Robert S. McNamara, Secretary of the Defense for seven years during the Vietnam War, looks back on the mistakes made by leadership. ( )

This wasn't really a "tell all" about McNamara's role in Vietnam, but more an attempt to rehabilitate his reputation. It addressed some of the biggest problems with the war (the unexamined belief in the domino theory, the lack of understanding of nationalism as a key motivation of the Vietnamese, that the South Vietnamese forces were essentially unwilling or incapable to win, and that the escalations we chose, especially the air war, were insufficient to win, but merely a way of "doing something"), but his own role was limited to wishing he had challenged more assumptions by other people.

It's good that there has been some reflection on the causes of the war, but the real problem was something deeper. When a large and powerful country can choose to enter a war by choice and doesn't really have much stake in the outcome, it can prosecute that war in a completely ineffectual way. The country should be able to defend itself robustly, and maintain an absolute deterrent force, but wars of choice should not be the role of the military. We would be better off if such non-existential conflicts were waged entirely by private organizations, through something like a letter of marque or corporate security forces, and they would be far more efficient in their use of force -- in the case of the Vietnamese conflict, the reasonable policy would have been working with the nationalist/pro-independence movement and establishing a truly independent state, potentially neutral or even allied with the US, rather than continuing a colonial war and turning it into an anti-Communist crusade when it didn't need to be. ( )

Memoir of one of the architects of the Vietnam War ( )

Addendum 9/9/09. As I follow the discussion over Afghanistan, I was reminded of a report cited by McNamara that was begun at the behest of CIA director Richard Helms. Super-secret it was done to examine contingencies to see what might happen if there were an unfavorable outcome in Vietnam. Over 30 CIA analysts were consulted. It was not to be an argument for ending the war, just responses to a hypothetical question. The memo was entitled "Implications of an Unfavorable Outcome in Vietnam." (The entire report makes fascinating reading and has been declassified. It’s available at:
http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/star/images/041/04109127006.pdf

Basically, it made four observations:

A. Failure in Vietnam would be a major setback to reputation that would reduce influence as a world power
B. Net effects of failure would not be permanent and that over a short time the U.S. could regain its stature
C. “The worst potential damage would be of the self-inflicted kind – lead to loss of confidence in internal dissension which would limit our future ability to use our resources and power wisely and to full effect and lead to a loss of confidence by others in the American capacity for leadership.”
D. Destabilizing effects in immediate area of SE Asia, some realignments in neighboring countries

“The frustration of a world power, once it has committed vast resources and much prestige to a military enterprise must be in some degree damaging to the general security system it upholds. . . .If the analysis here advances the discussion at all, it is in the direction of suggesting that such risks are probably more limited and controllable than most previous argument has indicated.”

McNamara claims he never saw the memo until he wrote the book. Johnson may not have shown it to anyone.

A book worth mentioning is Harold Ford's CIA and Vietnam Policymakers: Three Episodes, 1962-1968 by Harold Ford, available from Google Books:

http://books.google.com/books?id=UkdGJDavyN0C&pg=PA110&lpg=PA110&dq=... report top johnson vietnam mcnamara&source=bl&ots=hhINrkI9a1&sig=kB-r3GissyTFEG-dg0EnB3oMq-8&hl=en&ei=5rCnSpH_GY_kNcnYzbEP&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4#v=onepage&q=cia report top johnson vietnam mcnamara&f=false

Harold Ford’s book (at least excerpts I have read on Google books) indicates that CIA estimates were far more accurate than those coming publicly out of the White House.

Informative review at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-e-jackson-jr/harold-p-ford-on-robert-m_b_2... re Ford’s comments on McNamara’s book.


7/6/09 McNamara died today, thought I might review my earlier review.

Clearly, the policy wonks made many errors in their decision to pursue the war in Vietnam. Halberstam in The Best and the Brightest catalogs many of those arrogant positions and their failures to listen to southeast Asia experts. But there was also a visceral fear of Communism (not to mention a fear of right-wing McCarthyites who had ruined many a reputation for failure to be anti-Communist enough. That's why only Nixon could go to China. The military was sure that just a few more soldiers would win the war, just a few more bombing missions, etc. etc.

The book reveals a level of amateurism that is scary and that from the "best and the brightest," a phrase that when I hear it now gives me the willies. They failed to learn as much as they could about Vietnam

McNamara, by 1966, had already decided that the war could not be won.
Johnson knew that McNamara and RFK were friends and spoke frequently and by this time RFK was running for president and had come out against continued involvement in Vietnam. Already, McNamara and Dean Rusk both by this time were showing the strain physically. Diplomatic efforts continued to fail and in 1967, Buddhist uprising intensified and the fragility of the South Vietnamese government became obvious. The military situation while not great, was overshadowed by political problems. Johnson had even hinted in April of 1966 that he might be willing to withdraw troops from Vietnam and "make a stand in Thailand." (I'm not sure what the Thais would have thought of that, but no matter, other people's considerations don't seem to be taken into account when the U.S. is on the march.) "Looking back I deeply regret that I did not force a probing debate about whether it would ever be possible to forge a winning military effort on a foundation of political quicksand.. . . I believe it is clear today that military force especially, when wielded by an outside power, just cannot win in a country that cannot govern itself."

His colleagues saw things differently, and inaccurately says McNamara. Dean Rusk was already sure in 1966 that the situation was such that the North Vietnamese could not succeed. Ambassador Lodge was convinced the military war was going well (this was before Tet) and that the war would be lost only if the political will failed in the United States. McNamara reports that he laid out the reasons why the US could not succeed in the fall of 1966 after a trip to Vietnam. (McNamara was pilloried when the book came out by critics who faulted him for not going public with his dissent, or at least making a stronger effort to persuade the president of the lost cause. I think that's being a little harsh given the overwhelming support for the war from Johnson's other advisers.

I would hope that current administration officials would read this book, obviously the Bush folks did not, or maybe they didn't care. I would hope that we are not doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. Just take a stroll along the Vietnam Memorial to realize the import of those decisions. An important book, if a cynic-maker.

Update 7/6/09[b:CIA and Vietnam Policymakers Three Episodes, 1962-1968|4106540|CIA and the Vietnam Policymakers Three Episodes, 1962-1968|Harold P. Ford|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg|6655903] ( )

Revealing, and remorseful memoir of Vietnam War by one of its prime architects. Gordian Knot of geopolitics. ( )