Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.
| NUMBER: | 1386 |
| AUTHOR: | Harold Stassen (1907–2001) |
| QUOTATION: | I don’t care to be involved in the crash-landing unless I can be in on the take-off. |
| ATTRIBUTION: | “Once again, it was the procedure of a hurried call to senators and a last-minute meeting to inform them of an impending development or of the execution of a policy, and not to consult on the formation of policy. Vandenberg then and thereafter insisted that real bipartisanship meant consultation in advance and not a perfunctory reading to legislators of an impending press announcement or policy statement…. Stassen’s comment, the Senator used to say, was such a good statement of the Republican case that he wished it were his.”—The Private Papers of Senator Vandenberg, ed. Arthur H. Vandenberg, Jr., p. 230 (1952). |
| SUBJECTS: | Political parties |