Plum Crazy

McNamara, of course, steals the show as the film's subject and the primary source of material. The movie is largely based on interviews with him, complimented by historical photos, newsreel footage, and tapes of conversations with John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.

McNamara led an incomparably accomplished life. He was a Harvard professor, a key architect of U.S. bombing strategy against Japan in World II, the brains that helped Ford regain its place in the marketplace and eventual president of the company, U.S. Secretary of Defense under Kennedy and Johnson, and finally president of the World Bank for thirteen years. At the time of the film, he was still vigorous in his eighties and active in world issues of poverty and health. If only we all could have such a resume. He is also a strikingly brilliant man.

As much admiration as I have for him after seeing the movie, I have doubts about him as well. He was also a key architect behind our disastrous intervention in Vietnam and a lightening-rod for opposition to the war.

However, in fairness, he always felt the war was a bad idea. He had actually persuaded Kennedy to begin to withdraw U.S. advisors in 1963 before a coup toppled the then Vietnamese premier. He tried to dissuade Johnson privately to disentangle the U.S. from the war.

In the most telling line of the movie, at least for me, he issues a strong repudiation of the war that rings as true today in Iraq as it would have then:

What makes us omniscient? Have we a record of omniscience? We are the strongest nation in the world today. I do not believe we should ever apply that political, economic, or military power unilaterally. If we had applied that rule in Vietnam, we never would have been there. None of our allies supported us. Not Japan, not Germany, not Britain, nor France. If we can't persuade nations with comparable values of the merit of our cause, we better reexamine our reasoning."

Nonetheless, he has several telling lines in the movie that make it clear he is a moral relativist. When speaking of the morality of using Agent Orange, he falls back on the legalese of a career politician:

Were those who issued the approval to use Agent Orange criminals? Were they committing a crime against humanity? Let's look at the law. Now what kind of law do we have that says these kinds of chemicals are acceptable for use in war and these chemicals are not? We don't have a clear definition of that kind. I never in the world would have authorized an illegal action.

That line is one of many discomfiting comments in the movie in which McNamara shirks responsibility for his actions through double-speak. It's not just a question of what is legal or illegal. It is a question of what is right or wrong.

Maybe you can make the case for fire bombing Japan to expedite the war against them. They attacked us, declared war on us. We didn't start it, but as McNamara notes correctly, we had a moral responsibility to finish it quickly with minimal loss of U.S. life.

By contrast, Vietnam didn't attack us. We were in danger only because we put ourselves there, mired ourselves down. We were in there only because of some thin political philosophy about dominoes falling. A point that becomes startlingly clear when you hear Johnson talking about what happens if one little nation falls. Another little nation falls. There has got to be a stronger rationale for fighting a war than that.

Who was in imminent danger besides the South Vietnamese? It was, as a Vietnamese leader said to McNamara in a conference in 1995, a civil war. In a war of our own making, are we right to use a deadly chemical that not only makes the "enemy" sick but makes our own soldiers sick? To try to end the war at all cost, when we can simply get out with no harm to us other than to our national pride? Japan would have kept coming at us, Vietnam never came at us until we came at them.

When asked at the end of the movie, "Do you feel in anyway responsible for the war, do you feel guilty?" he responds, "I don't want to go any further discussions. It just opens up more controversy."

Aside from yes, I'm not sure what I would expect McNamara to say to that question. But how about yes? Despite his misgivings about the war, his efforts to dissuade Johnson, he is in large part responsible for the war.

To his credit, though, you can hear the regret in his voice when asked such questions about his legacy. He understands his place in history and does have a lot to shoulder. Perhaps working at the World Bank, staying active after he retired at 65, is his way of doing penance. A tacit way of accepting the responsibility that he eschews in words. At least I'd like to hope so.