wout gijsbers - robert s. mcnamara: personality & politics

ROBERT S. MCNAMARA PERSONALITY AND POLITICS

WOUT GIJSBERS

Robert S. McNamara Table of Contents

Page | 2

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction 3

Verbal Behavior Analysis 4

The Fog of War 7

In Retrospect 12

Conclusion 16

Bibliography 18

Robert S. McNamara Introduction

Page | 3

INTRODUCTION

Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.

~ Ernest Hemingway ~

On February 29, 1968, Robert Strange McNamara resigned after being the United States

Secretary of Defense for seven years (U.S. Department of Defense, n.d.). By that time, he had served two

presidents (Kennedy and Johnson) he had seen the world on the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban

Missile Crisis and he had witnessed how America became entangled in the Vietnam War. During his last

years as Secretary of Defense, McNamara became a more and more controversial figure in the Johnson

administration, a legacy that still haunts him today.

In this paper, I will try to find the causes of this controversy by analyzing McNamara’s

personality, firstly by using an analysis developed by Walter Weintraub, followed by an elaborate

analysis of two major works about and by McNamara, the documentary The Fog of War (Morris, 2003)

and In Retrospect (McNamara, 1995), McNamara’s personal account of the Vietnam War. I will analyze

both the image McNamara tries to give other people of him and the personality traits others attribute to

him.

The research question this paper intends to answer is the following: Why did Robert S. McNamara resign

from his position as the United States Secretary of Defense on February 29, 1968?

Robert S. McNamara Verbal Behavior Analysis

Page | 4

VERBAL BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS

The approach used to analyze spontaneous speech of Robert McNamara is the approach

described by Walter Weintraub in Verbal Behavior and Personality Assessment (Weintraub, 2003). Using

this approach, one can analyze spontaneous speech indirectly, be it by analyzing phone calls, interviews,

or documentaries (as was the case in the current analysis). This approach allows researchers to draw up

a number of personality traits for a person without having to meet this person in real-life. For the verbal

behavior analysis of McNamara, an excerpt of Errol Morris’s award-winning documentary The Fog of War

(Errol Morris, 2003) was used. Considering the fact that, for this analysis, the researcher needs only

4.000 words of spontaneous speech, not the entire excerpt was analyzed, which consists of more than

10.000 words (excluding speech in inserted video- and sound clips). Instead, the analysis was restricted

to an extract of 3.989 words, starting at “EM: Were you aware this was going at happen” (Morris, 2003,

00:35:19) and ending with “Recognize that at times you will have to engage in evil, but minimize it”

(Morris, 2003, 01:26:29). In this extract, words in inserted sound- and video clips in which McNamara did

not speak himself were not counted. The first sentence of McNamara’s answer to each of Morris’s

questions were also not counted, which is done to, according to Weintraub, “minimize the effect of

dialogue” (Weintraub, 2003, pp.140).

The part that was picked for analysis was chosen because it includes a portion of McNamara’s

biography (i.e., his time at Ford) as well as a portion of McNamara’s account of the Vietnam War.

Considering the fact that the documentary consists of a combination of biographical information and

reports of important events (e.g., the war in Vietnam and the Kennedy assassination), this part of the

excerpt serves as a good representation of the spontaneous speech in the entire documentary. The

chosen part of the excerpt was scanned for each of Weintraub’s verbal categories (i.e., I, we, me,

negatives, qualifiers, retractors, direct references, explainers, expressions of feeling, adverbial

intensifiers, non-personal and personal references and creative expressions) (Weintraub, 2003). Table 1

(on page 5) shows a number of examples for each verbal category, the scores (in occurrences per 1000

words of spontaneous speech) for each category, and, for comparison, the mean scores for the first

seven post-World War II Presidents as shown in Verbal Behavior and Personality Assessment (Weintraub,

2003, pp.148).


