Letters to the Editor
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A word in defense of McNamara
Mr Greenwald -
I have great respect for your work but I believe your comparison does a disservice to Robert McNamara.
McNamara was the author, in 1963, of JFK's plan to withdraw from Vietnam, following proposals originally made by my father in 1962, and approved formally by Kennedy in October 1963. Had those plans been carried out, there would have been no Vietnam war.
Kennedy's assassination precluded the actual implementation of the 1965 withdrawal plan.
During the war that ensued, McNamara and Lyndon Johnson put their utmost efforts into limiting the reach and range of the war, to the fury of many in the military and on the far right. But by doing so,they ensured there would be repetition of the Yalu River, and no nuclear confrontation with either China or the USSR.
McNamara's personal reputation has suffered in part because over many years he has refused to defend it. Rather, he has honorably taken full responsibility for the war in Vietnam -- even well beyond what would be justified by the facts. He did this so that the larger point made in his memoir: that the war was wrong -- would prevail in the historical record.
In all these matters, McNamara's record commands respect as the actual targets of your criticism in this essay do not.
Regards, James Galbraith
PS. Documentation of JFK's withdrawal plan can be found in the Boston Review, and in Salon of November 22, 2003.