In Retrospect
Robert McNamara In Retrospect Random House New York, 1995 Vietnam had long since been a place of controversy, and where our government focusedit's fear of communism for many years. Throughout the Kennedy and Johnson administrationsthe government maintained that the war between the Communist north and the south can only bewon by the South Vietnamese, and that our military cannot win it for them. It stressed that thefall of South Vietnam to communism would threaten the rest of the western world. Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense during the Kennedy and Johnsonadministrations, wrote In Retrospect because he wanted to "Put Vietnam in context,"(xx). McNamara wanted to explain why the mistakes of Vietnam were made, not to justify them, butto help the American public understand them. He relies not only upon his memories, but upon People have often called Vietnam, McNamara's war, because he made it hisresponsibility. As he learned more and more about south Vietnam, he became well acquaintedwith it's leader Ngo Dinh Diem. Diem portrayed himself as a man who shared our westernvalues. Though as our government would soon realize he was not the man we had
There was no "war cabinet" to focus on strictly onVietnam. McNamara in hindsight looks back and wonders, why? Why did they escalate and notwithdraw? South Vietnam seemed like a lost cause. McNamara discusses whether the Gulf of Tonkin resolutiongave too much unlimited power to the president. McNamara reveals that failure to organize properly did infact cause many of the oversights made. He proposed a listof alternatives such as stopping the bombing of the north to bring about negotiations, transferring the responsibility from our military to the South Vietnamese. Many critics of the Vietnam war feel that it was theinexperience of the state department, though they were extremely intelligent, they were nottrained in the finer workings of the military which caused the escalation. " Kennedy was ready to start pulling our troops out because it was obvious thatthe war was un winnable. McNamara lists eleven reasons for the major causesof Vietnam. Hisconflicts between the Buddhists and Catholics were becoming more outrageous than ever. It is obvious the mistakes that thestate department made during these fateful years. Theadministration supported a general's coup to get Diem out of power. Our government overestimated the fall of South Vietnam, would it really have threatenedthe rest of the western world, probably not.
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Acceptance Essays
