“America wins the wars that she
undertakes, make no mistake about it, and we have declared war on tyranny and
aggression.” Obama, one of the Bushes or Clinton? It’s a familiar bit of
nonsense, but it was said by Lyndon Johnson sometime around 50 years ago.
The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara is a 2003 SONY production that is
basically an interview with the former longest-serving Secretary of Defense.
McNamara
was in office during some of the biggest events of mid-century: the Cuban
Missile Crisis, the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, the seizure of the USS Pueblo by
North Korea and the attack on the USS Liberty by
Israel. He was also in office for much of the Vietnam War. Most of the movie is
taken up by the Cuban Missile Crisis and Vietnam, although it does cover his WW
II experience and his work at Ford Motor Company. The Pueblo and the Liberty are not mentioned, but the Gulf of
Tonkin is discussed, about which he says that the attack on the USS Turner Joy never happened.
Most of his answers are very
direct – even to the point of saying that he might have been tried as a war
criminal had the US lost WWII – but a few times he just says, “I won’t answer
that.”
During
the Cuban Missile Crisis (October 16 – 28, 1962) John Kennedy was very
fortunate to have an aide named Llewellyn “Tommy” Thompson who had lived with
Nikita Khrushchev and knew him and his wife pretty well. McNamara says that the
US was in receipt of two messages from the Soviet Union regarding its position
on the missiles, one conciliatory and one belligerent. Thompson urged Kennedy
to reply to the conciliatory message, arguing that if Khrushchev could save
face he would. The confrontation was defused and we’ve lived sort of happily
ever after.
This was not the only close call
with nuclear war. McNamara says that during his 7 years as Secretary “We came
within a hair’s breadth of war with the Soviet Union on 3 different occasions.”
Things were getting so far out of hand that during the Kennedy administration
the US built and tested a 100 megaton bomb in the atmosphere. He makes the
point that military commanders make errors, but usually the errors only affect
a few hundred or a few thousand people, they don’t destroy entire countries or
kill millions of people as could happen with nuclear errors. “You make one
mistake and you’re going to destroy nations.”
Thirty
years after the Missile Crisis, in a meeting with Fidel Castro, McNamara
learned that at the time of the crisis there were 162 nuclear weapons in Cuba,
although at the time the CIA had said that the missiles were there, but the
warheads had not arrived – an intelligence failure of the greatest possible
proportions. Castro had recommended to Khrushchev that he launch a nuclear
attack on the US in the event of an attack by the US even though Cuba would be
obliterated.
Recalling
his WW II experience he says:
March
9, 1945 “On that single night we burned to death 100,000 Japanese civilians in
Tokyo, men, women and children.”Interviewer: “Were you aware this was going to
happen?
McNamara:
“I was part of a mechanism that recommended it. I analyzed bombing operations
and how to make them more efficient. Not more efficient in the sense of killing
more, but in weakening the adversary…. I don’t want to suggest that it was my
report that led to the firebombing…It isn’t that I’m trying to absolve myself
of blame for the firebombing.”
On
the question of proportionality in war, McNamara says, “[Curtis] Lemay said if
we lost the war we would all be prosecuted as war criminals and I think he’s
right. He – and I would say I – were behaving as war criminals…Lemay recognized
that what he was doing would be
thought immoral if his side had lost, but what makes it immoral if you lose and
not immoral if you win?”
October 2, 1963: McNamara
returned from Vietnam. At the time there were 16,000 US advisers there. He
recommended that all of them be removed within 2 years. “We need a way to get
out of Vietnam and this is the way to do it.” Obviously that didn’t happen.
Diem was overthrown in South Vietnam, JFK was assassinated and LBJ became
president.
LBJ
is heard saying on tape that he always thought that talk of pulling out was
foolish. Johnson: “Then comes the question: How the hell does McNamara think
when he’s losing the war he can pull men out of there?”
After
the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution Johnson orders more troops in. He asks McNamara
when he’s going to issue the order and is told that it will be made “late today
so it will miss some of the morning editions. I’ll handle it in a way that will
minimize the announcement.”
Towards
the end he makes a statement that should be etched in stone above the Capital
and the White House, viz “What makes us omniscient? Have we a record of
omniscience? We are the strongest nation in the world today. I don’t believe
that we should ever apply that economic, political or military power
unilaterally. If we had followed that rule in Vietnam we wouldn’t have been
there.”
It’s
easy to watch this and think that McNamara is being self-serving or trying to
justify his actions, but there are plenty of audio clips from the time that
show he really did want to get out of Vietnam. Johnson was the one who wanted
to pour more troops in, and McNamara, to his discredit, followed the script
instead of speaking publicly or resigning.
“We and you ought not to pull on
the ends of a rope which you have tied the knots of war. Because the more the
two of us pull, the tighter the knot will be tied. And then it will be
necessary to cut that knot, and what that would mean is not for me to explain
to you. I have participated in two wars and know that war ends when it has
rolled through cities and villages, everywhere sowing death and destruction.
For such is the logic of war. If people do not display wisdom, they will clash
like blind moles and then mutual annihilation will commence.” – Nikita S.
Khrushchev to John F. Kennedy
Two
untypical war memoirs.
A Song for Nagasaki The Story of Takashi Nagai a
Scientist, Convert, and Survivor of the Atomic Bomb – Paul Glynn
Reprinted with the author’s permission.
