Posted on 07/07/2009 1:17:55 PM PDT by Interesting Times
That miserable SOB along with Johnson and their insane war planning is the reason that I have some dear friends names on the wall. In honor of them I will find out where he is buried and give him a beer bath after I run it through my system first!
I know of no one who lived though his time in office that admire the job he did. Make excuses for him, but never admire.
You may have to stand in line.
Thanks for the ping IT. May he rest in hell....I lost a dear neighbor because of his ignorance.
IMHO, the war drove him crazy. He was in at least some respects like Stanton, Lincoln’s war minister. Stanton was also unstable. But Johnson was no Lincoln, so there was no one to balance McNamama. Indeed, many of the charges the reviewer makes against McNamara should be laid against Johnson and his other close advisers.
Let’s not leave out another of the cynical, arrogant and ambitious on the backs of others - Henry Kissinger.
I’m awaiting his obituary as well.
Agreed. But the "brilliant" McNamara was arguably the most arrogant and wrongheaded of the bunch.
Exposing him would expose the lie that somehow Richard Nixon was responsible for a war started by the guy who beat him, Kennedy, that the war that really got going in 1965 was somehow started by the guy who took office in 1969. So, the media cone of silence was dropped.
Johnson and especially McNamara thought they were way smarter than their military people, shutting out the Joint Chiefs from decision-making on Vietnam. You wonder where the idea came from that the politicians never let the military fight Vietnam to win? McNamara and his micromanaging of the war.
He's also hailed as some kind of charitable genius at the World Bank. But the only countries that emerged from poverty on his watch were the ones NOT developing on World Bank loans, but by freeing their economies and supporting business and export expansion. On the other hand, a lot of dictators in countries getting World Bank loans got really rich.
He is Exhibit A why an off the charts IQ and fine education are not enough to make a wise leader.
Yes, but I do not recall that military leaders offered an alternative strategic vision. Westmoreland doesn’t seem to have much of one at all. On the other hand, no telling what he would have done if he had had as much authority as Eisenhower did.
Oh, and the Edsel fiasco was on his watch at Ford, but that probably doesn’t mean anything to someone of your age!
indeed.
You don’t know arrogant if you never not met Lyndon. That guy could really dominate a room.
Don't forget LBJ.
The Media is really attracted by the figure of Robert McNamarra. Could it a sort of collective guilt at work? I mean JFK is ‘sainted’, and LBJ would have been ‘great’ if it hadn’t been for Vietnam. Somebody has to be the fall-guy, right?
Not saying that McNamarra wasn’t an arrogant, puffed-up piece of work. He was. But there have been reasonably successful SecDefs who had similar problems.
Especially when he granted interviews to female reporters while sitting on the commode, as was his charming habit.
There’s no denying that LBJ tried to micromanage the war from the Oval Office, a terrible thing to do. I still think it was McNamera that skewed his vision of how the war should be waged.
So what you kind of had was Johnson making the formal decisions after McNamera had counseled him improperly.
That’s my take on it. I may be wrong. People who disagree should set me straight.
I am reminded of Herman Wouk’s book,” The Winds of War.” and the way that FDR reach down into the ranks and found experiences officers to give him advise. Pug Henry was a composite of several such men. I wonder of Lyndon was capable of employing such men. He seemed to favor sycophants, guys like Bill Moyers.
He loved to intimidate.
IMHO, they were pretty much in sync. McNamara from a tactical/strategic standpoint told the the boss exactly what the boss wanted the hear. LBJ was a micro-manager on thing other than the war as well. Their policies, especially to on again-off again bombing campaigns and avoiding any target if they knew there were Russian 'advisers' there were beyond insane.
They were a bad team.
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