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It was at a local folk-music concert (Phil Volan and Lyn Akers, and a good time was had by all) on a recent Saturday night that I ran into the district judge.
Granted, a folk concert is an unusual place to encounter a judge -- a Wagner symphony, perhaps, or a golf clubhouse would be more like it in most jurisdictions -- but that is one charm of life hereabouts.
Our library finally got McNamara's book,
he said
after we exchanged complaints about the weather, and I
just returned it, so if you hurry, you can probably get it
next.
To the credit of an oft-maligned judiciary, the judge
was right. But have I ever been disappointed by Robert S.
McNamara's book In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons
of Vietnam.
As secretary of defense from 1961 to 1968, McNamara was on the highest councils. He writes of many meetings involving the president, other cabinet secretaries, generals, generals, admirals and senators.
Back then, I was positive the meetings went like this:
President Johnson: Well, Mac, what are the latest
numbers I can lie about when I go on television tonight so
I can continue conning the public into supporting the
war?
Secretary McNamara: The latest body counts indicate a
successful rate of attrition which will eliminate the
Vietcong as an effective battle force at 2:37 p.m. on
November 2, 1967. The Dow-Jones will be at record levels
and Amoco can begin off-shore drilling on the next morning.
Cyprus has the mineral rights, and Brown & Root are set
to begin construction on the $15 billion Mekong River
Authority collection of dams, canals and power
plants.
President Johnson: How many more troops does General
Westmoreland say we will need to accomplish this?
Secretary McNamara: Only 800,000 more, along with
several tactical aircraft wings, another bomber squadron,
three carrier task forces and a special battalion trained
to specialize in torture, atrocities, hooch-burning and
other violations of the Geneva Conventions.
Secretary Rusk: Let it never be said that America
shirked its commitments to support one variety of tinhorn
dictator over another. We are maintaining our respect in
the world -- if anybody gets in our way, we'll bomb 'em
back to the Stone Age.
President Johnson: So our foreign affairs in order,
but I've got some concerns about the domestic
front.
Senator Stennis: I'll say we do. Is there any way to
up the draft calls on them uppity college students? Where
do they get off, questioning our wisdom like that? Don't
they know it's our job to do the thinkin' and their job to
do the dyin'? And them black agitators, why ain't we
drafted more of 'em, teach 'em who's boss in this country?
And where's that airforce base you promised for my state?
Why for we holdin' off on that?
Alas, even though I was absolutely sure at the time that such discussions were conducted nightly in Washington, McNamara's book presents a very different picture.
Instead of cynical men conspiring to tear the nation
apart, you see a group of men terrified that someday they
would be asked Who lost Vietnam?
just as Joe
McCarthy and the Republican Right had earlier made a career
out of asking Who lost China?
Both questions presuppose that China or Vietnam was
somehow ours
to lose, as though they were asking
Who lost Arizona?
Little wonder that the rest of the
world often sees us as arrogant. How would we feel if
Russian politicians campaigned on Who lost
Oregon?
At first, it was refreshing to speculate about an America that came to its senses in late 1964 when, according to McNamara, it was clear that South Vietnam could not defend itself, and our total combat fatalities were 225, compared to the 58,191 who eventually died there.
But Vietnam would have fallen under Communist control,
and the recriminations would have filled American political
discourse. We could have saved these brave people from
Communist slavery,
the speeches would go, and yet
the spineless appeasers in the other party deliberately
sacrificed them on the altar of accommodation to the
bloodthirsty Soviet tyrants who even now threaten all that
we hold sacred.
With those accusations to fear, the next administration
would have felt compelled to draw the line
somewhere
-- if not in Southeast Asia, perhaps in Africa, Central
America or the Middle East.
Sooner or later, America would have still been bogged down in an expensive war. Given the willingness of Americans to believe that we own the world and other nations exist only at our sufferance, Vietnam -- or the same sort of war in a different site -- was inevitable.
That's not a very useful lesson. But even if we lost the military and political war in Vietnam, recent events demonstrate that America actually succeeded in its goals.
If I understand McNamara correctly, America fought to
keep Southeast Asia from falling under Communist
domination. That's not a worry any more. And it was Vietnam
which wanted diplomatic recognition, which means
substantial American commerce there, which means Vietnam
will be in the American orbit. That's exactly what a
victory
would have produced 30 years ago. So why
isn't anybody celebrating?
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