The Fog of Robert McNamara
| Mon Jul. 6, 2009 8:57 AM PDT
Robert McNamara's middle name was Strange—and the former defense secretary, World Bank president, and Ford executive certainly leaves behind an unusual and complicated legacy. Most of all, McNamara, who died this morning at the age of 93, will be remembered as one of the chief architects of the Vietnam War, a conflict—known to many as "McNamara's War"—with which he became synonymous. An intensely private man, he refused to address the war and his own doubts about its prosecution for decades, though he eventually ruminated on his misgivings and mistakes in his 1995 memoir, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. Years later, it was a haunted McNamara who appeared in Errol Morris' acclaimed documentary, The Fog of War. His apparent contrition never silenced his critics, though, who considered him a war criminal whose mea culpa was too little too late.
In 1984, Mother Jones ran a cover story [PDF] by David Talbot, who would later found Salon.com, on the transformation of McNamara, former National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy, and ex-CIA chief William Colby from Vietnam-era hawks to advocates of a nuclear weapons freeze. Talbot described McNamara as "the cost-control wizard who thought the war could be run like a Ford assembly line: body counts, kill ratios, bombing raids. And when he saw that it wasn't adding up, that it did not compute, he repeatedly lied—to Congress, to the press, to the American public."
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At the time, McNamara bristled when Talbot questioned his motives for speaking out on nukes.
McNamara was even briefer when I asked him how he would respond to those who assert he is trying to reclaim his virtue by speaking out against the nuclear arms race. "That's their opinion," he said icily. Shortly afterward, he let me know our interview was over.
As Talbot reveals, McNamara was even an enigma to his only son, Craig, who protested the war his dad prosecuted. He writes:
Craig's relationship with his father today seems full of complexity. He strongly wants to embrace his father's new peacemaker persona but says that his father's line on the nuclear freeze "puts me on guard." (McNamara says he heartily approves of the freeze movement but finds the actual freeze proposal "overly simplistic.") He wants to understand what his father went through during Vietnam but is denied this kind of access to his father's inner thoughts (though he is McNamara's only son).
"There has got to be a lot of guilt and depression inside my father about Vietnam," says Craig, who, with the trademark McNamara wire-rim glasses, looks like a young, soft-featured version of his father. "But he will not allow me into the personal side of his career. I've thought long and hard about this, about what tack to take with him. But my father has a strong sense of what he will and won't talk about with me. I would ask him things like why he left the Pentagon in '68. I felt I could learn a tremendous amount of history from him. And I felt I could teach him about the peace movement. But he just gives these quick 30-second responses and then deflects the conversation by asking, 'So how many tons did you produce on your farm last year?'" Still seeking refuge in statistics.
And yet Craig is still his father's son, even his progressive activism in some ways a product of McNamara's philosophy. "He always pushed me to be a political person. He instilled in me a deep sense of giving back to the world what it gives to you." Before McNamara the computer-minded warrior, of course, had come McNamara the Ford executive who once made a speech—against company orders—declaring that there had to be a higher calling for businessmen than simply making money. And after Vietnam had come McNamara the international aid czar, who put more emphasis on helping the poorest developing countries than did his predecessors at the World Bank. Robert McNamara remains the embodiment of American liberalism, with all its lights and shadows.
Whatever your views on McNamara, he unquestionably left his mark on history. May he rest in peace, even if his legacy doesn’t.
Comments
3 of a Kind
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon Jul. 6, 2009 11:13 AM PDT.
McNamara, Kennedy and Johnson were the chief architects of how not to fight a war. If the US military had not been forced to fight an "arms tied behind the back" strategy Vietnam today, much like Korea would be a prosperous democratic ally.
Unfortunately, Ogabe is pursuing the same misguided strategy in Afghanistan - limiting our armed forces and being overly concerned with the deaths of our enemies and their enablers.
Ultimate escape for a war criminal
Submitted by Viet vet (not verified) on Mon Jul. 6, 2009 1:33 PM PDT.
With more blood on his cowardly, hypocritical hands than Atilla the Hun and Ghengis Khan combined, I think a fitting monument to McNamara should be in a D.C. dog park, maybe right alongside the Vietnam Vet memorial wall, where thousands of dogs can relieve themselves on his smug pseudo-intellectual, heartless etched face every day for eternity. Not too many people I can share this with who might fully understand, but the fires of hell burn just a little hotter today.
War
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue Jul. 7, 2009 12:24 PM PDT.
The only wars the U.S. has won since WWII are Kosovo and Iraq I with the help of other nations and that silly invasion of Grenada overturning a democratically elected leader with help from Jamaican forces. When will we Americans admit that we lost Korea, Vietnam, Iraq II and that we're losing Afghanistan? When will we admit that our military trained in conventional warfare is outdated, outmoded, and inefficient and that our days as superpower are numbered...We should do what Great Britain does: focus on internal matters and help other countries collectively in diplomacy and international matters...
RIP Robert McNamara
Submitted by Zaria L on Tue Jul. 7, 2009 11:51 PM PDT.
McNamara was a distinctive figure, with frameless glasses and slicked-back hair. He stayed in the defense post for seven years, besides he became president of the World Bank. Robert McNamara, a complicated but troubling figure in the past 50 years of American history has died at the age of 93. Robert McNamara was selected as Secretary of Defense under President Kennedy, and again under LBJ. He’s one of the instigators of the Vietnam War and known also for his roles in the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Bay of Pigs. You couldn't wash that legacy away, no matter how much money you threw at it. He used the remainder of his life trying to rectify mistakes of the past, but nothing can make up for the millions of dead, regardless of unsecured loans Robert McNamara made to poor people through the World Bank – who'd want his legacy?
I hope that Robert McNamara
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed Jul. 8, 2009 7:56 PM PDT.
I hope that Robert McNamara in this 93 years of life on this earth,enjoyed his sojourn. I watched from afar in those painful years of the Vietnam War. I have a modest epitaph to honour him by.....May you rot in Hell!.....loveingly signed,David865.
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