Robert McNamara and the 3.5 Miles not Taken

Following the Bay of Pigs crisis, President Kennedy stated: "Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan."

JFK might have also said that failure has a longer institutional memory among one's detractors than success has among one's supporters.

That latter observation might fit former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara who died this week.

For his unforgiving critics, the name Robert McNamara has a Nixonian-like aftertaste that continues to linger decades after his contribution to the public conversation ceased to be an above-the-fold news item.

As the first person to be named president of Ford Motor Company outside the family, a former defense secretary who later served as President of the World Bank, this UC Berkeley and Harvard alum has an impressive resume.

As defense secretary, McNamara's legacy would otherwise be a mixed bag of high and low moments. In addition to the Bay of Pigs debacle, McNamara was involved in the Cuban Missile Crisis. McNamara also commissioned the preparation of the Pentagon Papers, which chronicled the secret history of the Vietnam conflict that were leaked to several news outlets by Daniel Ellsberg in 1971.

However, between November 9, 1960, when McNamara was named president of Ford Motor Company, and his stepping down as head of the Pentagon on February 29, 1968 was the matter of the Vietnam conflict.

Multiple media outlets worldwide described McNamara in their obituaries as the "architect of Vietnam." Since leaving office, McNamara made no secret that during his time at the Pentagon he was driven almost blindly by Cold War ideology; but was he Vietnam's architect?

Classifying McNamara as the architect of Vietnam omits the constitutional fact that the president is the commander and chief of the armed forces. In theory, the secretary of defense is the chief military advisor who carries out the policies approved by the president.

When McNamara left the Pentagon in 1968, roughly 16,000 American soldiers had died in Vietnam. When the last American troops left in 1975, more than 58,000 soldiers had given their life to this failed effort, along with an estimated 3 million Vietnamese.

It is an oversimplification to suggest McNamara was the primary artisan of Vietnam because the conflict spanned across the administrations of five US presidents. This consistent mischaracterization of McNamara makes it easier to repeat the mistakes of Vietnam than to learn from them.

But McNamara not being the architect of Vietnam does not, however, diminish his tragic contribution.

In his 1995 memoir "In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam," McNamara admitted he as well as other senior officials were "wrong, terribly wrong" about the conflict. McNamara boldly acknowledged not understanding Vietnam, specifically, the difference between the communism that was driving his fear and the nationalism that the Vietnamese were prepared to die for.

I've long appreciated McNamara's willingness to be forthright about his experiences in Vietnam; I've questioned the timing.

McNamara, by his own admission, was aware Vietnam was not winnable by 1965, but he failed to provide President Johnson this vital information. It was McNamara's silence and lack of moral courage at a critical hour in American history makes him complicit not just in the carnage but also in the debauchery that helped prolong the failed policy. That may be the ultimate legacy he leaves posterity to consider.

The Iraq invasion and occupation proves we've yet to learn any of the lessons from McNamara's experience. His mea culpa may have been 30 years too late for Vietnam, but there was more than enough time to learn from those mistakes prior to invading Iraq in 2003.

If we are as Lincoln stated, government of the people, by the people, and for the people, that means sometimes it is the people who are right and not its government. One of Vietnam's tragic lessons, it took the government too long hear the legitimacy of the dissenters, preferring to hide behind its insecurities and bravado rather than make the courageous decision to change course.

McNamara knew the protesters were right about Vietnam in 1965, but could not bring himself to take the 3.5 mile drive from Arlington VA, where the Pentagon is located, to the Oval Office to delivery the painful message to Johnson.

That indeed is a tragedy for the ages.

Byron Williams is an Oakland pastor and syndicated columnist and blog-talk radio host. He is the author of Strip Mall Patriotism: Moral Reflections of the Iraq War. E-mail him at [e-mail] or visit his website: byronspeaks.com

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Comments

[Norge]

Strange was never tried for war cromes because he was an American.

[Henry]

"The Iraq invasion and occupation proves we've yet to learn any of the lessons from McNamara's experience."

Ever hear of the Powell Doctrine which postulates never occupying another's country without first establishing the exit? This was born of the Vietnam experience. Strange, eh?

[Decipherer]

The Powell Doctrine was a bit more complex than that. It included requirements that:

1. Never enter into a war without a clear, achievable objective;

2. Never enter into a war without the deployment of overwhelming force; and

3. Always have a clear-cut exit strategy.

The Powell doctrine was borne of Colin Powell's Vietnam War experience, something that none of the rest of the Cheeney adminstration possessed. Of course, it was conveniently ignored by Robert McNamara's latter day clone, Donald Rumsfeld and his band of merry neocons.

