RIP Robert McNamara

[Moderator1]

No links yet - AP said to be reporting, the NYTimes reports on its Twitter feed (there we go again with the Twitter)

 

[Boom_70]

Already have in on celebrity death thread

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/71116/

 

[Moderator1]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/06/AR2009070601197.html

 

[BNWriter]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/06/AR2009070601197.html?hpid=topnews

Remembered for Johnson-era Vietnam strategy. RIP

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

Already have in on celebrity death thread

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/71116/

Why? He's not a celebrity. That's stupid.

 

[Moderator1]

No need for that discussion. There is a thread - THIS ONE -for this particular discussion.

 

[JR]

Haven't read the entire Post piece but McNamara figures prominenly in Halberstam's book, "The Best and the Brightest" I'd also recommend the doc "Fog of War"

McNamara was pretty much the archetypical smartest guy in the room.

 

[Blitz]

Great work on the obit.
Wow, what an interesting man.
Basterdized by much of the public, for sure, and many families of the 58,000 Vietnam War dead. (Not all, mind you, many were proud, and nothing else)
But educated and well-traveled. Cared much, it seems, for the underpriviliged and overlooked of the world.
RIP and condolences to the family

 

[Evil Bastard (aka Chris_L)]

He was a favorite of Fenian *******.

 

[micropolitan guy]

Many of my generation will weep no tears for Robert McNamara or his family. "Failed policy in Vietnam" is being overly polite, as 58,000 names on that wall attest.

 

[friend of the friendless]

Sirs, Madames,

I'll put Fog of War on continuous loop. Just about my favorite film of all time (saw it at the Toronto film festival when it debuted and Errol Morris spoke after the screening). The all-time coldest of cold fish. Amazingly gifted, deeply flawed, wholly unlikeable figure.

BTW about the film festival screening, FoW was the second last film to show at Toronto's historic Uptown Theatre. The last was Undead. Four months later, when the theatre was being demolished, a wall gave out and killed a worker, looked like a war zone.

o-<

 

[Michael_ Gee]

A reminder that smart, hard-working dedicated people who are wrong create far more of the world's debacles than do its fools and knaves.

 

[Evil Bastard (aka Chris_L)]

A reminder that smart, hard-working dedicated people who are wrong create far more of the world's debacles than do its fools and knaves.

Just look at Barack Obama

 

[CollegeJournalist]

Anyone who hasn't seen Fog of War is seriously missing out. It is, quite simply, one of most provocative, informative, all-telling docs of all-time (or at least that I've seen).

Definitely worth a couple hours of time.

 

[User 1019]

He will be remembered as a villain, but it sounds like Vietnam and even his involvement in WWII haunted him until the day he died and that he was truly sorry.

 

[sportschick]

He will be remembered as a villain, but it sounds like Vietnam and even his involvement in WWII haunted him until the day he died and that he was truly sorry.

The director of Fog of War was on NPR this morning/afternoon and said something very similar to that. In fact, he said even before McNamara resigned, he'd changed his mind on Vietnam.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

That's right Chris, just look at that foreign war Obama started that's cost 58,000 American lives.
Get a grip. Wait until the guy actually fubars before you rip him for it.

 

[Boom_70]

He will be remembered as a villain, but it sounds like Vietnam and even his involvement in WWII haunted him until the day he died and that he was truly sorry.

The director of Fog of War was on NPR this morning/afternoon and said something very similar to that. In fact, he said even before McNamara resigned, he'd changed his mind on Vietnam.

No news there. McNamara actually wrote an entire book that said he was wrong about Viet Nam. A book that is now required reading at The Army War College.

In the preface he makes it very clear:

"We of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations who participated in the decisions on Vietnam acted according to what we thought were the principles and traditions of this nation. We made our decisions in light of those values. Yet we were wrong, terribly wrong. We owe it to future generations to explain why."

Important to note - both democrat presidents.

 

[albert77]

I've always felt McNamara was a little unfairly painted as THE villain where Vietnam was concerned, when in fact there were plenty of others who were equally, if not more, to blame than he was.

And blame may even be too strong a word. We accelerated our involvement in Southeast Asia based on what was believed to be a sound strategy at the time, containing communism, a policy that began under Truman. Subsequent presidents and their advisors acted based on that strategy, using the tactics they believed would work.

They grossly underestimated the capabilities of the NVA and the Viet Cong, the tactics that worked in previous wars proved useless in SE Asia, and they weren't able to figure out a way to make things work. In time, the American public turned against the war effort, and all that was left to do was to figure a way out.

 

[Bru]

His biggest sin was not speaking up and/or resigning when, in 1966, he decided the war was unwinnable. He was too much of an organization man to take that step. But it might have saved thousands of lives.