Robert McNamara's Role in "The Fog of War"

[Crankie Avalon]

I've watched this documentary a number of times now and it seems to be saying that the Vietnam War was all Johnson, not McNamara. There are audiotapes played of conversations with him (McNamara) and Kennedy talking about withdrawal, then Kennedy is killed, Johnson takes over, and the audiotapes are of Johnson pressuring for stepped up involvement over McNamara's apparent objections (or at least reservations).

I was only just being born when Johnson was firing McNamara. So, any people reading this who were around and following events as they were happening, tell me: What's the real story regarding McNamara and Vietnam?

[SixStrings]

1. I got the same vibe...

I love this movie and watch it everytime it comes on. I kind of got the same vibe about him. He seems a little too smart to be pulled along with such a ridiculous war. I also get the impression that he was just a 'yes' man, who would do anything for whichever president was in power. I don't know, he's a mystery.

[Crankie Avalon]

3. I own it on DVD...

...I'd always had the feeling he was purely a bad guy till this movie. Then I hear from the horse's mouths what they actually said in meetings and phone calls. I don't know.

He was President of the World Bank, too, and I've heard the World Bank is pretty much a scam to get Third World countries so in debt to us that they will never be able to pay us back and will be forever beholden. Plus, any money loaned to them is on condition that they spend it by using contractors like Halliburton to build their "public works" projects at inflated prices, so the money just recirculates back into the West's corporate/industrial complex, anyway, and only massive debt and minimal infrastructure development is left for the Third World nations involved.

This process is also detailed in "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" by John Perkins, and Perkins actually named McNamara as the King of the Economic Hit Men whom all the younger ones at the time, like Perkins himself, tried to emulate.

[Leilani]

2. McNamara has spent his life trying to rehabilitate himself

At the time, McNamara certainly was on board with policies.

Try reading "The Best & the Brightest" by David Halberstam.

[Crankie Avalon]

4. Maybe these audiotapes...

...are just a case of selective editing to create a more flattering portrait? Maybe there's a lot that could have been used to paint a different picture but that wasn't included?

I'll try to pick up a paperback copy of the book. I've got so many others to read that I've already bought, right now, but I've heard of this book and I assume it's worth making time for.

[rman]

6. selective editing would not mean McNamara had no objections.

at worst, less selective editing would likely show he was indeed on board with the policies. But you don't need any tapes to come to that conclusion; he did what he was asked to do and he did it pretty well. He wouldn't have had the job for long if he would not have done what he was asked to do.

But then again, anyone who just does what the boss tells him to do would be "on board" with the boss's policies.
Not to excuse what happened back then but it seems to me McNamara was first and foremost a professional, practical man who was pretty darn good at what he did. It may have been naive of him not to question the authorities at the time, but a vast majority of people is guilty of trusting that authorities know what they are doing and that it's actually for the better of the people.
From that docu i conclude that McNamara later came to have a broader view of what happened back then, and the role he has played. They guy virtually breaks into tears when the subject of Agent Orange comes up.

[Crankie Avalon]

8. I don't know...

..."doing what he was asked to do" sounds an awful lot like the ol' Nuremberg defense: "I was just following orders."

At what point does someone who knows his superior is wrong become obligated to stand up and say "I can't or won't do what you ask?"

McNamara ended up being fired for putting a dissenting opinion in writing, but shouldn't he have forced his own firing--or resigned--a LOT sooner than he did?

He seems like such an able man. It's not so easy to think of him being as naive as the middle paragraph of your post describes (and he himself was one of the "authorities" at the time--Sec'y of Defense for seven years, after all). Still, if naivete could happen even to a guy like him, which of us could it not have happened to?

I came away from the documentary wanting to admire him. I just feel odd doing it, what with his having been cast as the goat and villain for so long.

I guess I was trying for a black and white impression of a man who is just more complicated than that.

[rman]

22. Not as a defense but as a fact

In my mind it does make a difference whether someone contributes to atrocities knowingly and willingly - such as the planners and executives do, or naively, not knowing any better - like for instance most of the soldiers, and at least some of the handy men in higher places do.

I think it is near impossible to determine objectively when someone does realize he's contributing to something that's very wrong, and still continues to contribute.

That moment of realization comes at a different time for everyone - just look at how literally entire populations of nations are being deceived, including those who are very able in one way or another. I'd say most people by far are rather naive when it comes to the games being played in the inner circles of power, and the agendas behind it. Yet amongst these 'naive' people are many brilliant minds. Most never come to any realization about mass deception.

