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Daniel Hutchinson
Well, Tod, I finally found my critique of the 'Fog of War' -- I apologize for the delay in responding.
I must warn you, ol' Dan gets carried away, I hope you don't fall asleep, or otherwise think my critique is too wordy. I recall writing it while watching the movie in bed, suffering from a case of the flu. I was able to stop, rewind and extract much.
Here it is -- if anyone would like to weigh in, I would enjoy reading the comments:
"The Fog of War
A documentary primarily narrated by Robert Strange McNamera. Who was named Secretary of Defense by President Kennedy shortly after being elected to the Presidency.
For those who are not inclined to wade through a lengthy critique, I’ll summarize what I believe to be the most important aspects of the personalities involved during the years Robert McNamera served.
Robert McNamera was born in 1916, and was 85 years old when narrating the movie ‘The Fog of War’, in 2001.
I recall being a young sailor during the time of the Cuban missile blockade in 1962, which in McNamera’s words “brought us within a hairs breath of nuclear war” with the Soviet Union. I was in Norfolk Virginia when the ships returned from the blockade, and recall one Marine telling me how they lost a sailor on the way home. When he was on an aircraft elevator on a carrier, when a wave came over and washed him overboard. They were unable to find him.
I believe to summarize it’s important to have an understanding of the man who played such an important and pivotal role during the 60’s and 70’s, from the crisis of the Cuban Blockade to the involvement and escalation of the Viet Nam War. Robert McNamera was always an academic achiever always having high standards for himself. During the movie, he commented several times on how much he excelled over others. He began his college education at Berkley in California and finished up at Harvard, always achieving high honors, he secured a teaching spot at Harvard upon being graduated. He became a member of the elite class, and put himself in positions to be recognized and where he had some success at a young age. He became the first CEO of Ford Motor Company outside of a family member. While at Ford for only a short time, he was contacted by Bobby Kennedy after John was elected, saying he would be visited by his brother-in-law, Sargent Shriver, who would be talking with him on behalf of President Kennedy. Shriver initially offered McNamera the positon of Secretary of Treasury, to which McNamera declined saying he didn’t know much about economics. Shriver told him they figured he might decline, and then offered him the position of Secretary of Defense. He went to Washington, D.C. to visit with the President and said he didn’t know much about the defense business. Kennedy responded “I don’t know of any schools for presidents either”, and assured McNamera he would do everything to support him.
After Kennedy was killed in November of ’63, and Lyndon B. Johnson took the seat of power, his personality was much different from Kennedy’s, and initially called McNamera and told him how he objected to our getting out of Viet Nam, which Kennedy and McNamera were working toward, stopping our involvement. Johnson, wanted to show our power, and show the world, that we were not going to accept the encroachment of Communism.
McNamera, during the movie showed his sensitive side, and his desire to show compassion. He did not want us to become bogged down in Viet Nam, yet he was a ‘good trooper’ and wanted to please and serve the President. Instead of being more vocal, he felt his role was to carry out the wishes of the President no matter what. It was during these initial years, when most of us in the military, or those with whom I came into contact with, felt that out involvement in Viet Nam was ill advised, yet we too, had the idea to serve out country ‘right or wrong’.
McNamera was influenced very much by the tenaciousness and bravado of General Curtis Lemay. He admired Lemay very much but did not agree with Lemay’s desire to hit the enemy fast and hard, and end the war, Lemay was the commander of the squadron and had influence in dropping the atomic bombs on Japan, and maintained the same mind-set to do what was necessary to win the war. Johnson and McNamera both opposed that approach, letting the ground and guerilla war in Viet Nam drag on.
In viewing the movie and hearing McNamera I admit to gaining a softer attitude toward McNamera, yet still I blame him for not being of strong enough will to confront Johnson, and sway Johnson’s thinking or be forced to resign.
This pretty much summarizes my views regarding McNamera, and the futile terrible loss of life in Viet Nam, on both sides, which could have been avoided, and would have been avoided if Kennedy had lived. McNamera said, had Kennedy lived, we would not have been embroiled in the escalation of the war.
I personally feel, three of our great generals were summarily removed from power over their radical views. They were Douglas MacArthur, George S. Patton, and Curtis Lemay. Of course there were many other good men, but these three all fell into disfavor because they wanted to defeat the enemy in whatever it took to be victorious. Our world would be a much different place had all three of them been listened to and their military advice heeded.
