Robert McNamara - RIP

r.i.p. an american hero

McNamara used to hang with my grandpa, back in their World Bank days. From my dad's memoir:
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Initially, the Bank’s loans to poor countries were conservative, concentrating on high-profile projects like dams and steel mills. The attitude of the Bank changed when President Johnson fired Robert S. McNamara as Secretary of Defense and nominated him as President of the Bank in 1968. McNamara thought that the most urgent task facing low-income countries was not so much to establish big new industrial plants as to fight poverty. What mattered to McNamara was health care, nutrition, elementary education, potable water and housing, and he shifted the Bank’s emphasis to those sectors. McNamara is one of the most ambiguous figures of modern American history, and there are wildly different interpretations of his role in the Vietnam War. His commitment to fighting poverty during his World Bank years seems, however, to have been genuine.

Dad joined the Bank during the McNamara years, and it was an exciting new world for him. The position of Board member at the Bank could be treated as a sinecure, and was by some members, since it carried with it no staff responsibilities. That is not how Dad treated it. He threw himself into the work, doing everything he could to learn about the Bank’s worldwide projects and to help shape policy. He was particularly interested in development in Africa and in the Caribbean, and took many trips to those regions. He became a close colleague of McNamara’s and a personal friend.

As the world’s biggest provider of foreign aid, the Bank is a controversial institution. Critics on the right see no reason why their money should be sent to ungrateful foreigners, while critics on the left think that the money is used to prop up despotic and self-serving regimes. Environmentalists decry the ecological consequences of some of the big projects, while representatives of the recipient countries sometimes object to the controls and conditions that are put on the aid. All the critiques (except those from the right) are serious, but the conclusion that some come to, that the Bank should be closed down and foreign aid terminated, is just wrong. That was Dad’s opinion, and it is mine too, even after I have managed to separate myself from many of his opinions on other subjects. What is needed is not the end of aid but the reform of aid, as well as its expansion. Aid is one of the most tangible expressions of solidarity among the world’s people; it should, and can, be directed so that it helps ordinary poor people to create somewhat better lives for themselves. From my many conversations with him, I have no doubt that this was Dad’s commitment during his years at the Bank and afterwards.

It is interesting that the two most powerful political figures to whom Dad attached himself in his life were C.D. Howe and Robert McNamara, both of them reviled by wide sections of the left in Canada and the United States, respectively. Dad’s relationships to both of them were close, respectful and affectionate. I can’t say with certainty what that meant. Maybe it meant that deep down he was a (small t) tory; this interpretation is consistent with the evident difficulties I observed when he and Mom had their political differences. Or maybe it was the opposite, that he could recognize what many on the left could not, that Howe’s industrial development was in the best interests of low-income Canadians and that McNamara’s focus on global poverty was genuine, whatever his role in the Vietnam War had been. I think the core of Dad’s political commitment was that he was determined to see that the Depression not return, and this determination made him uncomfortable with the positions of both left and right. The closest he ever came to explaining himself was when he once told me, “My political persuasion is economics.” In any case, he never wavered from his loyalty to those two.
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McNamara is more pitiable than tragic, and more reprehensible than either.

regardless of how much you can detest/loathe/wish him ill for the remainder of eternity, the guy has some pretty useful insights into american and world history.

Terry Gross: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106302175

interview with mcnamara and errol morris

and:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/07/us/07mcnamara.html?_r=1&hp

why do ppl always fall over themselves to talk about how much they loathe these dudes? living or dead... like how morbs is always ready to shit on (x) (too many to list).... what is that impulse to demonstrate that you have like SERIOUS BELIEFS about a politician or whoever. i mean, i don't think any of u are old enough to remember nam, i was born in 85 and mcnamara's transgressions don't mean much to me - it just seems kinda phony how demonstrative some of u are about it. also it's just a really uninteresting way to frame things and some of u are hecka smart, to the point where i feel like u would realize this...

otoh maybe it's just that nobody has anything to say besides 'fuck this dude'

Oh no, it's just fun, dear boy. I meant everything I said and won't lose a lick of sleep over Bob. Also: my dad was drafted in '70 and almost went to Vietnam because of McNamara's silly little war; no doubt I'm not the only one on this thread with the experience. So if it's "uninteresting" to support opinions with facts, well, don't read the thread then.