Page | 5

Category Examples McNamara First Seven Post-

World War II

Presidents

I 25.1 35.0

We 13.8 20.0

Me 2.3 1.5

Negatives “not”, verb in combination with “not”

(e.g., don’t, haven’t)

10.5 12.0

Qualifiers “I’ll call it”, “anyhow”, “I’d say I”, “I

(don’t) think”, “I (don’t) believe”

6.0 11.0

Retractors “but”, “now” 2.8 6.5

Direct references “I think the reasons are obvious to you”,

“you know”

0.5 2.5

Explainers “but first”, “anyhow”, “so”, “now let me

jump ahead”, “as a result”

2.8 5.5

Expressions of feeling “it was a traumatic period”, “it was very

traumatic”, “it was terrific”, “my God”

1.8 3.5

Adverbial intensifiers “much less”, “totally”, “basically”,

“clearly”, “really”, “terrible”, “dammit”

6.8 15.0

Non-personal

references

“crewmen”, “intelligence interrogators”,

“(young) captain”, “a park service

ranger”

482.0 775.0

Creative expressions “firebombing”, “’the rules of war’” 0.8 2.5

TABLE 1

If we compare McNamara’s scores to the mean scores of the first seven post-World War II Presidents

and try to see which personality traits can be drawn out of them according to Weintraub (Weintraub,

2003), a number of personality traits can be clearly distinguished.

Firstly, McNamara has a comparatively low score in most of the feelings categories (i.e., expressions of

feeling, adverbial intensifiers and direct references). This indicates that he is an emotionally controlled

speaker (Weintraub, 2003). Secondly, McNamara had a high score in the Me-category. This indicates that

he is a passive person (Weintraub, 2003). Thirdly, McNamara scored low in the Expression of feeling-

category as well as in the Qualifiers-category. This indicates a controlling personality (Weintraub, 2003).

So, in short, the results of the verbal behavior analysis that McNamara is an emotionally controlled,

passive and controlling speaker. It should be clear that the combination of the latter two traits is strange


Page | 6

at the very least; a passive speaker cannot be controlling at the same time. This contradiction is most

likely to be due to misrepresentation on McNamara’s behalf, which means that McNamara is speaking in

such a way that it allows the interviewer to think that he is in control of the interview (i.e., by the

interviewee speaking as if he is a passive person) while the interviewee is in fact controlling the interview

by carefully weighing his answers. Consequently, a verbal behavior analysis might come up with scores

that indicate personality traits that do not seem to match and that do not give a representative image of

a person’s true personality. In the current case, this draws up a number of questions. Is McNamara

leading Morris and those watching the documentary in the wrong direction by consciously (or

unconsciously) misrepresenting his true personality? Is McNamara controlling the interview or is he truly

a passive person?

These questions will be answered in two different ways. Firstly, the Fog of War will be analyzed for

sections in which McNamara does not, or does not seem to be able to, control his emotions. After that,

these sections will be compared to see if similarities can be noticed between them.

Secondly, the image that other people have of Robert McNamara will be compared to the image

McNamara tries to provide of himself by analyzing In Retrospect, McNamara’s book on the Vietnam War

(McNamara, 1995), as well as reviews of In Retrospect and the Fog of War (Morris, 1995).

Robert S. McNamara The Fog of War

Page | 7

THE FOG OF WAR

A major part of the The Fog of War (full title: The Fog of War – Eleven Lessons from the Life of

Robert S. McNamara) is dedicated to the Vietnam War and McNamara’s part in it. Even though the

boundaries in the documentary are muddled1 McNamara discusses the Vietnam War from the first days

of U.S. involvement, in 1963, at 00:57:52 in the documentary, until the day McNamara resigned from his

function as United States Secretary of Defense, at 01:35:50. The information contained in this part of the

documentary will be discussed later on in this section, as well as a number of reviews. Firstly, let us start

by analyzing The Fog of War for elements that are incongruent with the personality traits that we

attributed to McNamara in the previous section.

