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Regretfully Ours, Robert S. McNamara
News of Robert McNamara’s death this morning sparked the old hatreds and passions of the Vietnam war, just as the man himself did in life.
A comment on Ben Smith’s blog at Politico today was full of the old venom.
“I hope some of the 50,000+ young men he was partially responsible for killing are waiting to escort him to hell.”
Writing in these pages, Kevin Drum has a more sympathetic point of view, based in part on the fact that Secretary of Defense McNamara a) resigned when he realized he couldn’t convince the Johnson administration to stop the slaughter in Vietnam, b) later admitted his fundamental mistakes in prosecuting the war, and c) felt anguish for his actions.
In January 1990, before McNamara had made his mea culpas public, I was beginning research for a book about the massacre by US Army troops of approximately 500 unarmed Vietnamese civilians, mostly women, children and old men, in the village of My Lai, a horrific event that took place in 1968, but which the military covered up for a year.
It was the first shock of recognition for a generation of white, middle-class Americans that our soldiers -- our nation -- was capable of committing true evil on a massive scale.
Part of my research included sending letters to two dozen prominent Americans. Some of them had been directly involved in the Vietnam War. Others were public figures, journalists and social critics whose insights into the slaughter at My Lai would, I thought, be valuable.
I posed a simple question: “What lesson(s) should America have learned from My Lai?”
I was surprised that so many individuals responded, and their answers seem even more meaningful now, given the intervening events.
General William Westmoreland, commander of military forces in Vietnam from 1964 to 1968, wrote that the United States needed to “continue to emphasis [stet] adherence to the letter and the spirit of the Geneva Conventions.”
Telford Taylor, who was the chief US prosecutor at the Nuremburg war-crimes trials, directed his comments to the legal response to the massacre: “The effort to punish violators of the Laws of War, when the defendants are our own soldiers, completely failed.” Taylor died in 1998, but it is easy to imagine him saying the same thing about the lack of accountability in another American war, forty years later.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Francis FitzGerald made an observation that I heard in slightly different forms, from many outside of government or the military: “I would like to remind you that My Lai was more of a symbol than anything else. Most of the civilian casualties in [Vietnam] were caused by bombing and artillery fire in populated areas. Nowadays it is generally the ‘bloodless’ techno-war that kills civilians”
Robert McNamara’s response has always been the most intriguing of the lot, for it seemed then to reveal more about his own anguish over Vietnam than he had, at that time, let on.
Hand-written in pencil in a cramped corner of my original letter were the words, "I regret I am unable to help you,” and McNamara’s signature.
Others had not answered my question, of course, but no one did it in this way. Most simply didn’t write back. Colin Powell had his secretary write that the General had forwarded my request to a military historian. Al Haig stated that he was working on a book of his own and didn’t want to scoop himself by answering the question. (His book, Inner Circles, was published in 1992 with no mention of My Lai.)
McNamara’s response was unique and significant. He could have ignored my letter, but he didn’t. He could have explained his reason for not answering the question, like Al Haig, but he didn’t go that route either.
McNamara confessed he was “unable to help,” and that his inability caused him “regret.”
Kevin Drum has it right, I think. McNamara muffled his anguish and regrets because that’s who he was. I don’t know what words they'll carve into his tombstone, but I can’t think of anything more appropriate -- or more instructive to future generations -- than the words he scribbled in the corner of that letter.
“I regret I am unable to help. Robert S. McNamara.”
June 9, 1916 – July 6, 2009.
Osha Gray Davidson covers solar energy for The Phoenix Sun, and is a contributing blogger for Mother Jones. For more of his stories, click here.
is this what we REALLY NEED?
is this what we REALLY NEED? Focus on the old and dead?
what about the current and live??????????
hmmmmmmmmmm?
Those who ignore history...
are condemned to repeat it. That's why we really need to focus on the old and the dead.