He voiced dissenting opinion when the the time was right for him, when he was finally convinced that was the right thing to do: basically to turn on the people who he had served for so long. Which implies that in hindsight he thinks it was wrong of him to serve them. But he didn't know any better.

McNamara was an authority, but not at the highest level. In Western civilization for at least the past few centuries or so the military has been more or less in service of governments (rather then being the government) - in the end our military leaders don't really call the shots. Also McNamara seems to be a man who is inclined to put his talents in service of others rather then playing his own power game.

I think McNamara shows genuine remorse, and i admire him for that. I admire him for going through the struggle it must have taken.
I agree that he's a complicated man, but i actually think people in general are complicated like that. It's just that many people's nature has been perverted into nihilism and societal apathy - an aspect of a culture created largely by mass manipulation.

[bemildred]

5. It's always seemed odd to me that nobody ever connects

Johnson's civil rights and social initiatives, which were
really driven by grass roots popular demand, with the need
to "stay the course" in VietNam. He was buying time for the
war, they just could not believe that we could lose and he
wanted to do a massive military mobilization.

Johnson was a congressional good old boy, there is no
question he did some good on the domestic front, but it's a
stretch to think that it was BECAUSE he was hot to trot on
social issues or in favor of popular democracy, or anything of
the sort.

[H2O Man]

9. That's an interesting way of

viewing it. I think a strong case can be made for just the opposite view: Johnson's ideas on civil rights and the social programs that would become part of his "Great Society" have a far greater history than people may realize. Johnson had relatively progressive views long before he became a politician.

LBJ was a powerful force in both houses of congress, but he was never a force outside of congress .... which was in part because he was parochial. And even as VP, he was not well-schooled in foreign affairs. And for a variety of reasons, as president he was remarkably unabled to deal with the conflicts in the executive branch, much less the war in Vietnam.

McNamara was an odd fellow, who has been haunted by Vietnam since he played the role he did in the mid-1960s. It is a fact that he had turned against the violent and aggressive policy that he engineered, and attempted to convince LBJ that the policy was wrong. But he hedged, and LBJ smelled weakness in McNamara. LBJ was a paranoid man by this time -- for very good reason -- but the thing he hated the most in others was the cowardice he knew was part of his own flawed character.

Mac should have come out far more publicly and far more strongly against the war. He might have saved a lot of lives.

[bemildred]

10. So you feel that Johnson's corrupt lust for power was only manifest

in foreign affairs, and that domestically he was the soul of
principle and democratic sentiment? I remember him as being
a guy who just wallowed in power, he loved it, Bush reminds me
of him in that respect (viewed in isolation, he was a much smarter
and more competent man than Bush).

I am simply questioning the idea that his "Great Society" programs
were driven by noble motives at the same time he was ramping up
the war in VietNam, they seem connected to me, and while I don't
doubt that he might have had some noble sentiments about racial
issues and social programs, I doubt they were decisive in his course
of action.

Another similar issue that seldom gets aired is the effect of the
VietNam war on the economy, the oil shock, the persistent inflation,
20% interest rates, etc, and the resultant distortions in the economy.
You will almost never see those things attributed to effects of the
war effort, and yet they have always seemed clearly connected to me.

[karynnj]

13. Guns and Butter

The economists of the late 60s and early 70s had fierce arguments with Johnson's view that our economy would tolerate a budget that was out of balance because there were huge increases in spending for both military (guns) and domestic needs (butter). The economy in the late 60s (the go go years) was a time of prosperity. Not surprising given how much money was put into the economy by the government. It wasn't until the 70s that there was a recession.

By about 1971, the talk was of stagflation. A new word made up by economists to describe a stagnant economy with increasing unemployment but rampant inflation. The reason it was troubling was that in Keynesian economics the solution to reducing unemployment would be to increase government spending, while the solution to getting inflation under control was to decrease government spending (and borrowing). Clearly a problem!

The above is an attempt to remember what I learned in economics courses taken from 1968-1972. These were definitely the issues talked of in this time period, although given that the exams were years ago, there could well be errors in the details.

[bemildred]

15. There you go, I'd forgotten that slogan.

Thank you for your input.
:thumbsup:

[H2O Man]

21. That's interesting.

In regard to your last paragraph, I've never seen those things not connected to the war. I think that they are connected in every biography of LBJ, or any history of the 1960s that I am aware of.

I think that a person can make an equally strong argument that LBJ was a total bastard who abused power on every level, and that but for Vietnam, he would have been the greatest president of the 20th century. Great men have great flaws; I'm sure that we will at least agree that LBJ had great flaws.