(no strike intended through "fun")

You were a boy when Cobain killed himself and Bill Clinton was president. No sense having an opinion about them either.

my old man's number was about to come up right before the war ended in 73 doggie

also c'mon that is a willful misreading of what i was saying, it's the opinions themselves that guzzle balls

haha i dont have an opinion on cobain!

(owned much)

i shouldve checked when the war ended before putting the year there. WHATEVER

i saw the best minds of my generation...

xp Alfred: my dad was drafted in '69 and did go to Vietnam -- even though he opposed the war. I think we probably watched almost every Vietnam movie that came out in the 80s, as well as that network TV series that had "Paint it Black" as the theme song (I forget the name of the show). Maybe it's because of his intelligence, and largely because of his remorse and learning from his mistakes, as well as reading up on the context of those decisions - that I have some sympathy for McNamara. I don't have any for Rumsfeld, who strikes me as about as dumb as George W. Bush and with equally little shame.

My dad got a doctor to say he had severe asthma in order to avoid the draft, as I understand it.

xp - Are you thinking of China Beach? I don't think that used "Paint It Black" but something similar.

I think the China Beach theme was "Reflections" by The Supremes.

my dad got a big "i told you so" from his father because he slacked off so much in college his grades were too mediocre to get him into grad school. My grandfather was really big on academic achievement.

xp China Beach was the one about the nurses with Kim Delaney(?) -- this was a bunch of dudes in the jungle.

Just checked - it was but apparently this show http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tour_of_Duty_(TV_series) is the one Sarahel must be talking about.

Er . . . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tour_of_Duty_(TV_series)

:-(

yes! Tour of Duty! I think the only time I ever saw my dad cry was watching Full Metal Jacket.

Bro:

i'm far to young to remember the vietnam war, or mcnamara's involvement in it, but i do remember his biography becoming newsworthy with his admission that the escalation in se asia was a mistake. and i was really impressed with the fog of war doc especially in light of the iraqi war. so his passing is something i can't help remarking on.
besides, i don't necessarily share the "fuck this dude" with respect to old bob.
more generally, i don't think i'm self-consciously demonstrative about my opinions regarding so-called "serious beliefs". i think it's the desire to share with others and work through my opinions that are often thorny and not so straightforward - thanks to ilx for that!

tour of duty

I'm so unaccustomed to denunciations that it felt great to say "fuck this dude."

"i don't think any of u are old enough to remember nam, i was born in 85 and mcnamara's transgressions don't mean much to me"

Does anything mean much to you? And if it did why should we give a shit?

Errol Morris on McNamara.

His refusal to come out against the Vietnam War, particularly as it continued after he left the Defense Department, has angered many. There’s ample evidence that he felt the war was wrong. Why did he remain silent until the 1990s, when “In Retrospect” was published? That is something that people will probably never forgive him for. But he had an implacable sense of rectitude about what was permissible and what was not. In his mind, he probably remained secretary of defense until the day he died.

I think Morris has a whif of Stockholm Syndrome about him when he talks about McNamara, frankly.

McNamara held him hostage and forced Errol Morris to make a movie about him.

The Fog of War is one of my favorite movies.

I hope he does rest in peace. His work here is done. History won't remember him kindly, and it shouldn't. I hope his name becomes one of those go-to American references that's shorthand for hubris and failure, like Custer.

"Don't worry, I have a plan."

"Yeah, so did McNamara."

""i don't think any of u are old enough to remember nam"

Bad assumption there. I was 14 years old in 1968, when McNamara left the DOD for the World Bank and the USA had roughly 550,000 soldiers in Vietnam. I remember him rather well, especially since I was draftable before that futile, criminal war ended. His trangressions could have cost me my life. Not easy to forgive, when the purpose of the war was so utterly feckless and ill-conceived.

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oh bugger

http://media.caglecartoons.com/preview/%7Bd7e47fe4-04e7-4a4f-bae4-c789b3899144%7D.gif