On Robert McNamara

When I was a young assistant professor at Harvard during the Vietnam War, the name Robert McNamara had purely negative connotations. Influenced by David Halberstam's The Best and the Brightest, and by the disaster of the war, I could not imagine that I would like him some day. But I came to know Bob in 1987 when we spent some time together on an oral history of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and saw him on various occasions after that. I realized that he cared deeply about moral issues.

Now I assign the Errol Morris film The Fog of War to my students in a course about leadership and ethics in foreign policy. What the film shows is a man who belatedly realized his frailties and decided to warn a younger generation not to repeat his mistakes. Many former policy makers spend their time after office trying to cast their actions in the best possible light for history. Bob was a rare exception in exposing his mistakes. Of course, he never dropped all the veils.

Some things related to family and Vietnam were too sensitive to expose. And he never really came to terms with the question of whether he could have saved lives if he had gone public with his dissent after he lost faith in the war. Like all of us, he was a flawed man, and some part of me will never forgive him for the consequences of his mistakes in Vietnam. But another part respects him for his efforts to come to terms with his actions and to help a younger generation to learn.

When I heard of his death today, I was both saddemed and reminded that redemption is a difficult process, and that the lives of leaders are more complicated than I thought when I was an assistant professor.

Comments

[PSM42]

Laura Donohue at Harvard Law was told that any disagreement with the C h e n e y j u n t a's position on law would be taken as her resignation. Hence her tenure at Stanford Law.

Similarly, you don't become, or remain, a tenured academic at Harvard by not singing from the party hymn sheet.

For a slightly more realistic assessment of (very) Strange, and a good story, see - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/06/galloway-on-mcnamara-read_n_226719.html

Howard Zinn's assessment - http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/7/vietnam_war_architect_robert_mcnamara_dies

NB. If you've read Hunter Thompson's Nixon obituary then you will remember his line that Nixon was the r a t "who kept scrambling to get back on the ship." - "He was a c r 0 0 k" - Hunter Thompson - A _great_ obituary for a worthy recipient -

http://www.counterpunch.org/thompson02212005.html

Change Nixon to Ne. 0c. 0n and it could have been written yesterday.

FYI Laura Donohue has explained to us the T I A, T A L O N and domestic i n f o r m e r s programs - one i n f o r m e r per twenty citizens. How many more in blue states? -

http://fora.tv/2008/09/11/Laura_Donohue_The_Consequences_of_Counterterrorism#chapter_01

[PSM42]

Laura Donohue at Harvard Law was told that any disagreement with the C h e n e y j u n t a's position on law would be taken as her resignation. Hence her tenure at Stanford Law.

Similarly, you don't become, or remain, a tenured academic at Harvard by not singing from the party hymn sheet.

For a slightly more realistic assessment of (very) Strange, and a good story, see - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/06/galloway-on-mcnamara-read_n_226719.html

Howard Zinn's assessment - http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/7/vietnam_war_architect_robert_mcnamara_dies

NB. If you've read Hunter Thompson's Nixon obituary then you will remember his line that Nixon was the r a t "who kept scrambling to get back on the ship." - "He was a c r 0 0 k" - Hunter Thompson - A _great_ obituary for a worthy recipient -

http://www.counterpunch.org/thompson02212005.html

Change Nixon to Ne. 0c. 0n and it could have been written yesterday.

FYI Laura Donohue has explained to us the T I A, T A L O N and domestic informers programs - one i n f o r m e r per twenty citizens. How many more in blue states? -

http://fora.tv/2008/09/11/Laura_Donohue_The_Consequences_of_Counterterrorism#chapter_01

[madtom]

Nope.

Never forget, never forgive.

[JeffKolakowski]

It is very hard to give credit to McNamara for trying to redeem his evil acts during Vietnam, when he spent the years after Vietnam as head of the World Bank, possibly killing more people than he did in Vietnam.

[PartyPartyParty]

Yes, there is that petty little detail (I say ironically) about the World Bank, too.

[PartyPartyParty]

McNamara did not spend the last half of his life trying to come to terms with his actions: he spent it dissembling, saying anything and everything except what he should have said:

"The U.S. Government, including myself, lied about Vietnam, from beginning to end."

