Robert S. McNamara is one of the principal characters in my life. For those that don’t remember history or have not read about the Vietnam War (a war we still fight through our arguments about Iraq etc.) he was Secretary of Defense during the Kennedy-Johnson years. His name invariably creates discussions, if that’s what you can call a shouting match. I both admired and loathed the man.
As I read recently Lyndon Johnson considered him the most compassionate member of his cabinet. This assessment so defies his role as the chief architect of the Vietnam fiasco. I have to wonder how he dealt with such contradictions, his duty to his country or his personal sensibility? In a speech in Montreal in 1966 he gave perhaps his most telling insight about his being.
“Who is man? Is he a rational animal? If he is, then the goals can ultimately be achieved. If he is not, then there is little point in making the effort.
All the evidence of history suggests that man is indeed a rational animal but with a near infinite capacity for folly. His history seems largely a halting, but persistent, effort to raise his reason above his animality. He draws blueprints for utopia, but never quite gets it built. In the end he plugs away obstinately with the only building material really ever at hand: his own part-comic, part-tragic, part-cussed, but part-glorious nature.”
After his stint as Sec. of Defense, he went on to become the President of the World Bank. That appears to be his Mea Culpa. He increased the lending among other things, to 3rd world countries significantly. It as if he was seeking redemption.
These contradictions can be so confounding, if one gives it more that a passing thought. The one thing I do know about Robert S. McNamara is that it will be a long time before we have men such as he and I think we are worse off for it.
In closing this missive I will quote Newton D. Baker Secretary of War during the Wilson Administration.
“The acceptance of a strange and perverse fate called upon me who loved the life of youth…to come to your houses and ask you to give me your sons that I might send them into those deadly places. I watched them and shivered and shrank with fearful fear and I welcomed the living back with oh such unthinkable relief and Joy, and I swore and obligation to the dead that in season and out, by day and by night, in church, in political meeting, and in the market place, I intend to lift up my voice always and ever until their sacrifices are really perfected…”
Dang these sins. See you next time
Denny