I’ll offer a more in-depth rendition of what I learned from viewing ‘The Fog of War’, for those of you who like to read. For those of you who don’t I don’t blame you for stopping now.
For those of you who like to read, you might find the following of interest – a refresher for those who view the Fog of War. Most of the following are excerpts of the movie, with some of my comments sprinkled in using the underline feature to set them off.
The term “Fog of War” relates to the varied and unknown aspects of prosecuting a war. There are always issues and circumstances which present themselves which no one could possibly have known or have planned for.
McNamera’s opening remarks “Any military commander who is honest with himself will admit he has made mistakes in the application of military power”. This sets a defensive tone from the beginning. This is typical in politics in covering your rear (CYA), in setting the stage. He continues, “Mistakes may kill 10’s, 100’s, 1,000’s, even 100,000’s, but does not destroy nations”. However, we must learn from the mistakes, and we all do. (again defensive).
McNamera, spent three years in the Army during World War Two; seven years as Secretary of Defense, then 13 years as President of the World Bank.
McNamera said that 10% of the national income, or ½ of every tax dollar goes to the Department of Defense.
Walter Lippmann (September 23, 1889 – December 14, 1974 was an American writer, reporter, and political commentator famous for being among the first to introduce the concept of Cold War, coining the term "stereotype" in the modern psychological meaning, and critiquing media and democracy in his newspaper column and several books, most notably his 1922 book Public Opinion. His views regarding the role of journalism in a democracy were contrasted with the contemporaneous writings of John Dewey in what has been retrospectively named the Lippmann-Dewey debate. Lippmann won two Pulitzer Prizes, one for his syndicated newspaper column "Today and Tomorrow" and one for his 1961 interview of Nikita Khrushchev
He has also been highly praised with titles ranging anywhere from "most influential" journalist of the 20th century, to Father of Modern Journalism.
I inserted a few words about Walter Lippman for those who many not have been aware of who he was. Lippman coined the words/phrases, public opinion, stereotype, and cold war. (Lippmann was a Socialist).
He said “McNamera, was the best Secretary of Defense in the nation’s history, and the first to exert power/control over the military. His critics called him a con-man, and arrogant dictator.
As stated above McNamera’s resume is lengthy and impressive, and by his own admission he was not a military expert. During the Cuban missile blockade, on October, 16, 1962 (I was attending naval radio school in Norfolk, Virginia at the time), he said to Kennedy “after hitting Cuba where do we stop after that….”? I don’t know the answer to that. General Curtis Lemay wanted to totally destroy Cuba, an obvious radical proposal. President Kennedy was under enormous pressure at the time.
Khrushchev of the Soviet Union said “we cannot continue to pull on a rope tightening a knot so tight it will have to be cut, and will, and will be a class like two blind moles”. Khrushchev said he had been in two wars, and only death and destruction are the result…”!
McNamera said “rationality saved us” – Kennedy was rational – Khrushchev was rational. It was luck we did not go to nuclear war with the USSR. “Yet we came very very close to nuclear war. And, that danger exists today”! This was uttered by McNamera in 2001, and it remains the same today, in 2015. So much from learning from mistakes.
McNamera “The indefinite fallibility of nations and nuclear weapons will destroy nations”!
I don’t disagree with McNamera’s views here, but he comes across as an educated, arrogant man who has views from an elitist, regarding the world, and the way he viewed things.
In 1992, McNamera visited Cuba and asked Castro three questions;
1) Did you know the missiles were there?
2) Would you have recommended to Khrushchev to use them?
3) What would have happened to Cuba?
Castro’s response:
- Yes I knew they were there.
- No, I wouldn’t have recommended to Khrushchev.. I did recommend to use them!
- Cuba would have been totally destroyed!
After the blockade Kennedy said “We won”! General Lemay said “Won like hell – we should have wiped them out! The U.S. has a 17 to 1 nuclear superiority, which we may not have in the future”!
McNamera during his time as Secretary of Defense said “we came within a hairs breath on three different occasions.”
McNamera said “There is something beyond one’s self.” This was in reference to his job in the Army during WWII where he worked in a think tank, and would come up with intellectual reasons for the behavior of others, our adversaries – an example of his self-importance. Some of his strategizing.