Robert S[trange] McNamara
The damage to the independence we declared was greatly enhanced by R. Strange McNamara; and I wonder sometimes if Strange Days by the Doors was about him.
Relevent and interesting
I realize that the significance of what happened 41 years ago in a whitewashed war may be lost on some. Particularly the young; those who did not live through those times and have only been exposed to the sanitized/redux version of what happened. I took an American History survey course in 1995 and in the 3 credit course, there was about 1 hour spent on Viet Nam during the whole semester. It's no wonder our citizens fail to grasp the significance of what happened. It was the last time that civil unrest and disobedience will ever affect government policy.
Unless you were alive at the time, you will never understand the depth and width of the rift in our culture that the war created. We saw National Guard troops gunning down protestors in the street, police busting skulls in Chicago, hippies flashing the peace sign to the "silent majority" who flipped them the bird, nightly dead bodies on the 6 o'clock news, and the draft. That's just a tiny bit of it, a hint of the culture clash and civil unrest.
People say we didn't learn anything from it. But some people learned. The Bush Administration created a government that has a strangle hold on our liberties, our right to assemble, petition, to speak, even to think and express certain thoughts without fear of reprisal. The press is a fukkin' joke compared to what it was in 1968, just a dead shell of corporate-owned news-whores who can barely write let alone think. Yeah, they learned, the government learned that they better suppress any dissent in this country and that's what they're doing right NOW, today, right on your phone line and internet connection.
If you want to know what the government learned from Viet Nam, I highly recommend Naomi Wolf's book Give Me Liberty. She describes exactly how our liberties have been eroded, and comparing the 60s to now is a comparison worth making. As an example, look at what happened outside the GOP convention in St. Paul last year... it was storm trooper tactics.
The point was made by Francis Fitzgerald that My Lai was a symbol and that most of the civilian deaths were caused by bombs, as they are today. But today, we can't even find out what the civilian casualties are in a country we occupy because our own military won't let us know. They don't want you to know how brutal war is; that's why it's sanitized, whitewashed, hidden, and largely under-reported.
That's what the US government learned from My Lai. They learned how to suppress you and the truth.
-Wexler
______________________________________________________________
If I would have known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself.
~~~ George Burns
For those who may not fully
For those who may not fully appreciate the significance of McNamara to the generation that served in/fought against the Vietnam War, check out this post by Joseph Galloway from McClatchy:
McClatchy Washington Bureau
Reading an obit with great pleasure
Joseph L. Galloway | McClatchy Newspapers
"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." —Clarence Darrow (1857–1938)
Well, the aptly named Robert Strange McNamara has finally shuffled off to join LBJ and Dick Nixon in the 7th level of Hell.
McNamara was the original bean-counter — a man who knew the cost of everything but the worth of nothing.
Back in 1990 I had a series of strange phone conversations with McMamara while doing research for my book We Were Soldiers Once And Young. McNamara prefaced every conversation with this: "I do not want to comment on the record for fear that I might distort history in the process." Then he would proceed to talk for an hour, doing precisely that with answers that were disingenuous in the extreme — when they were not bald-faced lies.
Upon hanging up I would call Neil Sheehan and David Halberstam and run McNamara's comments past them for deconstruction and the addition of the truth.
The only disagreement i ever had with Dave Halberstam was over the question of which of us hated him the most. In retrospect, it was Halberstam.
When McNamara published his first book — filled with those distortions of history — Halberstam, at his own expense, set out on a journey following McNamara on his book tour around America as a one-man truth squad.
McNamara abandoned the tour.
The most bizarre incident involving McNamara occurred when he was president of the World Bank and, off on his summer holiday, he caught the Martha's Vineyard ferry. It was a night crossing in bad weather. McNamara was in the salon, drink in hand, schmoozing with fellow passengers. On the deck outside a vineyard local, a hippie artist, glanced through the window and did a double-take. The artist was outraged to see McNamara, whom he viewed as a war criminal, so enjoying himself.
