Check out The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert McNamara

I watched this move twice–once for a general impression and twice to take notes.

My general impression is that this documentary is an invaluable piece of American History about an invaluable living resource about the Vietnam War–it’s history and why it played out the way it did. McNamara was known by the elite in the press and universities as a real son-of-a-bitch during his tenure as Secretary of Defense (the same way that Rumsfeld is portrayed now in the press) but he came across in the movie as an authentic and emotional human being who happened to be an outright genius in matters of interpersonal relationships. economics, politics and war.

You simply must watch this movie. But until you get around to it, here are my notes:

Lesson 1: Empathize with Your Enemy

He paints Curtis LeMay as a lunatic who wanted to annihilate Cuba completely

Quote from Kruschev at the final crisis of the Cuban Missile Crisis: “We and you ought not pull on the ends of a rope which you have tied the knots of war. Because the more the two of us pull, the tighter the knot will be tied. And then it will be necessary to cut that knot. And what that would mean is not for me to explain to you. I have participated in two wars and know that war ends when it is rolled through cities and villages, everywhere sowing death and destruction; for such is the logic of war. If people do not display wisdom, they will clash like blind moles and then mutual annihilation will commence.”

Lesson 2: Rationality will Not Save Us

“The end result of the cold war is this: ‘The infallibility of human nature and nuclear weapons will destroy nations.’”

Castro recommended to Kruschev that they used nuclear weapons against the US even though that would have meant the total destruction of Cuba.

Lesson 3: There’s Something Beyond One’s Self

Lesson 4: Maximize Efficiency

50 square miles of Tokyo (a wooden city) was burned and killed 100,000 civilians in 1 night

Lesson 5: Proportionality Should be a Guideline in War

67 cities were 50-90% destroyed by firebomb before the nuclear bombs were dropped on Japan and this was all done by the command decision of Curtis LeMay

Lemay once said that if the US had lost the war, they would have been prosecuted as war criminals. “What makes it immoral if you lose and not if you win?”

Lesson 6: Get the Data

Lesson 7: Belief and Seeing are Often Both Wrong

President Kennedy picked out the spot he was buried in Arlington a few weeks before he was assassinated

The Vietnamese Communists believed that the US were coming in to replace the French as a colonial power to subjugate the into slavery

The Communists government ended up with exactly the same things the US was offering them before the violence commenced (Independence and Unification)

The Communists had been fighting the Chinese for thousands of years and claimed (in 1995) they were never pawns of the Chinese as the US suspected (and went to war over)

Lesson 8: Be Prepared to Reexamine Your Reasoning

He believes that we should never apply economic, political or military power unilaterally and that if we would have followed this reasoning in Vietnam, we never would have been there fighting (none of our allies supported us)

“If we can’t persuade nations with comparable values of the merit of our cause, we’d better reexamine our reasoning.”

Lesson 9: In Order to Do Good, You May Have to Engage in Evil

“How much evil must we do in order to do good?”

“At times you will have to engage in evil, but minimize it.”

“War is Cruelty”–General Sherman prior to burning Atlanta to the ground

Lesson 10: Never Say Never

War is the President’s responsibility

If Kennedy had lived, he doesn’t think that we would have had 500,000 men in Vietnam

Lesson 11: You Can’t Change Human Nature

“The Fog of War means that war is so complex that it is beyond the human mind to comprehend all the variables. Our judgment and frame of mind are not adequate and we kill people.”

“It isn’t because we aren’t rational; we are rational. But reason has limits.”

TS Elliot quote, “We shall not cease from exploring and at the end of our exploration we will return to where we started and know the place for the first time.” This is how McNamara feels today.

Epilogue

[About not speaking out against the war after her was fired by LBJ] “I was damned if I did and damned if I didn’t. So I’d rather be damned if I didn’t.”

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