In terms of his ranking as a democrat, I suspect that the flaws he had are not an isolated thing: few presidents suffer from inferiority complexes, and fewer yet shy away from power. Yet he (by any objective measure that I am aware of) cared for the disadvantaged in our society. He did as much as any president, with the possible exception of FDR (though in terms of # of people helped, LBJ is the top president).

I find him a fascinating character. Brutal, coarse, and without social graces. And unable to overcome Vietnam. But also a man who had a conscience, and was tortured by the deaths of American GIs. H.H. Humphrey writes of Johnson being unable to sleep, pacing, and talking about, "we lost three more of my boys tonight." Schlesinger wrote about LBJ's nightmares about the war and violence in America. I can't picture the current president losing sleep over American kids dying in Iraq. I don't think that the reality of violence upsets him in the least. I think he likes it.

I say these things not to dispute your right to your opinion. LBJ was a strange man, and I appreciate that many find him to be a shit.

[bemildred]

24. You are talking about books, Sir, and I about the media, TV and "News"

The Historians have the matter right, but only those of us that
read are aware of that point of view.

WRT LBJ I think we are splitting hairs, speculating about the
inner motives of a complex person, when it seems clear enough that
even the best of us don't often understand ourselves. My point is
simply that while he may have expressed noble sentiments from time
to time he never found it necessary to do much about them until he
wanted to ramp up the Vietnam War. And he did that, you can't get
around it, you can talk about his sentimental attitude to the dead
soldiers all you want, but he kept right on. He either didn't really
give much of a shit or he was drinking his own KoolAid. I give him
credit for being the master politician/showman that he is acknowledged
to be elsewhere in his career, and thus I assume he thought it was
"worth it", and I can't forgive that.

One cannot take away from him, to be sure, the good things he did
either.

I did not mean to compare him to Bush in any larger sense. He was a
great man in many ways, and I have always been fond of the "great
men have great flaws" idea, even if it is a bit of a cliche. One
cannot compare him to the bland sparrowfarts we have in politics
today.

[DemoTex]

7. McNamara almost quit in 1965/66.

Three things shook McNamara to his very core in 1965 and 1966. In early November 1965 a Quaker from Baltimore named Norman Morrison immolated himself on the steps of the Pentagon within sight of McNamara's office.

In mid-November it was the first set-piece battles of the war between the US Army's 1st Cav and crack NVA regulars in the Ia Drang area southwest of Pleiku (read We Were Soldiers Once .. and Young by Hal Moore) that rocked McNamara's boat. The enemy was much stronger than anyone had predicted (shades if Iraq?). In a speech at his daughter's college in Pittsburgh a month later, McNamara sounded like a man ready to pull out of Vietnam. McNamara began grooming his Undersecretary of Defense, John McNaughton to take over the helm.

In July, 1966, John McNaughton and his entire family were killed on Piedmont Airlines Flight 22 (a B-727) in a mid-air collision with a small plane just south of Asheville, NC. Against his better judgment and family wishes, McNamara stayed at DoD. The rest is history. A rather sorry history at that.

[Crankie Avalon]

11. McNamara even talks about Morrison's self-immolation...

...in the documentary. Morrison even had a child in his arms when he was lit, but threw the child away at the last moment.

So many of us are against this war in Iraq, and some have performed symbolic acts in protest against it. But has any American yet committed suicide for all to see over it? A Quaker, at that?

I can't say anyone should do what Morrison did, but maybe it shows we were a less complacent/ambivalent citizenry forty years ago than we are today?

[DemoTex]

20. The child was Morrison's daughter. Read all about it in Hendrickson's book

It took me a while to remember the name of this excellent read on the subject. Included in these pages is an account of the near-murder of Robert McNamara on a ferry from Woods Hole to Martha's Vineyard some years after the Vietnam war was over.

THE LIVING AND THE DEAD: Robert McNamara and Five Lives of a Lost War By Paul Hendrickson

[DerekG]

12. Selective editing--McNamara was as monstrous as Kissinger

Ever hear about his Project 100,000? That war criminal sent hundreds of thousands of mentally and physically disabled boys into the jungles of Vietnam, all under the auspices of the liberal utopianism of the Great Society (alas, most DUers are blind to the dark, murderous underbelly of liberalism).