He immediately opened the door and told McNamara there was a radiophone call for him on the bridge. McNamara set down his drink and stepped outside. The artist immediately grabbed him, wrestled him to the railing and pushed him over the side. McNamara managed to get his fingers through the holes in the metal plate that ran from the top of the railing to the scuppers.
McNamara was screaming bloody murder; the artist was prying his fingers loose one at a time. Someone heard the racket and raced out and pulled the artist off.
By the time the ferry docked in the vineyard McNamara had decided against filing charges against the artist, and he was freed and walked away.
I imagine Rove and Libby would somehow be able to hang on, too.
"When you wrestle with the devil, the devil always wins."
I have to say thanks to Mr
I have to say thanks to Mr Wexler & the Galloway post - very interesting information!
Regretfully Ours, Robert S. McNamara
Regretfully Ours, Robert S. McNamara yet another American War Criminal.
But Americans complain of their 57,000 dead but rarely like with Iraq do we hear it for the innocent civilians killed as a result of the actions of these so called American Heroes.
Over 2,000,000 Vietnamese dead and more still dying from Cluster Bombs ever year since.
Robert S. McNamara the good American Christian Presbyterian like President bush the good Evangelical Christian and many others are nothing less than War Criminals.
What is it with America over 80 % Christian and they brought a Holocaust to Vietnam and more recently to Iraq and still attend a "Church" ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Schools
Hi all,
I think one thing that is important to keep in mind is that American schools spend up to three years talking about the Holocaust but as little as a week on Vietnam. As long as this doesn't change, history will necessarily be distorted and not be perceived as a narrative that is perpetuated with and by certain interests ...
My Lai...the lower
My Lai...the lower echelons... Where is Lt. Calley? He was last seen working in a Jewelry store on the ouskirts of Ft. Benning , Georgia, (V.V.Vicks) selling rings to paratroopers. Thats where his trial took place, I was working at a medical glove factory nearby at the time and recall they had a parade of ding dongs saying he should be set free. Someone approached me with a petition to that affect which I refused to sign, they said ¨He was just taking orders¨...seems like the Nazis said the same thing...I said then lets trail this all the way to the top order and indict them also. There were several army wives at the plant who were angry with me but I asked would your husband follow an order to massacre toddlers and senior citizens??
Alas, they seemed to think it was best for the country. Moral values down the toilet.
It appears that no one can read history or very few. thats one of the reasons I´m in self exile.
Robert S. McNamara
Yes, McNamara was unable to help humanity. But he did quite a lot to help the war machine murder millions of human beings in S. E. Asia. Is it enough that in old age after years of solitary reflections that he may have shown remorse? Some get sentimental with him, almost pity him. But of what value is remorse after he was the architect of mass murder? What if Hitler had been captured alive and live a long life in prison and at some point showed remorse, would he be as sympathetic as McNamara? Probably not. I believe it's because McNamara is american that many Americans let him off the hook. To those of you who find McNamara sympathetic - I find you pathetic.
Regretfully Ours, Robert S. McNamara
What is it with America and its extreme love affair with itself and its "War" heroes.
War Criminals like McNamara and just about everyone in the Nixon and LBJ Administrations.
Colin Powell ,John McCain etc etc they all have so much blood on their hands and still hailed as American Heroes.
I remember the pomp and ceremony when Nixon was "buried" and the high turn out of "who's who" who who came out of the woodwork - oh -- but of course it was the office they were saluting.
USA - USA -- USA -- Bomb - Bomb - Bomb - Iran , Afghanistan ,Iraq , Pakistan and more -- Islam is only 23 % of the World's population.
Is there no shame ?
His real legacy
It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.
Mark Twain
I’m sure that we’ve all heard that saying by Mark Twain. It should be stamped on Robert McNamara’s headstone. It’s the glaring omission from his so logical mind. I think most people are pointing in the wrong direction in criticizing McNamara for his conduct in the Vietnam Police Action (war was never declared). The mark that McNamara made on this country goes much, much deeper than the 58,000 Americans killed and the 2,000,000 plus Vietnamese. His mark goes to the core of our being as a nation.
