Robert McNamara In Retrospect Random House New York, 1995
Vietnam had long since been a place of controversy, and where our government focused
it's fear of communism for many years. Throughout the Kennedy and Johnson administrations
the government maintained that the war between the communist north and the south can only be
won by the South Vietnamese, and that our military cannot win it for them. It stressed that the
fall of South Vietnam to communism would threaten the rest of the western world.
Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense during the Kennedy and Johnson
administrations, 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, but
to 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 his
responsibility. As he learned more and more about south Vietnam, he became well acquainted
with it's leader Ngo Dinh Diem. Diem portrayed himself as a man who shared our western
values. Though as our government would soon realize he was not the man we had hoped for.
Diem needed to be removed from power, he was becoming more and more unpopular with his
people. The Kennedy Administration seemed split on how democratic Diem really was. His
conflicts between the Buddhists and Catholics were becoming more outrageous than ever. The
administration supported a general's coup to get Diem out of power. Diem and his brother Nhu
were both assassinated during this coup.
On November 22, 1963, Kennedy, himself, was also assassinated on the streets of Dallas.
McNamara poses many questions as to whether the war would have continued on the same route
had Kennedy not been killed. McNamara feels that had Kennedy lived he would have pulled us
out of ...