Robert McNamara dead (1 Viewer)

[Combat]

From the Wash. Post:
Robert S. McNamara died in his sleep at his home in Washington early this morning, family members said.

McNamara, who served as secretary of defense during the Vietnam War under presidents Kennedy and Johnson, was 93.

 

[Scott]

Have you seen this documentary?


The Fog of War (2003)
Eleven Lessons From the Life of Robert S. McNamara

 

[Combat]

Have you seen this documentary?


The Fog of War (2003)
Eleven Lessons From the Life of Robert S. McNamara

Fascinating and chilling. I haven't seen it in a long time, but my recollection is that he reviewed his own actions in same analytical manner that he conducted the war. Almost as though he were discussing the actions of someone else. I'm not an expert on Vietnam, but the conduct of that war under McNamara and LBJ bordered on the bizarre. He apparently came to believe that military victory in Vietnam was never possible based on a lack of understanding of the enemy and international cooperation. My guess is that was a way to minimize his own failure.

 

[UKReb]

Bizarre! well his middle name was Strange-perfectly true.

Interesting character McNamara as he was almost the last of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations which really were an exceptional group, young, vigorous, intelligent, with incredible mental agility and very patriotic servants of the United States. So how did this set of "the best and the brightest" US minds ever assembled in the 20th century get the war in Vietnam so terribly wrong?

Now there lies a story!

Reb

 

[damian]

Rob McNamarra was one of teh brightest of the MBA's at Harvard. That was part of his problem. The Harvard MBA taught that you could apply management principles to any situation. So you could run a tractor factory, a hospital or a night club using teh same business principles. He tried to manage the war in the same way. One of the Harvard mantras was " If you cannot measure it you cannot manage it"
There is a story about how he tried to develop a metric to determine teh enemies morale. Once he had developed teh metric he then worked out how much suffering he would have to induce to lower the enemy morale to a point at which victory was inevitable. He then worked out how many of the enemy he would have to kill to lower morale to that point. Once he knew how many he would have to kill he would then extrapolate the tonnage of munitions that he would have to drop to achieve this kill rate.
For a good overview read Mintzberg's "The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning"

 

[pugio]

Too bad he died peacably in his sleep... Nam Vet

 

[theBaron]

I think the best lesson we can learn from his life is that a Harvard degree is no guarantee of intelligence.

 

[Louis Badolato]

He's another on my list of really bad american military leaders. To quote my first wife's grandmother at her husband's funeral (I kid you not), "he was a bastard and I'm glad he's dead."

 

[Combat]

From the 1950's through the 1980's the driving force in american politics was fear of communist aggression and expansion. Much of that appears to have been, intentionally or otherwise, exaggerated by politicians and military for their own purposes. Most associate this with right-wing figures like Goldwater and Reagan, but Kennedy was elected, in part, due to an alleged missile gap with the Russians under the Eisenhower administration. The missile gap proved to be an entirely false accusation which the republicans could not respond due to the sensitive nature of that information.

The irony of all this is that having created a culture of fear among the public, the politicians were forced to intervene in situations such as Vietnam. They couldn't appear to be weak on communism without suffering political disaster at the hands of their opponents. The politicians were in effect trapped by their own anti-communist rhetoric. As a result, LBJ and Nixon were left with very few options in Vietnam even after they knew the war itself was becoming futile. McNamara was largely just a tool in that larger process. Someone else would have performed his function if he had never taken the job. That doesn't absolve him of his actions, but it does limit his influence on history. The news reports today indicate he was often seen walking around DC. Sort of a haunted figure. Hard to say though whether his regrets were due to his own failure or the many lives that were lost in Vietnam.

 

[sceic2]

I don't recall if it was MSNBC or someother network, but recently a television program was shown about the Havard MBA program. A good image of the program was not shown. 95% of all the convicted CEO's in the past decade are from the Harvard MBA program. It seems that ethics was not a priority and that profit was the god reigning and ever present. It seems as if Oliver Stone had it right with his "greed is good" line in Wall Street. And yeah, I know it was Michael Douglas that said it but Stone wrote it.

McNamara ran Ford motor corporation and made significant profits, I guess that was what qualified him to run the Department of Defense. Profits, it's all about profits. Thank god the man and his thought patterns are no longer a part of the Defense Department. All of the weapons systems he authorized were crap. Ships with aluminum super structures. Aluminum burns when struck by high explosives. His guiding montra was "he who has the leastest loses the mostest." I for one join others in condeming him and I will not miss him. I wonder how someone can live with themselves knowing that 50,000+ Americans and 100's of thousands of civilians died becasue of the decisions that they made from 1,000's of miles and lifetimes away from the death.

 

[Combat]

Heavy and angry song from Dylan. Last couple of verses...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWkWSLEW-Ds&feature=PlayList&p=D3626457A2C7E70A&index=0

 

[Njja]

To Bad!

 

[jazzeum]

Suggest you all read David
Halberstam's "The Best and the Brightest." It will give you the answers you look for.

Mac was one of the Whiz Kids. He was brought into Defense to apply the same cool, logical analysis he used at Ford. Unfortunately, it (Vietnam) was a quagmire that sucked into two foreign powers and several administrations. You're barking up the wrong tree if you see to only blame Mac. There are plenty others like LBJ, JFK, Westmoreland, ad infinitum out on that branch. Try also reading the
Pentagon Papers.

 

[Combat]

If you work in government service long enough you see a lot of guys like McNamara. Smart, ambitious etc. Limited though by their political masters who put them in place. Never thinking for themselves or doing anything contrary to the agenda that put them in place. Sticking to the script until the end.

 

[UKReb]

From the 1950's through the 1980's the driving force in american politics was fear of communist aggression and expansion. Much of that appears to have been, intentionally or otherwise, exaggerated by politicians and military for their own purposes. Most associate this with right-wing figures like Goldwater and Reagan, but Kennedy was elected, in part, due to an alleged missile gap with the Russians under the Eisenhower administration. The missile gap proved to be an entirely false accusation which the republicans could not respond due to the sensitive nature of that information.

The irony of all this is that having created a culture of fear among the public, the politicians were forced to intervene in situations such as Vietnam. They couldn't appear to be weak on communism without suffering political disaster at the hands of their opponents. The politicians were in effect trapped by their own anti-communist rhetoric. As a result, LBJ and Nixon were left with very few options in Vietnam even after they knew the war itself was becoming futile. McNamara was largely just a tool in that larger process. Someone else would have performed his function if he had never taken the job. That doesn't absolve him of his actions, but it does limit his influence on history. The news reports today indicate he was often seen walking around DC. Sort of a haunted figure. Hard to say though whether his regrets were due to his own failure or the many lives that were lost in Vietnam.

Fear is the foundation of most governments- John Adams-Thoughts on Government 1776

 

[bromhead]

My biased take on him ,,listening to his "regrets" and other sad explanations for the war and the losses he was so eager at the time to endure ,,perhaps he is now explaining things in person to my fellow soldiers. His several interviews in the past few years while selling his books leave me cold.
A failing of JFK who I always admired to put him and his "whiz kids " in charge of the pentagon in the early 60s.His anti insurgency -tech uber alles mindset at the time had to be an inspiration for Rumsfeld in later years.