McNamara Was ‘Terribly Wrong’, But At Least He Had A Conscience

Opinion by Gilbert Mercier, NEWS  JUNKIE  POST

Former Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, died yesterday at the age of 93. McNamara was one of the most controversial political figures in recent US history. He will be remembered, in a categorization that is not fully accurate, as the ” architect ” of the Vietnam war.

McNamara served as Secretary of  Defense from 1961 to 1968 in the Kennedy administration & the Johnson administration. When JFK picked him, in 1961, McNamara was a very unlikely candidate for the job. He gave up his well paid position as President of Ford Motor Company to serve his country. By all accounts, McNamara had a brilliant intellect, and JFK wanted someone with such analytical brain power and management skills at the Pentagon to reform the US military.

During his tenure as Secretary of Defense, McNamara was vilified a lot more than both Kennedy & Johnson. The anti-war movement in the US called him ” baby killer”, in some instance a protester went as far as spitting at him. He had the reputation to be the super-hawk in both administrations.

McNamara was obviously haunted by this part of his life. In the mid 1990’s he wrote a book in regard to the war in Vietnam in an effort to explain, understand and perhaps most importantly redeem himself. In the memoir, he had the honesty to recognize how deeply wrong he was about America’s involvement in Vietnam. He conceded that he was ‘ terribly wrong’ on a wide range of issues and assessments behind the logic of military escalation in Vietnam.

As matter of fact, all of it was wrong. McNamara and his two bosses were trapped in a cold war logic. In their minds, pulling out of Vietnam was not an option for geopolitical reasons. The so called ‘ domino effect’ theory and the fear of it, was at the core of all their policy decisions.

In a 1995 interview with NPR’s Terry Gross, McNamara conceded that he was wrong with the domino effect theory and, as matter of fact, the complete premise of  the Vietnam war. In the 14 minutes interview, one can hear the tension in McNamara’s voice, the guilt of having so many people killed because of wrong decisions he was part of.

More recently, McNamara and the Vietnam tragedy were  the topic of  the award winning documentary ” The Fog of War”. It was yet another effort from McNamara to bring a sense of peace to his troubled conscience; as if  he was carrying alone the moral torment of  the 58,000 Americans & 3 Million Vietnamese killed in the conflict.

Robert McNamara was struggling with his past, and deeply remorseful  for it. He had too much fundamental honesty to die at peace with himself. This show of empathy is in sharp contrast with the behavior of  most policymakers  after they leave office. A  perfect example of this sharp contrast is former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld is more than unlikely to ever make any substantial apologies or recognition of wrong doing in a war that is just as unjust and doomed to fail as Vietnam was: The war in Iraq.

Robert McNamara spent a good part of his life, in later years, trying to redeem himself  from the tragic mistakes he made during the Vietnam war, but at least he did an extensive mea culpa about his actions. On the other hand, I don’t think Rumsfeld, Cheney or Bush will ever have the moral integrity & honesty to do so.