Robert Strange McNamara … a strange man

Island Turtle ^ | July 8, 2009 | Corky Boyd

[Corky Boyd]

Robert McNamara died Monday at the age of 93. Not a lot will be written about him because he is reviled by the left for his role in the Viet Nam war, and reviled by others for his mismanagement and failures. I am one of the latter.

McNamara throughout his career held himself in higher regard than those around him did. He felt his intelligence trumped all, even when he was barking up the wrong tree. Prior to being tapped by Jack Kennedy for Defense Secretary, he was President of Ford. He came to Ford as one of a dozen or so intellectuals Henry Ford II surrounded himself with when he realized he wasn’t the brightest bulb on the block. McNamara was largely responsible for the Edsel, a one size fits all concept the public would flock to because it was a Mercury sized product (big is better) that could be sold at a Ford price. It flopped and was killed in one of shortest...

[Jimmy Valentine]

Don’t forget Reagan’s tenure as headof the Screen Actor’s Guild and his coming face to face with heavy DemocRAT Communist infiltration. That began his move to the right.

[Jimmy Valentine]

No sale. JFK has already made a deal with the Russians on missles. The Russia and moved them out of Cuba and JFK moved ours out of Turkey.

The Chicoms were still recovering after Korea. They lost a million men along with the NORKS in the Gen. Matthew Ridgway's "meatgrinder". They supplied weapons etc. but it was a Vietnamese show.

McNamara's arrogance along with his acolytes (I know a couple)made hims over rule people who really knew what they were doing.

He and Johnson made a devilish combination, and killed a lot ofour people.

[bruinbirdman]

The nation backed our efforts in Nam.

Since the commies have been in charge of revising U.S. history, that's about all we've heard for 40 years.

Korea still had 150K troops
Rooskies still consolidating their enslavement of East Europe
Berlin Wall, Aug 1961
Cuba Missile Crisis Oct. 1962

Kennedy Assination Nov 1963
Commies pushing all over SE Asia
ChiCom Nuke test 1964.

Reasoned response seamed reasonable.

yitbos

[x]

Mac was a class act.

Tolerance and respect for the recently deceased are fine but I can't quite bend over that far backwards.

If the standard is success or failure, MacNamara was a failure, and one of the worst in our history.

I doubt his later apologies did anything to change that.

[bruinbirdman]

Easy enough to say if one hasn't had the fate of the world on his shoulders.

yitbos

[Jimmy Valentine]

Still no sale.

McNamara was the author, the architecht, the father of our failed strategy.

Proportionate response, limited offensive activity,"step ons" as evidence of success.

It may well be that you feel I am too harsh, but I still have friends over there who never made it home becaue of him.

Warfare is not a game. In this Colin Powell had it right; if you are going in, squash the f^^kers flat.

George Bush should have paid closer attention.

[bruinbirdman]

There was a little more going on at the time than Nam.

yitbos

[Jimmy Valentine]

No argument from me on that. But nothing commanded our attention like that war. And nothing has caused such an enduring rift in our society.

I just feel that if we had done better we would not have given the damned lefty fifth column the toehold that they have exploited for the last almost forty years.