Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

McNamara's 'other' crimes: the stories you haven't heard
Washington Monthly ^ | June, 1995 | Myra MacPherson

Posted on 07/06/2009 9:51:12 AM PDT by SLB

The outrage and condemnation that have greeted Robert McNamara's In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam ignore two major scandals of that war which have led to continued pain, anguish, and suffering. McNamara, too, conveniently ignored them in his bloodless account of how he and his colleagues in the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations were "wrong, terribly wrong" about Vietnam.

A few months after McNamara told Lyndon Johnson that the war was unwinnable, McNamara did his part to make Vietnam America's greatest class war with his brainchild, Project 100,000. At the same time, McNamara knew but remained silent about the highly toxic effects of Agent Orange. What the former Secretary of Defense omits in his book and during his talk show interviews bears review, particularly since there is the danger that the next generation will study McNamara's self-serving version in America's schools.

In 1966, McNamara initiated the "Moron Corps," as they were piteously nicknamed by other soldiers. Billed as a Great Society program, McNamara's Project 100,000 lowered military enlistment requirements to recruit 100,000 men per year with marginal minds and bodies. Recruiters swept through urban ghettos and southern hill country, taking some youths with I.Q.s below what is considered legally retarded.

In all, 354,000 volunteered for Project 100,000. The minimum passing score on the armed forces qualification test had been 31 out of 100. Under McNamara's Project 100,000, those who scored as low as 10 were taken if they lived in a designated "poverty area." In 1969, out of 120 Marine Corps volunteers from Oakland, California, nearly 90 percent scored under 31; more than 70 percent were black or Mexican. Overall, 41 percent of Project 100,000 volunteers were black, compared to 12 percent of the rest of the armed forces. Touted as providing "rehabilitation," remedial education, and an escape from poverty, the program offered a one-way ticket to Vietnam, where these men fought and died in disproportionate numbers. The much-advertised skills were seldom taught.

McNamara called these men the "subterranean poor," as if they lived in caves. In a way they did; their squalid ghettos and Appalachian hill towns were unseen by affluent America. All the better for McNamara and his president Lyndon Johnson. Unmentioned in Project 100,000's lofty sounding goals was the fact that - as protest became the number-one course of study at America's universities - the men of the "Moron Corps" provided the necessary cannon fodder to help evade the political horror of dropping student deferments or calling up the reserves, which were sanctuaries for the lily-white.

Officials denied that the members of the "Moron Corps" were dying in higher numbers, but the irrefutable statistics embraced by mathematical whiz kid McNamara tell another story. Forty percent of Project 100,000 men were trained for combat, compared with 25 percent of general service. In one 1969 sampling of Project 100,000, the Department of Defense put the attrition-by-death rate at 1.1 percent. By contrast, the overall rate for Vietnam era veterans was only 0.6 percent.

"I think McNamara should be shot," said Herb DeBose, a black first lieutenant in Vietnam, who later worked with incarcerated veterans. "I saw him when he resigned from the World Bank, crying about the poor children of the world. But if he did not cry at all for any of those men he took in under Project 100,000 then he really doesn't know what crying is all about. Many under me weren't even on a fifth-grade level.... I found out they could not read .. no skills before, no skills after. The army was supposed to teach them a trade in something - only they didn't."

As for Agent Orange, McNamara knew about its potential deadly effects even as it was being used in Vietnam, and long before veterans came home to die or waste away from the herbicide's after effects.

McNamara remained silent for years as the government stonewalled Vietnam veterans who claimed Agent Orange caused their cancer or nausea or violent rages or numbness in limbs or birth defects in their children. Veterans' pleas for testing, treatment, and compensation continued to be ignored.

Finally, in 1983, Judge George Pratt, Jr. agreed to hear the lawsuit of Vietnam Veterans against Dow Chemical for conspiring to keep hidden the truth about Agent Orange. For the first time, documents released by Pratt provided a detailed look at what the company and the government knew about dioxin danger and when. In 1965, when the government was purchasing millions of pounds of Agent Orange, Dow's internal report stated that dioxin could be "exceptionally toxic" to humans and that "fatalities have been reported in the literature." Pratt noted that McNamara attended meetings where the human health hazards of dioxin were discussed. In addition, said Pratt, McNamara's Defense Department commissioned a study which noted the "health dangers of the herbicide" in 1967.

After the war, McNamara could do nothing to change the millions of deaths and injuries inflicted on Vietnamese and Americans. But just think what McNamara could have done had he championed the veterans and their families; they were pawns then, no more than faceless numbers. It seems as though they remain so today.

