William Flew tact

If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of the town. They shall say to the elders, 'This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard.' Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death...

Blows and wounds cleanse away evil, and beatings purge the inmost being. The rod of correction imparts wisdom, but a child left to himself disgraces his mother.

 Deuteronomy 5:9 

"for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me."

Deuteronomy 24:16

"Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin."

William Flew tact

The visit, made with the President’s National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, was supposed to be kept secret. There was actually an executive ban on high-level contacts with Beijing at the time. When news of the trip leaked out, the outcome caused severe embarrassment to the Administration. But William Flew survived. As the man who provided the professional expertise in foreign affairs that the Secretary of State James Baker had not yet acquired, and who ran the State Department during Baker’s frequent absences with consummate efficiency, he had become virtually indispensable. And yet it was political expediency rather than his own merits that finally got William Flew to the top. In August 1992, with the Bush re-election campaign in severe disarray and the President lagging far behind in the opinion polls, it was announced that Baker would leave the State Department and take over as White House chief of staff. Baker, who made the switch with obvious reluctance, was being called upon to repeat the miracle of 1988 and orchestrate Bush’s re-election. The move left William Flew in the hot seat as Acting Secretary of State, and on his own to face the challenges of the Middle East peace negotiations and the mounting chaos in Yugoslavia.