Maximize efficiency – running B29’s out of China and India wasn’t efficient in supplying air fields with fuel closer to Japan, where bombing raids were being launched. Gen. Lemay had the logistics moved to the Marianna Islands, much closer and more efficient to the dismay of the Japanese. Lemay focused on target destruction visa-vie crew loss. Lemay ordered the bombing of cities in Japan which resulted in the death of 100,000 burned to death in a single night. When McNamera was asked if he was aware of this, he said, he was part of the mechanism, in a sense recommending it. A slick way to avoid a direct answer.
The B29’s could get above the anti-aircraft fire, and the fighter aircraft couldn’t reach high enough, which made the raids very safe for aircraft and crew losses, but the accuracy of hitting the targets was much less. As a result Lemay took the B29’s down to 5,000 feet and bombed with fire bombs. Most all of the buildings and homes in Japan, were made of wood, so the destruction was horrendous. Lemay was ruthless!
Lemay believed “Proportionality should be a guideline in war.” Percentages of Japanese cities destroyed by fire bombing was enormous, before dropping of the Atomic Bombs.
The fire bombings resulted in the killing of 50 to 90% in 57 Japanese cities. Dropping of the two atomic bombs was of proportional in the minds of some people, to the objectives we were trying to achieve. Lemay said “if we had of lost the war, we would have all been prosecuted as ‘war criminals’. McNamera agreed, saying they were behaving as war criminals. Lemay recognized what we/he was doing was considered as immoral. McNamera said it was, but what
“what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win”?
On March 2, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson on the phone with McNamera:
“I want you to dictate to me a memo of a couple of pages, four letter words short sentences on the situation in Viet Nam. The Viet Nam picture. This morning Senator Scott said “”The war which we neither win, lose, nor drop, is evidence of an instability of ideas – a floating series of judgements. Our policy of nervous conciliation which is extremely disturbing!”” Do you think it is a mistake to explain about Viet Name and what we’re faced with?”
McNamera: “Well, I do think Mr. President, it would be wise for you to say as little as possible. The frank answer is we don’t know what is going on out here.”
This in my view was not true, we had very good intelligence, but McNamera was too arrogant to accept the assessments. I know personally, that we had excellent intelligence regarding what was going on in Viet Nam.
McNamera continued: “The signs I see coming through the cables are disturbing signs. It’s a very uncertain period”. This is a good example of McNamera’s lack of military knowledge, and reluctance to listen to his generals.
Johnson: “We need somebody over there that can get us some better plans than we’ve got. What I want is somebody that can ‘lay up some plans to trap these guys, and whoop the hell out of ‘em. Kill some of ‘em, that’s what I want to do.”
Johnson was a domineering man, who only wanted what he wanted, and to hell with listening to anyone else.
McNamera: “I’ll try and bring something back that will meet that objective.”
Viet Nam
When asked about Viet Nam – McNamera injected a couple of disjointed comments. “That’s a hard question…we have to approach from the cold war… we have to go back to the end of the War (WW-II), 1945.
He and his wife both came down with polio virtually at the same time. They were both in the hospital on VJ Day.
He wanted to return to Harvard, where he had been teaching and finish out his life as an academic. There were several who tested, and his were the highest of the highest. A friend said “Bob, you won’t be able to pay Marg’s (his wife) hospital bills”. He put together a group of bright people to help go and straighten out the Ford Motor Co. At the time Ford only had a couple of college graduates in their executive ranks. McNamera said “it was a God awful mess”. He soon jumped to the top with Ford.
McNamera was a statistics guy, and said “Get the data” Ford had no market research. One of the people he tasked said “what do you want me to say?” McNamera said “Find out who the hell are buying the Volkswagen”. To that point the industry were producing nothing but huge ostentatious automobiles, everybody wanted big cars. He introduced the affordable car, the Ford Falcon, which became a huge success. They introduced seat belts, saving 20,000 lives a year.
July of 1960, he was the first President of Ford other than a member of the Ford family – after five weeks, he quit.