Before the Whiz Kids, we Americans made pretty decent cars. I remember fondly my 1955 Chevy Bel Aire Coupe and 1966 Pontiac GTO. They could have been better made, it’s true, but they were still pretty decent cars. At the time, the Germans and Swedes made better cars, but Japanese quality was still a decade off. If you wanted quality, you paid for it in a German car, and if you wanted economy, you paid for that too with the upkeep of your Japanese car. Today, most cars are pretty well built and most are mediocre at best. This was not so from about 1955 until 1967.
In that long decade, cars had character. They were designed by engineers who were looking for perfection. Accountants got into the picture at the end of the process to shave costs here and there to keep cars affordable. The Whiz Kids turned that around at Ford and designed cars from the beginning based on the numbers. Engineers were hamstrung, so we got cars that were guaranteed to be repair headaches after 3 years and ready for the wrecker at precisely 100,000 miles. Production lines were sped up to breakneck speeds. It was cheaper to have production errors found by the customer than to catch the errors before the completed car left the factory. Designers were no longer artists and engineers, cars were designed by committee, including marketing, accounting, production and occasionally engineers. It was cheaper to have dangerous design defects go into production and pay the lawyers to keep the resulting lawsuits for wrongful deaths low, than to catch the design errors before they hit the street. And it was cheaper to buy Congress than to build safer, more efficient cars. This was the legacy of the Whiz Kids (although RSM did champion safer cars while at Ford) and it spread throughout our culture spoiling everything as it went. So it’s not just about cars.
At one time we were the manufacturing capital of the world. We’re now running on fumes. We no longer MAKE anything. Today we just move the numbers around. Our whole economic engine has shifted from production to finance. It’s even cheaper to buy stuff from our enemies than to make it here. So our blue collar workforce is dying. To be a member of the shrinking middle-class, you must be able to assist in moving the numbers. Your job is not to make anything, but to finance, sell, insure or in other ways manipulate numbers or support others who manipulate numbers. We should all really fear the day when Language Translation software truly comes of age, when any language can be safely translated into business English. That’s the biggest reason that you even have a job today (if you have one), because most of what can’t be exported to another country is still here only because it’s location dependent or must be in spoken English (which is why the demand among telemarketers for classes in mid-Western accents in India). We can’t really blame any CEO for exporting our jobs, because the numbers tell him that it’s only logical sense to do so.
There is no heart left in business thanks to Harvard, just numbers, but numbers can’t quantify the heart of a nation. That’s what McNamara missed: the size of the Vietnamese heart. We had more planes, more bombs, better equipped soldiers, better communications, we were the top manufacturing center in the world with the best scientists, but we didn’t have the heart that the Vietnamese did. And that’s the legacy that McNamara, the Whiz Kids and all those others from the Harvard School of Business left us. At one time, we had a heart too. We had unity of purpose. We believed we were the good guys. When an American built something, we were usually proud to put our name on it. Yeah we had some big problems we were trying to work through, but we knew we would work through them. But McNamara and the Whiz Kids left us only with numbers. Now, General Motors no longer makes cars, they finance them. McDonalds doesn’t make hamburgers, they own real estate. WalMart sells things, but it’s all from China and their real profits come from the differences in the taxes they collect and the taxes they pay. We are reduced to a nation of numbers with no guiding purpose other than to make more money. So if the numbers add up, we go to war, or if millions must go hungry so that the economic engine keeps on chugging for the few, then so be it. It only makes logical sense. Don’t take my word for it, just look at the numbers. Thank you Robert.
Regretfully Ours, Robert S. McNamara
but we didn’t have the heart that the Vietnamese did. Anonymous (not verified) on July 8, 2009 - 4:35pm.
_________________________
What nonsense the above.
The "Heart" ? The Heart to kill and destroy ? The heart for the killer instinct ?