He could have worked, as Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr. continues to do, to gain compensation for those killed or injured by Agent Orange. Zumwalt feels it is the least he can do for having ordered the use of the chemical, which killed, among others, his own son. Zumwalt, however, authorized the use of Agent Orange in innocence, unaware of its toxicity. McNamara has no such excuse.

McNamara does have one last chance to go down as a redeemed man, instead of just another name from the past flacking his memoirs and reaping royalties. He could donate the proceeds of his best-seller to programs helping Vietnam veterans.

Thanks to McNamara, they could surely use them.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Government
KEYWORDS: mcnamara
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-56 next last
To: papasmurf
Kennedy gets no pass on this. Especially Kennedy!

Nor Maxwell Taylor, nor the Bundy brothers, nor Walt Rostow nor Eugene Rostow nor Ambassador Lodge nor Ellsworth Bunker nor Allen Dulles nor any of the other New Mandarin Ivy League smartasses that got us into it -- and then walked away: "the best and the brightest". They all had feet of clay, but walked around like chryselephantine gods.

And that includes, you, Henry the K. I'm talking about you over here.

21 posted on 07/06/2009 10:25:50 AM PDT by lentulusgracchus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: colorado tanker

Why was the North off limits?


22 posted on 07/06/2009 10:26:05 AM PDT by angcat (FUBO)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: tet68
I was a member of the origional group to sue, before it was made a class action.

Thank you.

As a Vietnam Veteran (1970 - 1971), I am keeping a close eye on prostrate problems that might be cropping up now. I have a close friend who was there from 1965 - 1966 and is battling prostrate cancer. At least the VA is providing decent treatment.

23 posted on 07/06/2009 10:26:24 AM PDT by SLB (Wyoming's Alan Simpson on the Washington press - "all you get is controversy, crap and confusion")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: Eric in the Ozarks
The NYT and WaPost havbe rewritten the Viet Nam story. It was all Nixon’s doing...

You've got to have that wrong. Everything has to be Bush's fault. /s

24 posted on 07/06/2009 10:27:38 AM PDT by Retired COB (Still mad about Campaign Finance Reform)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: Retired COB
I'll never understand how this man's ego let him believe that he knew more about military tactics than graduates of West Point and Annapolis.

He was a mandarin. A Darwinian superman. A walking bag of super-duper DNA, radiating brainpower like a nuclear reactor.

Didn't you get the memo?

25 posted on 07/06/2009 10:29:17 AM PDT by lentulusgracchus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: SLB
Many under me weren't even on a fifth-grade level.... I found out they could not read .. no skills before, no skills after.

They'd be well qualified to play football for the University of Florida!(j/k) :)

26 posted on 07/06/2009 10:38:45 AM PDT by mikeus_maximus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: angcat

Didn’t want to draw the Russians in if we went to hard against NV.


27 posted on 07/06/2009 10:39:36 AM PDT by AceMineral (Offically unapproved of since 1973)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: angcat
Why was the North off limits?

I never really understood - apparently only someone as smart as McNamara could.

So far as I got it the reason was if we really went to war against the North (as they had gone to war against us in the South) we might make them really mad at us, or might bring in the Chicoms or might bring criticism from the "international community." Plus, McNamara seemed to think if he only applied a little pressure and then gradually increased pressure against the North they'd come to their senses and negotiate a peace deal.

Then there were various suspensions of bombing what targets McNamara would allow us to bomb to give the North an opportunity to sue for peace, none of which went anywhere.

If Obama could ever bring himself to go to war, his ilk would probably fight it in a similar fashion, with one hand tied behind his back.

28 posted on 07/06/2009 10:48:55 AM PDT by colorado tanker ("Lastly, I'd like to apologize for America's disproportionate response to Pearl Harbor . . . ")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: angcat

Look at a map of Vietnam. See what Country is on it’s Northern border? That’s why.


29 posted on 07/06/2009 10:54:27 AM PDT by papasmurf (Save us from 0bama, I prayed. Then I heard, "the 2nd, I saved")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: Retired COB

“I’ll never understand how this man’s ego let him believe that he knew more about military tactics than graduates of West Point and Annapolis.”

Tying the hands of the military while escalating the war will be LBJ and McNamara’s legacy! My husband a Nam vet will never forgive those two for what they did! May they both rot in he!!.


30 posted on 07/06/2009 10:55:11 AM PDT by alice_in_bubbaland (Markets and Marxists Don't Mix! Smile you're on Janet's Candid Camera!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: SLB

Yeah, my dad, a Nam vet, pretty much still hates them ever after they are dead. He tells me Westmoreland was “handcuffed” the whole time by those morons.


