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In Retrospect
By Robert S. McNamara
Vietnam had long since been a place of controversy, and where the American government focused its fear of communism for many years. Throughout the Kennedy and Johnson administrations the government maintained that the war between the Communist north and the south could have only been won by the South Vietnamese, and that US military could not have won it for them. It stressed that the fall of South Vietnam to communism would threaten the rest of the western world.
McNamaras book, In Retrospect The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, begins with a dozen or so interesting but terse pages on the authors background; his schooling; his meeting, and marriage to, Margaret McKinstry Craig, to whose memory the book is dedicated; his wartime service as an air corps statistical control officer; and his postwar service with the Ford Motor Company. He had been president of that company for only seven weeks when John Kennedy made him Secretary of Defense in 161. The problems of Vietnam from 161 to early 168 occupy virtually the rest of the book. Although the war lasted some eight more years, the story ends with McNamaras transition to the World Bank in 168, as the Tet offensive begins.
Custom Essays on "In Retrospect"
In the period 165-67, Robert McNamara came to believe that Vietnam was a problem with no solution. This is the theme of his book. His frustration arose because the war was fought under five rules, which, as he saw it, proved incompatible with victory. These rules were (1) that Southeast Asia as a whole must be kept from communist control; () that US troops should not be sent outside the borders of South Vietnam; () that the South Vietnamese should achieve political stability and--with US tutelage and military aid--learn to defend themselves; (4) that the United States under no circumstances should initiate the use of nuclear weapons; and (5) that the enemy operated under the assumption that it could win a long inconclusive war. In the face of these rules, McNamara came to believe that the United States should withdraw from Vietnam, because Rule proved impossible of attainment, and the costs of withdrawal (Rule 1) would be tolerable. To a degree impossible to determine, his conclusion, by his own account, was influenced also by the anti-war sentiment in the country which extended to his immediate family.
Robert McNamara wrote In Retrospect because he wanted to "Put Vietnam in context,"(xx). McNamara wanted to explain why the mistakes of Vietnam were made, not to justify them, but to help the American public understand them. He relies not only upon his memories, but upon the record whenever possible. People have often called Vietnam, McNamara's war, because he made it his responsibility. As he learned more and more about South Vietnam, he became well acquainted with its leader Ngo Dinh Diem. Diem portrayed himself as a man who shared western values. Though as government would soon realize he was not the man they had hoped for. Diem needed to be removed from power; he was becoming more and more unpopular with his people. The Kennedy Administration seemed split on how democratic Diem really was. His conflicts between the Buddhists and Catholics were becoming more outrageous than ever. The administration supported a general's coup to get Diem out of power. Diem and his brother Nhu were both assassinated during this coup.
On November , 16, Kennedy, himself, was assassinated on the streets of Dallas. McNamara poses many questions as to whether the war would have continued on the same route had Kennedy not been killed. McNamara feels that had Kennedy lived he would have pulled the US out of Vietnam. His reasoning was that Kennedy had told his cabinet "We are not going to bungle into war." Kennedy was ready to start pulling the troops out because it was obvious that the war was impossible to win.
Lyndon B. Johnson then becomes president. Many debates were being held on what to do in regards to Vietnam. After Diem's death, the Johnson Administration faced political problems in Saigon. The demands for U.S. military actions were growing. On August , 164, North Vietnam launched an attack against an American ship in the Gulf of Tonkin. A second attack was supposed to have taken place on August fourth, but McNamara has now concluded that the second attack never happened. Using the Gulf of Tonkin event to his advantage Johnson went to congress. The Gulf of Tonkin resolution gave the president the broad war powers. Meanwhile this resolution had been based on an attack that might well have never taken place.
McNamara discusses whether the Gulf of Tonkin resolution gave too much unlimited power to the president. He does not feel that the Congress understood what was happening in Vietnam or how the Johnson administration would respond to it. Though he never answers his own question as to whether the administration was given too much leniency when it came to its actions in Vietnam, it seems as if the Congress was misled on all the facts pertaining to the Gulf of Tonkin. After the Gulf of Tonkin, U.S. military troops were increased in Vietnam from ,000 to 175,000. McNamara in hindsight looks back and wonders, why? Why did they escalate and not withdraw? South Vietnam seemed like a lost cause. Their leaders were fighting among themselves and yet we continued to fight on their behalf. He believes that the US could have withdrawn without any negative affects on the country. Was there another way to stop these injustices? McNamara feels that all other resources were not exhausted before they ventured into a war that they had little hope of winning. The government overestimated the fall of South Vietnam. Would it really have threatened the rest of the western world? Probably not.
At the end of the book McNamara attributed the failure of the war to eleven major causes, including poor organization, lack of understanding of the enemy and its culture, and a decision made in the Presidents office to withhold information from the Congress of the United States and the American public. He blamed both himself and other government officials, including President Johnson, for not engaging in more detailed debate that might have illuminated the problems surrounding the war. The book generated controversy, with many people questioning why McNamara waited three decades to speak out against the war. There are also eight pages of reflection on post-Cold War military policy and a final word on Vietnam, the heart of which is
Although we sought to do the right thing--and believed we were doing the right thing--in my judgment, hindsight proves us wrong. We both overestimated the effect of South Vietnams loss on the security of the West and failed to adhere to the fundamental principle that, in the final analysis, if the South Vietnamese were to be saved, they had to win the war themselves.
When McNamara left the state department he had realized that the U.S. "could not achieve their objectives in Vietnam." In the last few months of his term he came to the conclusion that continuing on the present course would eventually prove fatal and cost many of innocent lives. Johnson did not agree so he purposely left McNamara's views out of discussions regarding the next course of action. What they needed was a rapid end to this war, and he felt that the bombing and the expansion of the ground war would not do the job. He proposed a list of alternatives such as stopping the bombing of the north to bring about negotiations, transferring the responsibility from our military to the South Vietnamese. Although he made his contentions well-known to the president, the president was not ready to hear him. His last deed in regards to Vietnam was to oppose General Westmoreland's petition for 00,000 supplementary troops.
McNamara's reasoning behind this book was to tell the American people what went on behind the scenes during the Vietnam War. Many critics of the Vietnam War feel that it was the inexperience of the state department, though they were extremely intelligent, they were not trained in the finer workings of the military which caused the escalation. There were several times when the US could have pulled out of Vietnam, but they thought that it would cause the United States to lose rank with the rest of the world. Both Administrations, I feel, overstated the threat that if South Vietnam fell to communism, then the rest of the east would fall like a line of dominoes.
One returns to the wild card in this story the manner in which the United States, including McNamaras own family, was driven into painful controversy over the war. And that is a part of the equation that all Americans must weigh for themselves. In fact, only McNamara can weigh all the factors which have driven him into the position that, whatever the cost, the United States should have withdrawn its troops from Vietnam. McNamara summed up a lot of misconceptions of what really happened, he comes right out and honestly says "We were wrong, terribly wrong." The book makes a lot of valid points though it is hard to follow at times. In Retrospect has allowed me to become painfully aware of a war that I knew relatively little about. This book shows reasons as to why, right or wrong, the US intervened in Vietnam, and why the US should have withdrawn sooner than it did.
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