You mean we were more humanitarian ? more humane carpet bombing ?
We had NO reason to be there in the first place as in Iraq we just went to KILL.
How regretful the US Military lacked the heart to "Kill" ?
More on MacNamara
Any talk of MacNamara should not miss the film The Fog of War.
This feature-length interview with the man is very revealing. He stops just short of voicing regret, but tells frankly just how much there is to regret.
Highly recommended for all!
Robert Mcnamara
Hell is too good for him.
I find I cannot sympatize
I find I cannot sympatize with Osha Gray Davidson. I Osha Gray Davidson wanted to prove something then, back then, was the time to do. But today? No! Uh uh, no, not today.
A little intellectual honesty, please...
This is directed to several of the posters here, in no particular order. First, those wishing to consign McNamara to Hell need to cast a far wider net. I've always been struck by how the former Defense Secretary could be simultaneously hated by the right wing for losing the Vietnam War, and by the left wing for escalating it. The simple answer to both camps is: Look At The History. The fact is, two thirds of the bomb tonnage dropped on Vietnam occurred AFTER McNamara left the Pentagon. So the names Laird, Moorer, Kissinger, and Nixon should also be added, not to mention Lyndon Johnson, who happened to be the Commander In Chief when the real shooting started. And somehow I doubt that most of the previous posters would even recognize the name of the one person most responsible for the prolonged bloodletting in Southeast Asia: John Foster Dulles. For the uninformed, Dulles was President Eisenhower's Secretary of State, and his efforts at torpedoing the proposed Plebiscite on Vietnamese Reunification in 1956 guaranteed that any subsequent American efforts there would end in disaster.
Second, and contrary to the strongest critics in this forum, history shows that McNamara was actually a RESTRAINING influence on both the military hierarchy and the President. This isn't particularly surprising in light of the Defense Secretary's conduct during the Cuban Missile Crisis, when his quick intervention during the attempted Soviet penetration of the American naval blockade prevented an almost certain, and almost certainly unstoppable, military escalation that Soviet records confirm would have immediately gone nuclear. His courage in cancelling or scaling back high-profile defense projects, like the XB-70 bomber and the F-111 TFX program, has since been repeatedly vindicated by the failures of later high-tech weapons like the B-1 bomber, the F-14 Tomcat fighter, and the Navy's stillborn A-12 Avenger project. And multiple sources have confirmed McNamara's sense of shock, following his own visits to Vietnam, at discovering the actual situation there was much worse than the rosy reports he was getting daily from the highest levels of the Pentagon.
This leads to the final, and best, defense of McNamara's conduct during the Vietnam war. A leader's decisions are only as good as the information on which they're based, and when there are active measures being taken within the military to pass up the chain of command only what somebody thinks the chain of command wants to hear, the entire effort's in a lot of trouble. Those calling for McNamara's soul would be well advised to read "About Face," the memoir of the late Col. David Hackworth - a rare peace activist with military credibility. In it, Hackworth describes at length his own epiphany over the Vietnam war while escorting retired General S.L.A. Marshall around the front lines in support of the latter's planned official war history. An early supporter of the war, Hackworth's opinion changed for good after seeing firsthand the effect that Marshall's outsized, and unearned, reputation was having on the conduct of the war given that his conclusions, taken as gospel by the senior officers in the Pentagon, were based on the selective reading and overt politicization of after-action reports from the field. And the Colonel's resignation from the Army was assured when he realized that several of his superiors knew full well that Marshall's credentials, methods, and conclusions were bogus, yet stood by and said nothing. So those who are so quick to lay the deaths of American servicemembers at the feet of the late Defense Secretary need to step back and take a look at the military officers, from Generals on down, whose political cowardice during those years failed their fellow soldiers far more directly and immediately than any decision at the Secretary's level ever could.
PS - ...and for the poster blaming McNamara for the failures of the American auto industry, my '83 T-Bird still works great after 180,000 miles...