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Before
seeing The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons of Robert S. McNamara,
my only knowledge of the subject was through Simon and
Garfunkel's "A Simple Desultory Philippic (Or How I Was
Robert McNamara'd into Submission)," which was a parody of
Bob Dylan, and that's funny because Dylan Baker played
McNamara in Thirteen Days (thus completing this unusual
circle of inconsequence). From what I've been able to gather -
and my American History textbooks educated through only the
early 1950s – McNamara wasn't exactly well-liked when he was
the Secretary of Defense to Kennedy and Johnson, especially by
those opposed to the war in Viet Nam.
McNamara,
now a spry 85-year-old, sat down in front of documentarian Errol
Morris's Interrotron for over 20 hours of interviews, and those
have been cobbled into just over 90 minutes of very
entertaining, extremely informative footage, aided by archive
material and a monotonous, slightly apocalyptic Philip Glass
score. But before
delving into war stories, we learn the basics:
McNamara was educated in places like Berkeley and Harvard
in subjects like logic, statistics and philosophy before being
tapped as the first non-family president of the Ford Motor
Company.
Since
most people associate McNamara with the bungling of Viet Nam,
some will be surprised to hear his tales of World War II, where
the young Lieutenant Colonel was partially responsible for
creating the battle plan that saw the US firebomb 67 Japanese
cities to the point where the word "leveled" might not
even apply. That
campaign, which was led by General Curtis LeMay (the basis for
the General Buck Turgidson character in Dr. Strangelove),
might have led to McNamara being tried for war crimes had Japan
managed victory in WWII.
On
to Viet Nam, where recently declassified White House audio tapes
reveal McNamara's position to be quite different than what he
displayed in public. His cool head helped Kennedy ignore LeMay's
insistence that the US invade Cuba to end the 1962 missile
crisis, and McNamara's love for JFK appears on his sleeve as he
openly weeps while discussing the slain leader. Johnson comes
off even more buffoonish than ever here, as McNamara suggests he
still isn't sure whether he quit or Johnson fired him.
So
how does McNamara, who is responsible for two of the ugliest,
deadliest black marks in the most violent century this world has
ever seen, come off so likable?
Is it more than his apparent hawk-to-dove transition?
Is he allowed to be cut this kind of slack using the
ability of 20-20 hindsight when he justifies his use of military
force (at least initially) but also cautions against use of the
same force in present-day situations?
There aren't any easy answers in War, and devotees
of Morris (Mr. Death) should
know that going in.
One question begs to
be answered, though: How
is it possible that McNamara looks younger than Donald Rumsfeld?
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