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"Needless to say, to denounce McNamara, the implementer of Kennedy-Johnson policy, as a war criminal, without denouncing Kennedy and Johnson as war criminals, too, was as absurd as denouncing Himmler for the Holocaust but not Hitler."
I have a problem with this statement. There is a critical difference between the McNamara-Kennedy/Johnson situation and the Himmler-Hitler one which the author ignores. Kennedy and Johnson have not been condemned as harshly as McNamara because the Vietnam War is not the only thing they are remembered for and judged on. Johnson's domestic record was outstanding, particularly in civil rights. In the view of many (including myself), his achievements on the domestic front outweigh his failure in Vietnam. While Kennedy did not achieve nearly as much as Johnson, he captivated the American people (and most of the world) with his style and charisma. McNamara's problem is that he was a key figure in the great failure of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations--Vietnam--while at the same times playing no role in the achievements these presidents enjoyed. He had no role whatsoever in civil rights or Camelot. This is why it's much easier to condemn him than it is to condemn Kennedy or Johnson.
Himmler and Hitler, by contrast, both left legacies that were completely negative, disastrous, and monstrous. It's not as if Hitler, while still being responsible for the Holocaust, managed to leave behind a prosperous Germany that was much better off than when he came to power, while Himmler's only role in the Third Reich was the Holocaust. Hitler was an utter disaster for Germany as well as for the rest of the world. Therefore, there is no reason to judge him less harshly than Himmler (indeed, he is rightly judged even more harshly since he was the leader of Germany).
