“He’s like a jackhammer,” President Johnson said. “No human being can take what he takes. He drives too hard. He is too perfect.” – Ex-Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara Dies at 93
Coming from Johnson, the king of political jackhammers, that’s quite a statement. Though as history has proven over time, Robert S. McNamara was anything but “perfect.” Labeling Kennedy pulling missiles out of Turkey “luck that prevented nuclear war,” in the end McNamara’s reflections on the Kennedy and Johnson administrations was welcomed candor from someone who was there.
Like Barry Goldwater before him, Robert S. McNamara upon retirement came to a philosophical shift that was the product of experience, watching the world from the driver’s seat and ending up a man whose life’s work and storyline ended up dramatically departed from where he started.
All stories about McNamara must include Errol Morris’s 2003 documentary “Fog of War” that includes “Rolling Thunder,” the massive and aptly named bombing campaign. More clips are available here, here, here, here, here.
After the New York Times piece yesterday, which reveals where Obama’s “nuclear-free vision” began, but also the press conference held today with Obama and Russia’s Medvedev, it’s impossible not to quote McNamarra’s views (h/t FP) as they existed at the end of his life.
If the United States continues its current nuclear stance, over time, substantial proliferation of nuclear weapons will almost surely follow. Some, or all, of such nations as Egypt, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Taiwan will very likely initiate nuclear weapons programs, increasing both the risk of use of the weapons and the diversion of weapons and fissile materials into the hands of rogue states or terrorists. Diplomats and intelligence agencies believe Osama bin Laden has made several attempts to acquire nuclear weapons or fissile materials. It has been widely reported that Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, former director of Pakistan’s nuclear reactor complex, met with bin Laden several times. Were al Qaeda to acquire fissile materials, especially enriched uranium, its ability to produce nuclear weapons would be great. The knowledge of how to construct a simple gun-type nuclear device, like the one we dropped on Hiroshima, is now widespread. Experts have little doubt that terrorists could construct such a primitive device if they acquired the requisite enriched uranium material. Indeed, just last summer, at a meeting of the National Academy of Sciences, former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry said, “I have never been more fearful of a nuclear detonation than now.… There is a greater than 50 percent probability of a nuclear strike on U.S. targets within a decade.” I share his fears.
The Tonkin Gulf Resolution resounded loudly during the lead up to the Iraq war, though Democrats and Republicans in Congress weren’t listening, which allowed the Bush administration to launch a war based on fictional reports of WMDs in Iraq. It proved that the U.S. hadn’t learned the lessons.
“It didn’t happen.” – Robert S. McNamara
Neither did WMDs in Iraq, but only David Kay could bring himself to be as forthright.
The best of our leaders after a long life are able to learn from participating in history and share what they’ve learned through confessions that often don’t serve their own interests, but something larger. McNamara, one of the “best and brightest”, was just one of those leaders.
The cost of not learning from people like McNamara is still manifesting daily. If you don’t learn from history… you end up where we are today.
“… .. …On November 11, three days after the McNamara recommendation to introduce combat forces, there was a new McNamara paper, done with Rusk, which reflected the President’s position. … Kennedy would send American support units and American advisers, but not American combat troops. We would help the South Vietnamese help themselves. …” The Best and the Brightest, by David Halberstam (pg. 201)
Sound familiar?
Only now we’re also sending American combat troops.
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