Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Robert McNamara: The man who gave us the Vietnam War

A lot of people will never forgive McNamara for his roll in starting the Vietnam War. At one time I was one of those people.

But as I watched what he did in his later years, I realized he regretted his actions. He said so in his book. With age, I've learned to forgive a lot of people. I feel sorry for the man who thought he was doing the right thing, and the tortured soul he became because of his decisions. He's gone now, but his troubled legacy lives on.

As Secretary of Defense he became the driving force for our involvement in Vietnam...

Although he was a prime architect of the Vietnam War and repeatedly overruled the Joint Chiefs of Staff on strategic matters, McNamara gradually became skeptical about whether the war could be won by deploying more troops to South Vietnam and intensifying the bombing of North Vietnam, a claim he would publish in a book years later. He also stated later that his support of the Vietnam war was given out of loyalty to administration policy

He was born on June 9, 1916 – and died on July 6, 2009. He was an American business executive and the eighth Secretary of Defense.

McNamara served as Defense Secretary for Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961 to 1968. Following that he served as President of the World Bank from 1968 until 1981. McNamara was responsible for the institution of systems analysis in public policy, which developed into the discipline known today as policy analysis.

image via Truth Dig via caglecartoons.com

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