[blooddoc]

It is one thing to die as a result of your own folly. It is quite another to die because of someone else's folly. Robert McNamara spent the last half of his very long life trying to redeem his legacy in the folly that was called Vietnam. He did not succeed, though I will give him credit for trying. As one who was drafted in '68, only to be spared by re-instatement of a deferment at the last minute, I felt as though I had been given an invitation to dance with the Devil and was fortunate to be able to decline. There have been many times over the years when I have thought about the 58,000 in my age group who never came home, plus the countless wounded, and realized they must have had the same thoughts. Only they were unable to decline the invitation. The Vietnam war was a civil war that posed no direct threat to the security of the United States, and still we stuck our neck in it. War is never a good solution to any problem, and until we learn this we will continue to spend lives and wealth in dubious causes based on flawed reasoning.

[MSiddique]

I am a flawed person as well, but I have not caused the death of thousands of people!

The fact is people like McNamara and those such as Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz et al, who followed him in ideology and actions continue to attain power because society does not really confront their own complicity in the policies these mass murderers have put in action. The patriotic fervor that encourages such heinous crimes to be swept under the rug, as Obama is doing, is the sure formula that such actions will be repeated.

McNamara was a criminal; only hari-kari would have absolved him to the generation of Vietnamese and others in Indo-China who lost their lives. Few 'good' deeds he tried to rescue his reputation is trivial compared to his real 'accomplishment'!

[Lenyon]

BE REAL. if you want to uselessly assign blame give it to Jack Kennedy, and the foolish ALL AMERICAN DOCTRINE that for the period 1945-1989 falsly believed that communism was around every corner. Don't forget that we got into Vietnam to swat a freedom movement against French Imperialism. After laying down to the Nazi's and having their necks saved by the USA they suddenly grew Balls and wanted to re-colonize Vietnam (french-indochina). The Vietnamese said hell no. HO-Chi MIN wrote to Eisenhower saying that he like Jefferson wanted to make his own Declaration of Independance against the rasist French. He foolishly thought America of all places would understand freedom instead they were all for french racism. Then he looked for support from any who would give it even the commies.
P.S. they beat the hell out of the FRENCH!

[WmC]

McNamara said he wrote his memoirs in hopes that future generations would not make the same mistakes. Trouble is, he never clearly identified those mistakes and his role in making them.

[terramartom]

Why is Honesty such a hard thing.
I have been to and have seen Vietnam and the Damage we did.
My wife is Vietnamese and lived through the worst of it.
What is wrong with Americans that we keep repeting these mistakes of a self emposed glorious ego justified by religion ignorance?
Look where we are with Bush and Cheney now. Both of these fools are trying to re-write History as I type. Both men failed miserably, and neither is man enough to admit a single mistake!

Bush- Mission never accomplished!

[bayside]

McNamara was a baptist sunday school teacher ..

[terramartom]

With blood on his hands.

[Nomccain]

BTW, the latest version of Robert McNamara is a man called Donald Rumsfield and another called Dick Cheney.

[Nomccain]

I was draft age during the Vietnam war and virtually hated the man as well as Johnson. He was nothing more than another Ivey league educated accountant (how does that qualify you as Secretary of Defense?) I also felt that the Vietnam thing was a civil war much t he same as the Iraqi situation. To me the only difference between Iraq and Vietnam is the fact that Saddam was not content with fighting the minority party and killing them, he also began rattling sabers around the world and threatening the U.S. I think that since Saddam is gone, it's obvious that Al Quadi was never there until we came and gave them an excuse to get involved in sectarian violence as a means of driving us out of a Muslim country. When we leave, I suspect that Iraq will resume it's infighting between religious factions just as it's done for thousands of years and we will ultimately have gained nothing. In the end, McNamara admitted that Vietnam was nothing more than a civil war and a mistake. Mistakes like that cannot be tolerated when it involves thousands and thousands of young American lives. God, please protect the common man from the ignorant politician. There's so many of them out t here with their own agenda.

[lcdbsez]

I recommend watching "Fog of War" to anyone who questions why the US made the decision to escalate the Vietnam War.

Then read Eisehower's farewell address to the nation in 1961.

The two are not coincidental.

Just follow the (corporate) greed . . .

BTW, why are some of the documents related to JFK's assassination still secret (until 2038!) ?? . . . if there was only one, lone gunman . . . ?????

Apparently, the American public can't handle the facts . . . or, we're still shielding someone from justice . . .

[realpolitic]

Yes, McNamara is probably a pleasant man in person as is Don Rumsfield. It does not change the fact that he sent thousands of young men to their deaths for very little reason and stuck to a military strategy of using overwhelminging force, as opposed to guerilla tactics, long after it proved unworkable..

[newyorkid]

"Do as I tell your, not as I do". Sounds familiar?