Abstract

The Century of the 'Son of a Bitch'

The author comments on a documentary featuring interviews with former U.S. Defense Secretary Rober McNamara, in which he discusses his role in the Vietnam War. Errol Morris's new film, "The Fog of War," a documentary about the career and character of Robert McNamara, fascinates on many levels. It is a study of a man in selective states of denial, a man who one minute calls himself a "war criminal"--though not for the usual reasons--and the next compares himself to a Quaker who burns himself to death protesting the very war that he was planning and directing. But much of McNamara's testimony to Morris consists of legalistic rationalizations and whitewashing of history--and while Morris asks the right questions, he too frequently lets McNamara elide and abuse the truth. Given the awe in which Johnson held Kennedy's brilliant Defense Secretary--perhaps the most admired man in America following the assassination--nobody could have proven more influential in stopping the war than the man who now says he identified with a guy who set himself on fire to try to stop it. Instead he continually argued for escalation despite admitting that at no time during the conflict did he have anything like a coherent plan for victory. His only explanation: "We were in the cold war and this was a cold war activity." Substitute the word "terrorism" for "communism" and you have your contemporary historical tragedy made to order.