POLITICS JULY 6, 2009
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Former Secretary of Defense and World Bank head Robert McNamara died today at age 93. To mark the occasion, we compiled our best pieces on him from over the years.
The Editors, December 26, 1960: “Kennedy’s Men”
The Editors express doubts about McNamara’s readiness to serve as secretary of defense, wondering whether someone with so little foreign policy experience could lead such an important department.
Raymond D. Senter, September 28, 1963: "Rebellion In The Air Force?"
Senter attributes unrest in the Air Force to Defense Secretary McNamara's too-rigid leadership.
Alex Campbell, June 26, 1965: “The Secretary of Defense”
In this long profile, Campbell writes about McNamara’s opposition to nuclear weapons, his political future, and how his staff felt about having to be in the office by 6:30 a.m.
The Editors, May 7, 1966: “Capital Portraits”
The Editors write their observations of McNamara while he was testifying before the Senate on foreign aid and Vietnam, describing him as "likeable" and saying "[h]e knows the answers; knows them before senators ask the questions."
David Sanford, September 10, 1966: “McNamara’s Salvation Army”
Sanford argues that McNamara’s effort to help the poor by expanding military service for them is dubious given the number of loopholes for the affluent.
The Editors, December 9, 1967: "Exit McNamara"
The Editors discuss the reasons behind McNamara's abrupt 1967 resignation as Secretary of Defense.
David Sanford, May 24, 1969: “More Studies, And More People”
Sanford writes about the need for birth control research funding to help slow population growth, something McNamara pushed for as president of the World Bank.
Harry G. Summers, Jr., April 29, 1985: “How We Lost”
Summers writes about how the structural framework of defense set us up for failure in Vietnam.
Jacob Heilbrunn, March 22, 1993: "The Hollow Man"
Heilbrunn reviews Deborah Shapley's biography of McNamara, Promise and Power: The Life and Times of Robert McNamara, but describes the book as an unreliable account of McNamara's life.
Mickey Kaus, May 1, 1995: "Who's Sorry Now"
Kaus writes that McNamara shouldn't be cut any slack just for acknowleding his Vietnam mistakes in his 1995 memoir In Retrospect.
Eugene McCarthy, May 15, 1995: "The Vindicator"
Former Senator Eugene McCarthy describes the public's response to that same memoir.
By TNR Staff
2 comments
You've redeemed yourself TNR with this McNamara summary. I'm going to enjoy the first three articles. I found the Kaus preblog rant pathetic but I am going to enjoy the first four articles from Old TNR. At the end of the day McNamara was a dedicated public servant who sacrificed a great deal of his personal life. He never was CIC and had the good grace to keep his mouth shut when out of office. The South East Asian holocaust (of which American deaths accounted for a very small percentage) is LBJ's legacy. His and his only.
- TIP
July 6, 2009 at 6:09pm
If only Henry Kissinger, Nixon’s national security adviser and Secretary of State, would follow Robert McNamara’s example late in life and confess that he deceived the American people about Vietnam. Declassified Nixon tapes and documents prove that Kissinger realized that: 1. The Vietnamization training program would not make South Vietnam capable of defending itself, and 2. The “peace” terms he negotiated with North Vietnam would destroy South Vietnam following a “decent interval” of a year or two. To conceal the failure of his strategy of “Vietnamization and negotiation, Nixon (at Kissinger’s urging) prolonged the war into the fourth year of his first term -- long enough to avoid a pre-election collapse of the South Vietnamese government that would show voters he had lost the war. You can see and hear the evidence here: fatalpolitics.blogspot.com/2009/06/watch-all-episodes-of-fatal-politics.html The decision to prolong the war for political reasons cost thousands of American lives, and countless more Vietnamese lives as well. No one deserved to die for the sake of Richard Nixon’s or Henry Kissinger’s career. There are worse things than coming clean too late, like Secretary McNamara, and one of them is to continue to profit from deception, like Secretary Kissinger.
- Ken Hughes
July 6, 2009 at 6:12pm