As far as I'm aware no-one here at CTlab has yet mentioned the passing of Robert McNamara on 6 July. I ain't about to teach anyone to suck eggs but the legacy of the eighth SecDef is a curious one. Famously, McNamara expressed serious doubts about the failures of his application of systems analysis to foreign policy, in particular the conduct of the Vietnam War. The Errol Morris documentary The Fog of War (2003) more than hinted at the misgivings McNamara had long held about Vietnam.

The Economist has republished their 1995 review of McNamara's In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, with the subtitle, 'Robert McNamara is better at confessing than explaining':

The ferocious reaction provoked by Robert McNamara's admission that the policy-makers of the Kennedy and Johnson administration "were wrong, terribly wrong" about the Vietnam war has obscured the question of whether or not his bestseller is any good. The answer is that it adds footnotes to previous accounts but is singularly devoid of precision, introspection or convincing analysis.

And it goes on:

The author remains reluctant to be frank either about his former colleagues or about himself. His criticism of others is so muted as to be almost imperceptible.

And so on. I've not read In Retrospect but I have seen The Fog of War. I have no reason to doubt the conclusion of the Economist reviewer that McNamara thought he 'owed it to future generations to try to explain why mistakes were made in the hope that this will help prevent them being repeated'. I would have thought that was an admirable ambition.

It would be churlish to criticise a 14-year old book review and that is certainly not my intention. Rather, it would be interesting to review McNamara's 1995 position with that published in 2003. My impression is that McNamara spent most of his post-SecDef career wrestling with history and conscience, a struggle that must surely have informed his tenure at the World Bank (1968-1981). It's been a while since I've seen Morris' film but I was struck by McNamara's attempt to rationalise and explain Vietnam; not to sweep it under the carpet or justify the body count. Perhaps we should all revisit this most fascinating man's life.

Update on Jul 8, 2009 at 22:13 by Tim Stevens

Good round-up of op-eds, etc, at Small Wars Journal.

Update on Jul 9, 2009 at 6:49 by Tim Stevens

Drew Conway is guest-blogging at Duck of Minerva at the moment and has a thoughtful response to Errol Morris' op-ed in the NYT (cross-posted at ZIA).