Man and his War

One day after Independence Day weekend, Robert Strange McNamara passed away. Forty-two years earlier, he left the Defense Department of Lyndon Johnson. He lived a long life of 93 years and exactly one month. Obituaries focused on his role in the Vietnam “conflict” that tore this nation apart throughout the 1960s and early 70s, and remarked that three decades later – when he could first bring himself to speak or write on the subject – that he said the war was wrong. He and other Americans who waged the war had misunderstood the region and people they were fighting.

As Tim Weiner noted in his obituary in the New York Times, his role in this conflict and his loyalty to President Johnson will forever overshadow the good things that he did for the world. Paul Hendrickson wrote the most authoritative biography of the man, and got to the heart of the torment that McNamara felt after the Vietnam War. In what most call a retributive stint at the World Bank and later on the boards of many organizations working toward development of the third world, McNamara brought nations to the table that should have long been included in development dialogue. He continued to fight against nuclear arms and to redistribute wealth throughout the developing world. Certainly, McNamara was caught up in a war that was unwinnable – as he believed long before he could bring himself to resign – but I do believe that he kept on with the best of intentions and was only later able to demonstrate them at the World Bank and afterward.

Much of the rancor about McNamara is that he lived to an old age while so many died on his watch. But, he lived so many years because he was passionate about many things and had the same determination in his personal life. We archivists have joked that he likely rode his exercise bike – as he the day before his death. In the course of four days he would fly from Africa to India and then to Aspen for skiing, then to South America for a summit, then to Washington to start it over again.

War is a terrible thing. But if McNamara didn’t wage it, would someone have done so in his place? We must not forget that it was a nation at war rather than one man and it went on after his tenure. McNamara has remarked that despite the tremendous costs he would do it again; he said candidly that he did not live with regret, though many claim they could see it in his face.

While I lack the visceral reaction to the War that my parent’s generation does, I believe his legacy will prove to be something more. Perhaps he can demonstrate how much of the time we have a Secretary of Offense rather than a Secretary of Defense. That we wage the same Orwellian war in the that we always fight; indeed we are fighting now. To let him rest in peace, I recognize that despite ruining so many lives he made many better, and seemed to have the best of intentions at heart. His later correspondence, interviews, and work show the love that he had from others who knew him as a man rather only as the Secretary of Defense. As so many Americans stand over his grave to see that he stays in it – as Bob Dylan hoped to do – our forgiveness may be as important as his contrition.

"Ecological considerations have made us all more aware of the interdependencies of our world. We have come to see our planet as ‘spaceship earth’ [Barbara Ward]. But what we must not forget is that one-quarter of the passengers on that ship have luxurious first-class accommodations and the remaining three-quarters are traveling in steerage. That does not make for a happy ship – in space or anywhere else. All the less so when the steerage passengers realize that there are at hand the means to make the accommodations more reasonable for everyone."

-- Robert S McNamara, ca. 1984