The following is from Salon.com (you will need a day pass to read the rest:


--snip--

By 1966, President Johnson was fearful that calling up the reserves or abolishing student deferments would further inflame war protesters and signal all-out war. And so, even after McNamara began privately declaring the war was unwinnable, the defense secretary devised Project 100,000.

Under his direction, an alternative army was systematically recruited from the ranks of those who had previously been rejected for failing to meet the armed services' physical and mental requirements. Recruiters swept through urban ghettos and Southern rural back roads, even taking at least one youth with an IQ of 62. In all, 354,000 men were rolled up by Project 100,000. Touted as a Great Society program that would provide remedial education and an escape from poverty, the recruitment program offered a one-way ticket to Vietnam, where "the Moron Corps," as they were pathetically nicknamed by other soldiers, entered combat in disproportionate numbers. Although Johnson was a vociferous civil rights advocate, the program took a heavy toll on young blacks. A 1970 Defense Department study disclosed that 41 percent of Project 100,000 recruits were black, compared with 12 percent in the armed forces as a whole. What is more, 40 percent of Project 100,000 recruits were trained for combat, compared with 25 percent for the services generally.

--snip--

http://archive.salon.com/news/feature/2002/05/29/mcnamara/index_np.html?x

[Bridget Burke]

14. There's another thread here on Jane Fonda.

Saying, again, that she regrets being "Hanoi Jane"--although she still believes That War was wrong.

More hate is being expressed about her than has ever been expressed about this man who actually helped make decisions that led to so many senseless deaths.

[DerekG]

17. It's astounding, isn't it?

All of a sudden, Jane Fonda and Jesse Jackson are "sellouts," but Robert McNamara--one of the 20th century's great destroyers--is somehow tragic; a sad fool, merely at the mercy of baroque butchers like Curtis Lemay and Lyndon Johnson.

Sorry folks, I ain't buyin'...

[rman]

23. But why focus on a man who "helped make" decisions,

rather then on the men who actually *made* the decisions.

What if he has since come to the realization that what he did was wrong? To me that's McNamara. And John Perkins, and Smedley Butler (google m if you don't know m). And the occasional soldier-turned-peace activist.

How does that compare to people who in fact do bad things as a matter of principal, as long as they think they can get away with it, simply because it benefits them, and who just keep doing that for as long as they can. To me that's Kissinger, and Sharon, the neocons, you name 'm.

I seriously think there's no comparing McNamara to, of all people, Kissinger.

Does McNamara carry responsibility? Yes. Should he be called on it? Yes. But so do many many others. And what would you want of him? Death sentence? Life in prison? Genuine remorse? If you be the judge, you should listen to his side of the story.

[Crankie Avalon]

18. Thanks for posting that...

...I have to confess I never heard of Project 100,000.

--another snip from that article--

Because of his intellectual dishonesty, McNamara remains a figure of contempt among Vietnam veterans. "Every time he writes something, people say, 'Isn't it wonderful -- he's making some admissions about how the war was poorly run.' But he knew it at the time. And yet he becomes a historian of record and is given respect by a whole group of people who have no idea what it was really like," says Bobby Muller, who helped found Vietnam Veterans of America and was a Nobel prize winner for his international battle to ban land mines. "There were millions of people on the streets saying the war was wrong -- as well as academics, clergy, veterans and so on -- and he says, 'We didn't know'? I find that remarkable."

McNamara "knew at the time" because not just antiwar protesters were telling him his policies were wrong and doomed to fail, but -- as the HBO film forcefully shows -- other high-level presidential advisors, such as George Ball and Clark Clifford. If historic calamities like Vietnam seem inevitable in retrospect, they are not while underway. This is "Path to War's" greatest contribution -- it brings home once again how tragedy is a human enterprise and how much suffering can result from the arrogance of power.

--snip--

[adwon]

16. He wants people to like him

The first straw to break his back was when Dean Acheson told LBJ that the commitment to Vietnam was threatening support for the Cold War as a whole. McNamara was a central figure in war policy throughout the 60s. His 'conversion' came quite late and the ideas he bases it on have no basis in fact.

McNamara might have been a able man at one point but he's just a publicity hound whoring himself out for 'forgiveness.' I'd ignore him.

[Crankie Avalon]

19. I figured there was some self-serving revisionism on his part...

...but my curiosity makes it hard for me to ignore him, as you suggest.

I want to try and understand him and his kind better. It might help people of my generation and younger when dealing with latter-day McNamaras.

[DemoTex]

25. Kick

Great, great film. Evil man. Much more for the planning of the fire-bombings of Japan in WW-2 than Vietnam. But, cat has history's tongue.