07-06-2009, 07:11 PM
<b>Robert McNamara dies</b>
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/0...t-mcnamara-dies
Former secretary of defence under John F Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson was the architect of the Vietnam war
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Robert McNamara, the architect of the Vietnam war who later made a public reversal on the conflict and said it should never have been fought, died today. He was 93 years old.
As secretary of defence under John F Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, McNamara was instrumental in pushing the US into war in Vietnam and managing the conflict, even as he acknowledged in private that he had doubts about America's ability to defeat the insurgent nationalists who had driven out the French.
McNamara left government in 1968, roughly midway through the war that would ultimately claim more than 58,000 American lives and more than one million Vietnamese lives. A former executive at Ford, he moved onto a successful 12-year run at the World Bank.
In his memoirs and a 2003 Oscar-winning documentary, The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S McNamara, McNamara described Vietnam as a mistake and said that he and others in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations never asked fundamental questions about its necessity and course.
Even four decades after the conflict, McNamara provoked bitter animosity among Vietnam veterans and the American left."He was a tortured soul and really symbolic of the whole Vietnam era," said David Lamb, a journalist who covered the conflict for UPI. "His flip flop obviously caused huge amounts of resentment amongst the people who had fought the war. Here the man who was the architect of the war comes out in the post-war years and said it was a battle that shouldn't have been fought."
Rick Weidman, who served as a medic in Vietnam in 1969, blasted McNamara for moving on to a lucrative career while Vietnam veterans were still suffering and dying from wounds and psychological trauma received in battle. "He went on to the World Bank and never said a damn thing, and made money on a book and never did a bloody thing for Vietnam vets," said Weidman, executive director for policy and government affairs for Vietnam Veterans of America.
As an officer in the US army airforce during the second world war, McNamara, a graduate of Harvard Business School, applied statistical methods to the US bombing campaign in Japan. He greatly increased the efficiency and lethality of US air attacks, devastating the civilian populations of Japanese cities.
After the war he joined Ford, rising to become its president, when Kennedy tapped him as secretary of defence in 1961. At 44, he was only a year older than Kennedy, who brought him on to reform a military he believed had too much autonomy from the country's civilian leadership. McNamara was later criticised for applying his abstract thinking to management of the Vietnam war, ignoring the human and moral elements of the conflict. "McNamara treated everybody like they were a spare part on a Ford," Weidman said.
In his later years, McNamara sought to atone for his role and advocated a rethinking of the US and UK nuclear posture, advocating nuclear disarmament. He warned repeatedly that the world risked catastrophe if weapons of mass destruction were ever to be used in war.
In 2005 he criticised US and UK nuclear policy as "immoral, illegal and militarily unnecessary," calling it destructive of non-proliferation efforts. He said the US-led war in Iraq showed that the consequences of military action were unpredictable and that intelligence could be flawed.
His apparent change of heart won him the friendship of Bobby Muller, a marine corps officer who was paralysed by a gunshot wound in Vietnam.
"When I first came back, I wanted him executed as a war criminal, but several years ago now, I actually wound up getting to be friends with him," said Muller, who joined McNamara on the rostrum at speaking engagements.
"The fact that he finally stepped up with an informed voice, with a powerful voice based on the experiences of his life about war and particularly about nuclear weapons went a long way to make his life worth having been lived," Muller said.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/0...t-mcnamara-dies
Former secretary of defence under John F Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson was the architect of the Vietnam war
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Robert McNamara, the architect of the Vietnam war who later made a public reversal on the conflict and said it should never have been fought, died today. He was 93 years old.
As secretary of defence under John F Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, McNamara was instrumental in pushing the US into war in Vietnam and managing the conflict, even as he acknowledged in private that he had doubts about America's ability to defeat the insurgent nationalists who had driven out the French.
McNamara left government in 1968, roughly midway through the war that would ultimately claim more than 58,000 American lives and more than one million Vietnamese lives. A former executive at Ford, he moved onto a successful 12-year run at the World Bank.
In his memoirs and a 2003 Oscar-winning documentary, The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S McNamara, McNamara described Vietnam as a mistake and said that he and others in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations never asked fundamental questions about its necessity and course.
Even four decades after the conflict, McNamara provoked bitter animosity among Vietnam veterans and the American left."He was a tortured soul and really symbolic of the whole Vietnam era," said David Lamb, a journalist who covered the conflict for UPI. "His flip flop obviously caused huge amounts of resentment amongst the people who had fought the war. Here the man who was the architect of the war comes out in the post-war years and said it was a battle that shouldn't have been fought."
Rick Weidman, who served as a medic in Vietnam in 1969, blasted McNamara for moving on to a lucrative career while Vietnam veterans were still suffering and dying from wounds and psychological trauma received in battle. "He went on to the World Bank and never said a damn thing, and made money on a book and never did a bloody thing for Vietnam vets," said Weidman, executive director for policy and government affairs for Vietnam Veterans of America.
As an officer in the US army airforce during the second world war, McNamara, a graduate of Harvard Business School, applied statistical methods to the US bombing campaign in Japan. He greatly increased the efficiency and lethality of US air attacks, devastating the civilian populations of Japanese cities.
After the war he joined Ford, rising to become its president, when Kennedy tapped him as secretary of defence in 1961. At 44, he was only a year older than Kennedy, who brought him on to reform a military he believed had too much autonomy from the country's civilian leadership. McNamara was later criticised for applying his abstract thinking to management of the Vietnam war, ignoring the human and moral elements of the conflict. "McNamara treated everybody like they were a spare part on a Ford," Weidman said.
In his later years, McNamara sought to atone for his role and advocated a rethinking of the US and UK nuclear posture, advocating nuclear disarmament. He warned repeatedly that the world risked catastrophe if weapons of mass destruction were ever to be used in war.
In 2005 he criticised US and UK nuclear policy as "immoral, illegal and militarily unnecessary," calling it destructive of non-proliferation efforts. He said the US-led war in Iraq showed that the consequences of military action were unpredictable and that intelligence could be flawed.
His apparent change of heart won him the friendship of Bobby Muller, a marine corps officer who was paralysed by a gunshot wound in Vietnam.
"When I first came back, I wanted him executed as a war criminal, but several years ago now, I actually wound up getting to be friends with him," said Muller, who joined McNamara on the rostrum at speaking engagements.
"The fact that he finally stepped up with an informed voice, with a powerful voice based on the experiences of his life about war and particularly about nuclear weapons went a long way to make his life worth having been lived," Muller said.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->