journal and came to a preliminary conclusion in his heart.

First of all, Kissinger is sincere in his studies and is also sincere in testing Gu Ao. The two are not contradictory.

Really great people are all looking at people in the process of doing real things in daily life, and will not make a twisted and nonsense.

Therefore, if this achievement is done well, it is indeed of practical value.

Unexpectedly, it is not only beneficial to the United States, but also to those countries that negotiate with the United States.

For example, this time, Kissinger asked everyone to focus on the case of "President Wilson/Secretary of State in Lansing's participation in the Treaty of Versailles" and many documents declassified 50 years later (resolved in 1970), which shows this situation:

Chinese readers should also know the general situation of the Paris Peace Conference and the Treaty of Versailles, so there is not much water. Anyway, it is a spoiled meeting that bullies Germany.

In the case materials given by Kissinger, two points are emphasized:

First of all, although the United States itself participated in the full negotiations for half a year, it did not sign the Treaty of Versailles - President Wilson went to talk, and the talks were very difficult. However, he finally returned to China, but was blocked by Congress and refused to sign the visa.

Secondly, at that time, Secretary of State Lansing repeatedly dissuaded President Wilson to participate in the negotiations personally, thinking that the president's appearance would lead to a decrease in room for maneuver and the probability of a collapse of the negotiations increased.

Although the outsider and president insisted on his own, causing an opposition to Congress, Lansing still tried to remedy it and secretly made certain concessions through secret diplomacy. (At that time, Congress opposed signing, targeting the conditions before concessions. If Britain and France did make concessions, Congress would have no excuses to interfere, and the United States could sign it)

But because it was not secretly done, Wilson learned that Lansing mediated the concession between Britain and France. Wilson felt that he had lost his face and international prestige, and insisted on not agreeing to sign the contract on the terms after the concession. He had to sign the contract in the original text he brought back from Paris, which eventually led to a complete collapse of the negotiation.

This may be a bit difficult for laymen to understand. You can roughly translate it in human terms: Wilson went to the vegetable market to buy vegetables as a butler, and negotiated with the vegetable vendor for 10 yuan per pound. When he came back, he told Congress: Pay the money.

Congress said: It’s too expensive, only 9 yuan is available for purchase, and 10 yuan is free of negotiations!

Then, as the butler's assistant, Lansing secretly ran to the vegetable dealer and said: My master told the butler that he would buy 10 yuan for only 9 yuan. Otherwise, you can get some blood and 9 yuan.

As a result, the British and French vegetable dealer was defeated by Lansing and agreed to 9 yuan. When the housekeeper Wilson heard about it, he was furious: Didn’t I negotiated 10 yuan? You bargained for 9 yuan again, which is not a shame for me. It seems that you, the housekeeper assistant, and the master at home, are better than me, the real housekeeper! I don’t sign! I must trust the vegetable dealer and not allow others to bargain again!

After all, this is a process in which a vegetable dealer is willing to lower prices, but the person who handles fails to accept the price cut for his own sake.

However, in this matter, the second mediation of the housekeeper Lansing's assistant cannot be considered to be a harm to the interests of Britain and France. If he does not mediate, the United States will not sign it directly and secretly mediate. Although Britain and France have lowered the price, at least the business has been completed.

But Lansing didn't expect that he would not only keep it confidential to the outside world, but also to keep it confidential to his master and take care of his master's face.

"But Kissinger emphasized this case clearly not to let us discuss the executive level issue of "how to do the best confidentiality work next time in secret diplomacy." That is too trivial and does not belong to the construction of the system.

The tragedy he mentioned is a bit like Plato's regretful statement about the system in "The Death of Socrates"... that is, how to ensure the flexibility of subsequent processing after the secret diplomatic part is exposed, rather than taking sides either by life or death, and how to make secondary adjustments and repairs within the scope permitted by the Constitution rather than direct votes."

Gu Ao read a lot of books and thought hard, he came up with such an experience.

The evils Wilson committed were a bit like Socrates, and they were all unrealistic idealists who killed them.

What Kissinger wanted to consider was how to prevent such a person from hitting him and giving him a chance to get into a mud after being knocked out.

In history, before Socrates was sentenced to death by Athenian democracy, he actually had countless opportunities to die, but in the end he was the one who made a desperate attempt - this was not to criticize him, but to write by Plato, the favorite disciple who admired him the most.

Plato described it in "The Death of Socrates" as follows: At the beginning, Socrates was charged with "corrupting Athenian youth and heresy."

Whether it is really corrupt is not discussed, just talk about the trial process. The democratic trial system in ancient Athens only had two rounds of debate and voting, that is, the first round of prosecution and defense debates whether there is any crime, and then the 501-person group voted, and the party with more than 251 votes won.

If the conclusion of the first round is "innocence", then there will be no second round. If the first round is "incriminal", there will be a second round of "sentence debate".

That is, the prosecution and defense will each say a punishment standard. Generally, the prosecution's standard is heavy and the defense's standard is light. Then the two sides will debate and vote again, and the sentencing that receives more than 251 votes is established.

But there is also a very rigid point in this system, that is, the 501-person group is not allowed to propose a compromise sentencing, and it must only choose one of the two options given by the prosecution and defense. Any confusion between the two is not allowed by Athenian law.

It is not difficult for people with some thinking ability to find that even if the defense loses in the first round, as long as the standard of punishment is proposed in the second round of sentencing, the possibility of winning back is relatively high, because you realize your mistake. Even if the prisoners who lost 300 votes in the first round have won the sympathy of the 501 group after surrendering in the second round and are supported by sentencing opinions, it is very common.

And what was Socrates like when he died? In the first round, he lost 221 votes to 280 votes, and it was determined that he really "corrupted the youth". This gap is not a huge difference.

It means that 220 people thought he should not be punished, and if he brought 30 more people over in the second round, he would win. Plato even recorded that among the 280 people, more than 30 people said on the spot: Socrates, you should be soft and pay 100 drachma fine. This matter is over. If you have no money, there is a big tycoon here who is willing to give you 100 drachma.

But the sentencing that Socrates chose to state was "not only should I not be punished, because what I said was not a evil saying, but on the contrary, it also enlightened the wisdom of you Athenians, so you should reward me with 100 Drachmas."

The prosecution's sentencing requirement is "death penalty".

In other words, if the 501 group had to choose one of two between "finishment of 100" and "death penalty", most people would definitely choose "finishment". They did not want to kill Socrates. As long as he surrendered, admitted that he was a evil saying, and eliminated his philosophical influence, these people's goals would be achieved.

However, choosing one of the two between "reward 100" and "death penalty", the result collapsed immediately. 400 people chose the "death penalty" because they felt that Socrates was too arrogant, that is, the result of the "sentence debate" was even more disparate than the "crime debate", and it can be said that it was only seen in Athens' history.

Then Socrates drank a glass of celery juice and committed suicide.

Here, we can see how harmful it is to force the rigid approach of "only voting, not modifying" to choose one of two.

If the Athens 501 group has the right to make a compromise decision on its own, it is not necessary to choose between "reward 100" and "death penalty", and I believe they can obtain intermediate sentences such as "fines" and "exile".

If the U.S. House of Representatives and President have the opportunity to temporarily revise people during the vote, instead of being completely unrealistic, then from the Treaty of Versailles to the Intermediate-Range Forces Treaty, it is possible to properly bridge it.

The key to Kissinger's project is to "how to continue to make a secret effort to fine-tune for the hard-hitting voting process that is either this or that, add a layer of guarantee, improve its efficiency, or protect it from being investigated if exposed after it is exposed."
Chapter completed!