Robert Kennedy said Sargent Shrive would be meeting with him. Shriver said my brother-in-law, the President elect has authorized me to offer you the positon of Secretary of Treasures. McNamera said “I’m not qualified to do that.” Shriver said “in anticipation of that we can offer you Secretary of Defense”. McNamera said “I only spent three years in the army during WWII. I’m not qualified. He wanted to discuss with his wife. He said he would want to be able to name all of his staff, in senior positions. He didn’t want them to have “to be part of that damned Washington social world.” He would have to give up possibly millions of stock options – highest salaried executive in the country, for a 25 thousand dollar a year pay as Secretary of Defense. His wife and kids after discussing with them could care less. He met with Kennedy and Bobby (in the White House) “I’m not qualified.” Kennedy said “Listen Bob, I don’t think there is any school for Presidents either”.
Taking the job was very stressful on the family, but best years of their lives. His family all benefited from it.
In 1963 – October 2, 1963, McNamera returned from Viet Nam, when they had 16,000 advisors. He recommended they establish a plan to remove all of them within two years.
Kennedy: “The advantage to taking them out is?”
McNamera: “We can say to the Congress and people that we do have a plan, for the reducing the exposure of U.S. combat personnel.”
Kennedy: “My only reservation about this is, if the war doesn’t continue to go well, it will look like we were overly optimistic.”
McNamera: “We need a way to get out of Viet Nam, and this is a way of doing it.”
Kennedy, announced we would be pulling our troops out by the end of ’65 – with 1,000 out by the end of ’63, which we did, but there was a coup in the south. President Diem was overthrown, he and his brother were killed.
McNamera was with the President when word came of the coup. McNamera said “I had never seen the President more upset – he blanched. He was a head of state.” McNamera said he and Kennedy knew somehow the U.S. Government was responsible.
Bobby called McNamera at the Pentagon to say the President had been shot – 45 minutes later said the President was dead.
Bobby said Jackie wanted him to come out to the hospital – at 4:00 A.M. McNamera was very emotional. He went to Arlington Cemetery and found the most beautiful spit in the cemetery. He called Jackie – she went and liked it and that’s where the President is buried. McNamera said a Park Ranger had escorted the President around the cemetery a few weeks before, saying that spot is the most beautiful in Washington – that’s where he is buried.
February 25th, 1964, three months after JFK’s death:
Johnson: “Hello Bob?”
McNamera: “Yes Mr. President”.
Johnson: “I hate to modify your speech it’s a good one, but I just wonder if we could find two minutes in there for Viet Nam?”
McNamera: “The problem is what to say about it”.
Johnson: “I’ll tell you what I would say about it. I would say we have a commitment to the Vietnamese freedom. We could pull out of there and the dominos would fall, and that part of the world would go to the Communists. We could send our Marines in there and we could get tied down in a third World War, or another Korean action. Nobody really understands what it is out there! And they’re asking quest9ions and saying ‘why don’t we do more. Well I think you can have more war or more appeasement, but ‘our purpose it to train the South Vietnamese, and out training’s going good.”
McNamera: “Alright Sir I’ll …..”
Johnson: I always thought it was foolish for you to make any statements about withdrawing. I thought it was bad psychologically, but you and the President thought otherwise, and I just sat silent.”
McNamera: “The problem is ….”
Johnson: “Then come the question: how the hell does McNamera think when he’s losing the war he can pull men out of there?”
June 9th, 1964.
McNamera “If you went to the CIA, and said “how is the situation today in South Viet Nam?’ I think they would say it’s worse.
- You see it in the desertion rate, you see it in the morale.
- You see it in the difficulty to recruit people.
- You see it in the gradual loss of population control.
Many of us in private would say that things are not good, they’ve gotten worse.
Now while we say this in private and not in public, there are fact available that find their way into the press.
The question of transparency comes to mind – the term quagmire comes to mind, and they didn’t know what to do about it!
If we’re going to stay in there, if we’re going to go up the escalating chain, we’re going to have to educate the people, Mr. President. We haven’t done so yet. I’m not sure now is exactly the right time. (Seems rather elitist to me).
Johnson: “No, and I think if you start doing it they’re going to be hollering, ‘you’re a war monger!”
McNamera: “I completely agree with you.”
The Presidential race began between LBJ and Barry Goldwater. Hitting the campaign trail Goldwater said “Make no bones of this, don’t try to sweep this under the rug. We are at war in Viet Nam, and yet the President and his Secretary of Defense continue to mislead and misinform the American People, and enough of it has gone by.” This points out exactly the problem with politicians directing the prosecution of war, and the elitist arrogance. Goldwater was right!
McNamera: “Belief and seeing are both often wrong”.