31 posted on 07/06/2009 10:56:50 AM PDT by randomhero97 ("First you want to kill me, now you want to kiss me. Blow!" - Ash)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: colorado tanker

“So far as I got it the reason was if we really went to war against the North (as they had gone to war against us in the South) we might make them really mad at us, or might bring in the Chicoms or might bring criticism from the “international community.” Plus, McNamara seemed to think if he only applied a little pressure and then gradually increased pressure against the North they’d come to their senses and negotiate a peace deal.”

I think your second point is more important. McNamara personally chose targets, ordnance, and even approach and departure routes as a way of sending various “signals” to the NVN. For instance, when the first SAM sites went up in NVN in the spring of 1965, McNamara in his folly placed them off-limits as a way of “signaling” the enemy not to use the missiles. The NVN, of course, were actually under attack and such an idea probably never occurred to them, except to shake their heads in wonderment at the stupidity of the American leadership. Only after several US aircraft were shot down did McNamara respond and order the sites attacked, giving plenty of opportunity for them to be moved or reinforced into “flak traps” in the meantime. Losses were heavy in the resulting strikes.

The magnitude of the attacks was more than adequate to do the job, it was the nature of the attacks that made them ineffective.


32 posted on 07/06/2009 10:57:31 AM PDT by atomic conspiracy (Victory in Iraq: Worst defeat for activist media since Goebbels shot himself.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]

To: SLB

Myra is showing her own ignorance in comparing Southern Hill country people to Ghetto residents. Some of them are probably not particularly well educated but their IQ scores would be right up there with the best.

A good example of Southern Hill country soldier would be Sgt. York.


33 posted on 07/06/2009 11:01:02 AM PDT by yarddog
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Vinnie
Finally turned into the F-111

My Father was the crew chief in RVN for several F-111's. They had an Edsel grille hung over the maintenance area.

Agent Orange was destroyed by the US Government and Dupont in August 1974 on an incinerator ship off the coast of Mississippi. The Orange was offloaded to the ship at Gulfport. There were over 20 freight cars on the railroad full of the drums that went onto the ship for incineration.

34 posted on 07/06/2009 11:06:28 AM PDT by vetvetdoug
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: atomic conspiracy
to shake their heads in wonderment at the stupidity of the American leadership

Plenty of Americans were doing the same thing.

When you go to war your objective is to destroy the enemy forces, not "send signals."

35 posted on 07/06/2009 11:16:24 AM PDT by colorado tanker ("Lastly, I'd like to apologize for America's disproportionate response to Pearl Harbor . . . ")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 32 | View Replies]

To: SLB
Reducing Armed Forces performance by using the draft/entrance exams as a welfare and social device is stupid, criminal, and needs to be exposed as another of Strange’s foolish mistakes. But keep Johnson, the Great Society theorists, and Washington in your sites as well.

But the tiny percent contamination of Agent Orange with dioxin is not as great an impact. Lawyer fodder, not food for thought.

36 posted on 07/06/2009 11:19:40 AM PDT by Robert A Cook PE (I can only donate monthly, but socialists' ABBCNNBCBS continue to lie every day!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: papasmurf

For most of the war the North was not off-limits. Certain targets were; airfields, the storage depots in the middle of Hanoi, the Haiphong docks, etc.
Completely useless targets, like road intersections that could be bypassed or repaired overnight, were added in an apparent attempt to just keep the bombs falling.

If the very fact of the bombing did not provoke the Chinese to intervene, then hitting a few important targets, and making it effective for a change, would not have either. This was proven at the end of the war when Nixon lifted all the restrictions for Operation Linebacker II.

McNamara held back as part of his freakish and utterly immoral “communication by bombing” strategy, a mistaken effort to intimidate the North Vietnamese with the threat that these targets would be hit if the NVN didn’t start negotiating in earnest. This was a propaganda trap, since he could not then hit them without provoking cries of “escalation” from the pro-NVN media.


37 posted on 07/06/2009 11:23:42 AM PDT by atomic conspiracy (Victory in Iraq: Worst defeat for activist media since Goebbels shot himself.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies]

To: vetvetdoug

Pretty cool plane, just not carrier size.

Didn’t know there was any such thing as an incinerator ship.


38 posted on 07/06/2009 11:25:59 AM PDT by Vinnie (You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Jihads You)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]

To: Retired COB
We has a couple of them in my Platoon in 1968, dumber than rocks and twice as stupid, a danger to themselves and others.

I was talking to a retired Marine Corps Gunny last week and I guess the Crotch has as many problems as we did.

39 posted on 07/06/2009 11:32:26 AM PDT by Little Bill (NH the Sixth Gay State.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: UriÂ’el-2012

Oh, brother....


40 posted on 07/06/2009 11:38:30 AM PDT by onedoug
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-56 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson