Thoughts occasioned by the reports of McNamara's death

Source: "'Terribly Wrong' Handling of Vietnam Overshadowed Record of Achievement," Thomas W. Lippman, The Washington Post, July 7, 2009.

If there is a lesson from Robert McNamara's life it is the limits of rationality and the inadequacy of our understanding. Vietnam was terrible, with an even worse loss of life to the Vietnamese that to the Americans, but it seems to me that the most important objective in the 1960s was to avoid a third world war or a war fought with weapons of mass destruction. That objective was accomplished in the 1960s and for the whole of the Cold War. History changes as historians discover more facts and choose different facts to emphasize in their histories. Perhaps at some future date McNamara's service as Secretary of Defense will be reinterpreted. Indeed, perhaps his service as President of the World Bank will be given more importance.

McNamara is reported to have had enormous energy and an unequalled ability to obtain, organize and recall information, but in retrospect said that he had not understood Asia nor Vietnam adequately. It has been said that he failed to obtain and listen to dissenting views adequately. Perhaps one of his failings was in in the choice of the information to which to attend.

Still, it seems like a lot of lesser men criticizing a very competant man for what in retrospect appear to have been failings in his policy.