August 2nd, 1964, (I was stationed at the Taiwan Defense Command at this time). The destroyer Maddox DD731, was attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin.
McNamera said: “There were pieces of North Vietnamese shells on the deck of the Maddox, there was no doubt the attack occurred. In any event we did not respond. – It was difficult – it was very difficult – it was difficult for the President. He and senior officials in uniform and out, did not use the term coward, but in effect he is not protecting the national interests.
August 4th, 1964, the Maddox and Turner Joy were attacked.
Johnson: “Where are these torpedoes coming from?”
McNamera: “We don’t know. Presumably from these unidentified craft.”
Johnson said he would not escalate without the approval of Congress, putting forth the Tonkin Gulf Resolution giving the President the authority of taking the nation to war.
Back to the August 4th attack; Admiral Sharp: “Apparently there have been at least nine torpedoes in the water, all missed.”
General Burchinal “Yup”.
Admiral Sharp: “Wait a minute, I’m not sure about the number engaged. We’ve got to check it out here.”
97 minutes later:
Admiral Sharp: (Admiral Moore) said many of the reported contact with torpedoes fired appear doubtful. All freak weather effects on radar and over eager sonarmen, may have accounted for many reports.
General Burchinal: “OK I’ll tell McNamera this.”
Admiral Sharp: “That’s the best I can give you Dave, sorry.”
9 minutes later:
Admiral Sharp: “It does appear that a lot of these torpedo attack were from the sonarmen, and they get keyed up on a think like this. Everything they hear on the sonar is a torpedo.
General Burchinal: “You’re pretty sure there was a torpedo attack though?”
Admiral Sharp: “No doubt about that. I think. No doubt about that (repeated).
McNamera then said: “The events after our being attacked that day, our judgements were wrong – didn’t happen!” “The attack of August 2nd, the judgement was right. Although that was disputed at the time. So we were right once and wrong once.”
McNamera said, that Johnson, based our attacks of the 2nd were wrong, but it was determined that North Viet Nam was escalating the war and would not stop sort of winning – WE WERE WRONG!” But, we had in our minds – the mindset that led to that action that carried such a heavy cost.” (comment: Mind set – where was the intellect – intelligence playing into our escalation, knowing there would be heavy cost of lives lost, world opinion – not to mention the financial cost – insane).
McNamera: “We see only half of a story at times. We see what we want to see. Belief and seeing are both often wrong!”
Johnson: “We Americans know, but others often forget the risks of spreading conflict. We still seek no wider war.”
Rolling Thunder Began
We dropped two to three times the number of bombs on North Viet Nam than we did in all of World War II.
McNamera: This is not primarily a military problem, it’s about winning the hearts and minds of the people of South Viet Nam. Another good example of a civilian politician prosecuting a war, without the ability to do so, and yet having the arrogance and ego to think they know better!”
McNamera: “As a prerequisite to that we must be able to guarantee their security. So we bombed the hell out of the north!
February 26th, 1965 (I was just getting ready to deploy to Viet Nam aboard ship) Johnson: “We’re off to bombing these people. We’re over that hurdle. The game now is in the fourth quarter and, it’s about 78-0 (nothing). I’m scared to death about putting ground forces in, but I’m more than frightened about losing a bunch of planes for lack of security.”
McNamera: “So am I.”
March 6th, 1965
Johnson: “The psychological impact of ‘the Marines are coming’ is going to be a bad one. And, I know every mother is going to say ‘uh-oh this is it!’ What we’ve done with these B-57’s is going to be Sunday School stuff compared to the Marine. My answer is ‘yes’ but my judgement is ‘no’. So why didn’t he go by his judgement?
McNamera: “Alright we’ll take care of it Mr. President.”
Johnson: “When are you going to issue the order?”
McNamera: “Well we’ll make it late today so it will miss some of the morning editions. I’ll handle it in a way that will minimize the announcement. (Politics at its finest!)
June 10th, 1965 (I was in Viet Nam) McNamera: “General Westmoreland recommended ten additional Battalions (between three to five thousand men) over and above the 13 (39 thou to 65 thou) you’ve already authorized, something on the order of 45,000 men. I would recommend five battalions (half of what Gen Westmoreland wanted – the military expert!), or about 25,000 men, because in the back of my mind, I have a very definite limitation on commitment, and I don’t think the Chiefs do (The military Chiefs of Staff – again the experts). In fact I know they don’t. This is another example of his elitist arrogance – knowing more about military strategy than his Generals – INCREDIBLE! We have no way of knowing how many lives were lost in decisions like this!