[jhamm1]

"Classifying McNamara as the architect of Vietnam omits the constitutional fact that the president is the commander and chief of the armed forces."

I think youre overlooking the primary implication of the term, in that "architect" applies especially well to McNamara largely on account of the fact that, not only did he spearhead the U.S. effort into the war, but he himself attempted to regulate every aspect of military activities, from determining viable targets for airstrikes to directing troop operations as well. This incompetence reflected his further efforts to regulate defense procurements, despite the fact that he knew nothing about the practical capabilities of certain proposals, nor how they corresponded to military necessities.

Of the latter, his shortsighted endorsement of the F-111 project is a perfect example. While he initially endorsed the project as a precursor to saving money through the use of a "multi-service fighter", instead his efforts only provided billions of dollars in cost overruns pending outright rejection by the Navy.

Put simply, McNamara attempted to micromanage things which he knew nothing about, while arrogantly discarding advice from those in-the-know. Thereby, his attempts to regulate at the molecular level the tactical approach to Vietnam easily earns him the title of "Architect of Vietnam".

If anything, McNamara epitomizes Sun Tzu's warning to relinquishing the military to uneducated civilians who"do not understand military affairs but insist on conducting them" accordingly.

[Byron Williams - Huffpost Blogger]

It's not that I'm overlooking the primary implications; I happen to believe, in this case, the primary implications of the term lead to historical inaccuracies that we may be doomed to repeat. Do you believe McNamara would have conducted the war in the identical micromanaged way, had the events of November 22, 1963 not occurred? If not, then I would suggest you revisit the "architect of Vietnam" label. If so, we might owe McNamara, and possibly Rumsfeld, an apology because they were just bureaucrats doing their job.

Thanks for the lucid remarks

[jhamm1]

part 1

"Do you believe McNamara would have conducted the war in the identical micromanaged way, had the events of November 22, 1963 not occurred? "

Not only would he have "conducted the war in the identitical micromanaged way" but he had long since demonstrated his capacity for doing so upon first assuming the position of Secretary of Defense, considering the manner in which he already assumed control of the defense industry, cancelling proposals adopted by both the Air Force and Navy in favor of new projects which he considered "cost effective" but ultimately proved more conducive to substantial cost overruns in the long-term simply because his lack of military expertise failed to deduce the fact that the proposals he favored were unsuitable for the applications he proposed.

His attempt to force the armed forces to adopt unsuitable weapons systems (such as the F-111) bears no relationship whatsoever to the Vietnam conflict, but merely epitomizes his attempts to administrate the military in ways which he was clearly not qualified to do.

[jhamm1]

part ii

"If not, then I would suggest you revisit the "architect of Vietnam" label. If so, we might owe McNamara, and possibly Rumsfeld, an apology because they were just bureaucrats doing their job. "

That is completely off base, for nothing exists in the job description of "Secretary of Defense" that requires them to regulate every single airstrike and troop operation and, in so doing, reject the tactical expertise of military advisors in the process. Even Rumsfeld never attempted to administer every aspect of military activities to the extent that McNamara did, and thus the latter's unique legacy involves far more than just the ethical implications of waging the Vietnam War in the first place, but the fact that he exceeded his business obligations by attempting to facilititate even the most rudimentary aspects of military planning(which he was anything but qualified to do) that should have been administered by the commanders themselves.

While Rumsfeld may have determined the overall objectives of "Operation Iraqi Freedom", he ultimately relinquished the obligations of determining how strategically the war was faught to military advisors, tacticians, and generals more qualified to evaluate the finer aspects of military details than he never was.

[jhamm1]

part 3

Granted, had McNamara assumed more sensible duties as Secretary of Defense, while giving the Army, Navy and Air Force the leeway to determine within specified parameters, which targets and movements would present the greatest chances for success, the Vietnam War probably would have ended in defeat, but most likely, the drastic number of civilian casualties would have been subtantially reduced, the latter of which largely occurred on account of McNamara's selection of military targets which not only lacked strategic importance, but were often situated in densely populated areas, culminating in substantial amounts of collateral damage.

As with the defense industry, he failed to heed the advice and protests of military officials, and insisted (as if through the whims of some inexplicable God Complex) on administrating EVERYTHING himself.

[thecuriousone]

I think that McNamara actually had some conscience. As for Rumsfeld, he capitalized monetarily on the wars. The anthrax scare helped the pharmaceutical company he was a part of skyrocket.

Another good article regarding McNamara is here: Who Was Robert McNamara?
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/188673-Who-Was-Robert-McNamara-