In retrospect The tragedy and lessons of Vietnam

Review by Choice Review

He was the best of "the Best and Brightest," and such a prolific spokesman for the Vietnam War that it was called McNamara's War. When he could no longer support what he had created and defended unswervingly, he left quietly and kept his silence for almost 30 years. Now that he has spoken--in this extraordinary book--he has reinflamed all the old passions and ignited a media extravaganza. The issue and controversy of Robert McNamara's mea culpa aside, this is one of the most important books on Vietnam in years. It recaptures for even the most learned specialist the time and the tone of the Vietnam era and personalities that allowed the war to happen. McNamara's perspective is one of the most important on the complex and enigmatic Lyndon Johnson and on the other principal military and civilian players. The workings of McNamara's own mind then and now are fascinating. He reemphasizes the interconnection between his abiding concern with the danger of nuclear war and Vietnam, and his list of the lessons of Vietnam are astute and wise. This is the most forthright memoir about culpability, error, and moral failure that this reviewer knows. Whatever one may think of him, this book should be read by everyone who grapples with the tragic experience that McNamara now says was, "wrong, terribly wrong." All levels. J. P. Dunn; Converse College

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.

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Review by Booklist Review

Breaking 27 years of silence, former defense secretary McNamara seeks "to put Vietnam in context" and counter "the cynicism and even contempt with which so many people view our political institutions and leaders." The two administrations McNamara served made their "terribly wrong" decisions, he argues, because of "an error not of values and intentions but of judgment and capabilities." Though one brief chapter sketches McNamara's life before 1961, In Retrospect is more than memoir: Annapolis history professor VanDeMark--author of Into the Quagmire (1990)--supplied thorough research files, including newly declassified documents, and reviewed McNamara's drafts for historical accuracy. McNamara maintains that U.S. Vietnam policy rested on contradictory premises: a "domino" theory that, in retrospect, overstated the threat to U.S. security and world peace if Ho Chi Minh's forces won; and recognition that if the South Vietnamese were not committed to defending themselves, no other nation could do it. McNamara assumes responsibility for failing to address that contradiction and other unexamined assumptions and undebated disagreements that plagued decision making in these years. He identifies "eleven major causes for our disaster in Vietnam" and six points when the U.S. could legitimately have withdrawn. Certainly not the last word on this still-controversial subject but an essential acquisition for most libraries. --Mary Carroll

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Former Secretary of Defense McNamara's controversial indictment of American policy in Vietnam was a PW bestseller for 12 weeks. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

McNamara, Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1967 under both presidents Kennedy and Johnson, has remained silent about U.S. policy toward Vietnam until now. This memoir reveals a decent, loyal, and able man who struggled to remain loyal to the president and yet to get the United States out of Vietnam. When McNamara left office, 15,979 Americans had been killed in Viet Nam; by the time the United States left Vietnam, the number stood at over 58,000. McNamara's recollections are put to rigorous testing by his junior author, VanDeMark, who checked them against the now-declassified written and taped records of the period. Publicly perceived as a "hawk," McNamara documents his attempts from 1966 on to find a way for the United States to exit from the war. The culmination of his effort is a May 19, 1967 memorandum to LBJ, calling for U.S. withdrawal. President Johnson never sent a reply. McNamara reveals that "I do not know to this day, whether I quit or was fired." At any rate, McNamara left the Pentagon to begin a successul ten-year term as president of the World Bank. In looking back, he holds that "we sought to do the right thing...but in my judgment hindsight proved us wrong." McNamara's unpretentious, genuine, and touching memoir should contribute further to healing the wounds of the Vietnam experience; it belongs in all public and academic libraries.‘James Rhodes, Luther Coll., Decorah, Ia. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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from the Preface This is the book I planned never to write.   Although pressed repeatedly for over a quarter of a century to add my views on Vietnam to the public record, I hesitated for fear that I might appear self-serving, defensive, or vindictive, which I wished to avoid at all costs. Perhaps I hesitated also because it is hard to face one's mistakes. But something changed my attitude and willingness to speak. I am responding not to a desire to get out my personal story but rather to a wish to put before the American people why their government and its leaders behaved as they did and what we may learn from that experience.   My associates in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations were an exceptional group: young, vigorous, intelligent, well-meaning, patriotic servants of the United States. How did this group--"the best and the brightest," as we eventually came to be known in an ironically pejorative phrase--get it wrong on Vietnam? That story has not yet been told.   But why now? Why after all these years of silence am I convinced I should speak? There are many reasons; the main one is that I have grown sick at heart witnessing the cynicism and even contempt with which so many people view our political institutions and leaders.   Many factors helped lead to this: Vietnam, Watergate, scandals, corruption. But I do not believe, on balance, that America's political leaders have been incompetent or insensitive to their responsibilities and to the welfare of the people who elected them and to whom they are accountable. Nor do I believe they have been any worse than their foreign counterparts or their colleagues in the private sector. Certainly they have shown themselves to be far from perfect, but people are far from perfect. They have made mistakes, but mostly honest mistakes.   This underscores my own painful quandary about discussing Vietnam. I know that, to this day, many political leaders and scholars in the United States and abroad argue that the Vietnam War actually helped contain the spread of Communism in South and East Asia. Some argue that it hastened the end of the Cold War. But I also know that the war caused terrible damage to America. No doubt exists in my mind about that. None. I want to look at Vietnam in hindsight, not in any way to obscure my own and others' errors of judgment and their egregious costs but to show the full range of pressures and the lack of knowledge that existed at the time.   I want to put Vietnam in context.   We of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations who participated in the decisions on Vietnam acted according to what we thought were the principles and traditions of this nation. We made our decisions in light of those values.   Yet we were wrong, terribly wrong. We owe it to future generations to explain why. I truly believe that we made an error not of values and intentions but of judgment and capabilities. I say this warily, since I know that if my comments appear to justify or rationalize what I and others did, they will lack credibility and only increase people's cynicism. It is cynicism that makes Americans reluctant to support their leaders in the actions necessary to confront and solve our problems at home and abroad. I want Americans to understand why we made the mistakes we did, and to learn from them. I hope to say, "Here is something we can take away from Vietnam that is constructive and applicable to the world of today and tomorrow." That is the only way our nation can ever hope to leave the past behind. The ancient Greek dramatist Aeschylus wrote, "The reward of suffering is experience." Let this be the lasting legacy of Vietnam. Excerpted from In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam by Robert S. McNamara All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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