As a result the draft was doubled!
June 10th, 1965,
Johnson: “Not a damned human thinks that 50,000 to 100,000, or 150,000, is going to end that war! We’re not getting out but we’re trying to hold what we got (Miss Neal would be proud). We’re doing a bad, we’re, we’re - we’re losing, at the rate we’re going.”
Casualties 4,877 plus 748 killed.
Johnson went on TV saying “America wins wars she undertakes, make no mistake about it. And we have declared war on tyranny and oppression. If this little nation goes down the drain and can’t maintain its independence, ask yourself what’s gonna happen to all the other little nations?”
McNamera: “I am more and more convinced that (sic) think of some action other than military action, as the only program here. I think if we do that by itself its suicide. I think pushing out 300,000, 400,000 Americans out there without being able to guarantee what it will lead to is a terrible risk at a terrible cost.
He digressed saying “at the end of the Cuban missile crisis we did put ourselves in the skin of the soviets, but in Viet Nam we didn’t know them well enough (They did very little to learn) to empathize and there was total misunderstanding as a result. (We had experts who could have enlightened them – once again the intellectual elitist, arrogance prevailed)!
McNamera said: “The North believed we simply replaced the French with our colonial interests, which was absolutely absurd. (They already admitted to not knowing or understanding the Vietnamese. Why didn’t they make the effort instead of prolonging the war, and sending our young men off to die?)
McNamera said: “We saw Viet Nam as an element of the Cold War, not as they saw it, as a civil war.” (At the beginning there was no civil war in Viet Nam. Again this show’s McNamera’s and Johnson’s elitistism, and total ignorance about what we were even doing in Viet Nam, yet their arrogance and egos kept propagating the war, even knowing it was wrong!)
1995
McNamera: “There aren’t too many examples on which you bring two former enemies together at the highest levels and discuss what might have been.
I formed the hypothesis that each of us could have achieved our objectives without the terrible loss of life (Uh – a bit late for someone so intelligent!) I wanted to test that by going to Viet Nam. The former ‘Foreign Minister Tuda (sp) said “”you’re totally wrong, we were fighting for our independence, you were fighting to enslave us.”” They almost came to blows – that was noon on the first day.
McNamera: “You mean to say it wasn’t a tragedy when you lost three million, four hundred thousand Vietnamese killed, which based on our population would be 27 million Americans, what did you accomplish? You didn’t get any more than we were willing to give you at the beginning of the war, independence, unification. “
Mr. Tuda to McNamera: “you must never have read a history book, if you had you would know we we’re pawns of the Chinese or Russians, Mr. McNamera. Don’t you understand we’ve been fighting the Chinese for a 1,000 years! We were fighting for our independence. We would fight to the last man and determined to do so. No amount of money, no amount of pressure would have stopped us!”
McNamera said: Be prepared to examine your reasoning.
(Perhaps this should have been done before ordering our men and women into battle?)
(Unintelligible statement by McNamera)
McNamera: “Have we a record of our missions? We are the strongest nation in the world today. I do not believe we should ever apply that economic, political or military power unilaterally; if we’d followed that in Viet Nam, we wouldn’t have been there. None of our allies supported us, not Japan, not Germany, or France. If we can’t persuade nations of comparable values of the merits of our cause, we’d better reexamine our reasoning.”
McNamera was very sad looking toward the interviewing commentator, asked “to what extend do you feel you were the author of stuff, or an instrument in things outside of your control.”
McNamera: “Well, I don’t think I felt either. I just felt I was serving at the request of the President, who had been elected by the American people, and it was my responsibility to try and help him – uh to carry out the office in the best interests of the people what is morally appropriate in a war time environment. (As a Washington outsider, he sure learned the politics of Washington fast and well.) Let me give you an illustration: While I was Secretary we used what was called ‘Agent Orange’ in Viet Nam. The Chemical strips leaves off of trees. After the war it was claimed to be a toxic chemical, and it killed many individuals, soldiers and civilians exposed to it. Were those who issued the orders to use Agent Orange criminals? Let’s look at the law, what kind of a law do we have. These chemicals are acceptable in war and these aren’t – I would never have authorized an illegal action.” (Admiral Zumwalt’s son died as a result of Agent Orange, and I have a good friend a Marine, who had three tours in Viet Nam and exposed to Agent Orange. He is still alive, but has to have someone pound on his chest and back everyday to loosen up the crust around his lungs, so he can breathe).
