Product Description

The Secretary of Defense for the Kennedy and Johnson administrations provides an account of how and why America became involved in Vietnam and discusses the long-term ramifications of decisions made during the 1960s. Reprint. 125,000 first printing.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #47757 in Books
• Published on: 1996-03-19
• Released on: 1996-03-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 576 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780679767497
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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From Publishers Weekly
Former Secretary of Defense McNamara's controversial indictment of American policy in Vietnam was a PW bestseller for 12 weeks.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
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.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
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

Customer Reviews

A Sanitized View of the Vietnam War
Almost 30 years after his departure from the Department of Defense, Robert McNamara has decided to share his views of what led to and furthered US involvement in Vietnam. McNamara makes a few points that are helpful in understanding the decision-making process used by McNamara and his fellow policymakers. For example, McNamara is quick to remind us that US involvement in Vietnam began long before the Kennedy presidency. He also carefully outlines the mindset in which he and others were working. This mindset involved an absolute misunderstanding of the Vietnamese people and an incredible fear of the spread of Communism. These, among others described, were very real errors committed by McNamara and other policymakers. They failed to consult experts concerning many issues surrounding US involvement in Vietnam. What McNamara does not address, however, is the countless deaths, injuries and emotional scars experienced on both the American and Vietnamese sides. The only death McNamara seems affected by is that of a protester that burned himself to death 40 feet beneath McNamara's Pentagon office window. McNamara is interested in accepting his share of the blame for poor policy making, but seems unable to come to terms with the carnage that resulted from his errors. After reading McNamara's book, I have come to the conclusion that he is telling the truth about certain errors he made, but it is only half of the story. Also, beware of McNamara's ability to provoke sympathy. He describes his position with the Pentagon as being a very small part of a huge policymaking machine. He says he disagreed with many of the policies put forth, but failed to voice his opinions or his opinions were crushed by fellow policymakers. This, I do not believe. McNamara was an extremely powerful and influential policymaker during his stint as Secretary of Defense.

If you are interested in the history surrounding the Vietnam War, read this book, but be sure to read others as well. This is one part of US involvement, but fails to tell the whole story. The book also has interesting insights into decision-making on a national level.

Honest admission, but still misses the mark
Although the mention of Robert MacNamara's name is enough to inflame passionate responses on both ends of the spectrum, I felt the book was an honest attempt by MacNamara to deal with his mistakes and, to a lesser extent, the consequences of those mistakes. It's probably as honest a self-appraisal as we are likely to see from such a prominent figure of the period.

However, I suggest that one reads this in conjunction with H.R. McMaster's splendid "Dereliction of Duty" to gain a more balanced perspective on exactly where the Johnson and Kennedy administrations went wrong. One gains the impression that MacNamara still doesn't really understand why his noble intentions met such a sordid end - read McMaster's incisive analysis of the cynical machinations of Johnson, MacNamara, Taylor, et al and it will become clearer.

MacNamara is also disingenuous about the role of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as his manipulation to remove the JCS from any major forum on the strategy of the war, despite their clear misgivings, makes him clearly culpable. McMaster's judgement on the JCS is also damning, but his analysis and conclusions are more sound, I think.

One of the few retrospective acounts by a major participant which isn't entirely self-serving and worth reading for that alone.

A Tortured Man Explains America's Many Mistakes in Vietnam
This book is a powerful explanation of what many people called "McNamara's War." It is intellectually honest, well-researched and an enormous insight to how President Lyndon Johnson's White House operated. The author explains how Johnson inherited a "God-awful" mess eminently more dangerous than the one Kennedy had inherited from Eisenhower. One evening not long after he took office, Johnson confessed to his aide Bill Moyers that he felt like a catfish that had "just grabbed a big juicy worm with a right sharp hook in the middle of it," McNamara writes. In the last two chapters, "Estrangement and Departure" and "The Lessons of Vietnam" McNamara bravely admits many mistakes. The most glaring was not holding the military's Joint Chiefs of Staff accountable for its many reporting failures. It took McNamara nearly thirty years to finally tell his side of the story. It was worth the wait.