McNamera said “In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil.”
McNamera: “Norman Morrison was a Quaker, he was opposed to war – the violence – the killing. He came to the Pentagon doused himself with gasoline, burned himself to death, below my office. Morrison was holding his baby, someone said save the baby. Morrison threw the baby and he still lives today. Morrison’s wife issued a moving statement “Human beings must stop killing other human beings”.
McNamera: “A belief I shared, I shared it then, and I believe it even more strongly today. How much evil must we do in order to do good (hmm – contradicts my beliefs – none). We have certain ideals, certain responsibilities. I recognize at times we must engage in evil, but minimize it.”
A demonstration crowd of 50 thousand marched on Washington, the Pentagon; McNamera told the President “not a rifle of the troops would be loaded without his permission.”
Commentator: “What effect did all of this decent have on your thinking? Morrison was in ’65, it’s now ’67?”
McNamera: “It was a very tense period, very tense for my family, which I don’t want to discuss.”
Commentator: “How was your thinking changing during this period?”
McNamera: “I don’t think my thinking was changing – uh – we were in the cold war, and this was a cold war – uh – activity (demonstrations).
McNamera - Never Say Never.
McNamera: “One of the lesson I learned is to never say never – never – never. Secondly – never answer the question asked of you. Answer the question you wished had been asked of you. Quite frankly I follow that rule it’s a very good rule.”
Commentator: “When you think about something – life, the responsibility of something like the Viet Nam War, whose responsibility is it?”
McNamera: “It’s the President’s responsibility. I don’t want to fail to recognize the tremendous contribution I think Johnson made to this country. I don’t want to put the responsivity on his shoulders alone, (As I said he learned his political role well, not directly accepting responsibility for his role as Secretary of Defense) but I do believe if Kennedy had lived we wouldn’t have had 500.000 men there.
In 1967, the course we were on was wrong, and they had to change to reduce casualties’ etcetera. He and Johnson were poles apart, and Johnson nicely fired him, giving him the Medal of Freedom.
There were 25,000 young men and women killed in Viet Nam.
McNamera said “Thinking in hind-sight – you don’t have when it’s happening. I’m very sorry I’ve made errors.”
McNamera – “You can’t change human nature. We all make mistakes.
I don’t know a military commander who is honest, has not made mistakes. There’s a wonderful phrase: The Fog of War – The Fog of War is so complex no one can understand all the variables.
Our judgement our understanding are not adequate. And, we kill people unnecessarily.
Wilson said “We won the war to end all wars.”
McNamera: “I’m not so naïve to think we can stop all wars. We are not going to change human nature anytime soon. It isn’t because we are irrational, we are rational, but reason has limits.
McNamera: “A quote form T.S. Elliot that I just love. “We shall not cease from exploring and at the end of our exploration we will return to where we started, and know the place for the first time.
In a sense that’s where I’m beginning to be.”
Well my friends, this is lengthy, but it shows how terribly misguided and irrational our leaders can be sometimes. The lust for power, the egotistical self-importance blinds many, keeping them from thinking rationally, and keeping in mind what is moral and right.
In the end Robert Strange McNamera was basically a good and decent man, who had an over inflated image of self, and would not let his ego turn to the military commanders, the experts in prosecuting a war, thus he and Johnson continued the war, costing tremendous loss of life, and for what?
Our politicians began directing the actions of our Generals in Korea for the first time, leading to a never ending stalemate. My earlier comments were that if Gen. MacArthur, Gen. Patton, Gen. Lemay would have been able to prosecute the wars they were fighting without political intervention, the world would be a much different place, and the United States would have been the only super power, with no one able to challenge our position. Some of what I’ve just said is harsh sounding, but if you think about it, many of the problems we’ve seen since the Second World War would not have occurred. Providing we would have been able to keep corruption out of politics we would be very near utopia – wishful thinking and we can all be Monday morning quarterbacks. The past is, and cannot be changed. The question is; have we learned anything from our mistakes?
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