When one watches The Fog of War for the very first time, overall McNamara comes forward as

an emotionally controlled, cool person. McNamara talks without much hesitation and seems to have no

problems finding the right words, whether he talks about the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, his career at

Ford Motor Company, or the Vietnam War. However, while watching The Fog of War for a second time,

making sure that no details will be missed, certain parts of the documentary come forward which do not

fit into that image of McNamara. In these parts of the documentary, McNamara seems to lose grip on his

emotions, giving the viewer a glimpse of his other side. However, the problem with these parts is that

they cannot be discovered in the excerpt of the documentary, not even by using Weintraub’s verbal

behavior analysis. This is because these elements are too small in number and duration but mainly

because it is not possible to see McNamara’s emotions in the written words in the excerpt. Nevertheless,

by closely watching The Fog of War, these parts can quite easily be found. I will show which parts

contrasted with the personality of McNamara that we found in the previous part of this paper, starting

with the elements of the documentary in which he seems unmistakably enthusiastic and cheerful,

thereby contrasting with the rest of the documentary. After that, I will state the elements in which

McNamara seems notably moved or agitated.

Firstly, at 00:18:15 McNamara says: “And LeMay said, “Won? Hell, we lost. We should go in and

wipe ‘em out today.””2 (Morris, 2003, 00:18:15), after which McNamara laughs. Secondly, McNamara

laughs while talking about his early school days (Morris, 2003, 00:22:18 until 00:23:05).

1 McNamara’s eleven lessons are spread out across the entire documentary, which discusses McNamara’s early life

up until his last days as U.S. Secretary of Defense.

2 This is LeMay’s reply to Kennedy’s statement that the U.S. won the Cuban missile crisis.


Page | 8

Thirdly, in a video clip of an interview between Harry Reasoner (a well-known American journalist) and

McNamara, Reasoner asks McNamara if he has ever been wrong, to which McNamara responds “Oh, yes

indeed. I’m not going to tell you. If you don’t know, I’m not going to tell you” while laughing out loud

(Morris, 2003, 00:23:48). Fourthly, McNamara seems unable to control his excitement when he states

that “I couldn’t wait to go to another class” (Morris, 2003, 00:25:06), after talking about his enrollment

at Berkeley University. Fifthly, McNamara laughs after explaining how his first wife, Margaret Craig

(Reading Is Fundamental, 2007), whom McNamara refers to as “Marg”, came to know his middle name

which is “Strange” (Morris, 2003, 00:25:48). Sixthly, while describing a question in one of the intelligence

tests that he had to make in order to become an executive at Ford Motor Company, a question in which

he had to choose between being a florist or a coal miner, McNamara laughs after stating that “I worker

as a florist during some of my Christmas vacations. I put down “coal miner”.” (Morris, 2003, 00:47:46).

Seventhly, McNamara is very cheerful while explaining how he became President of Ford Motor

Company (Morris, 2003, 00:53:18), a story that involves late-night drinking behavior and healthy

competition between two co-workers. Eighthly, while explaining how he became Secretary of Defense

McNamara is laughing out loud (Morris, 2003, 00:55:10). Lastly, McNamara laughs while saying “And

quite frankly, I follow that rule” (Morris, 2003, 01:31:06). With “that rule” McNamara refers to the rule

“answer the question that you wish had been asked of you” (Morris, 2003, 01:31:00). McNamara is also

quite emotional (i.e., moved) or agitated at a number of occasions. Firstly, at 00:38:16, as he is explaining

a conversation between General Curtis LeMay and the captain of a B29 bomber, a conversation that took

place after the firebombing of Tokyo during World War II, McNamara becomes emotional while saying

“You lost your wingman, it hurts me as much as it does you. I sent him there” (Morris, 2003, 00:38:16).

Secondly, McNamara seems quite astonished after saying “And he [Le May] went on from Tokyo to

firebomb other cities” (Morris, 2003, 00:40:27). Thirdly, after Errol Morris asks McNamara how he can

best talk about Vietnam, McNamara becomes emotional while saying “Yeah, well, that’s a hard question.

I think that we have to approach it in the context of the Cold War” (Morris, 2003, 00:45:45). Fourthly,

McNamara becomes exceptionally emotional when he talks about the burial of John F. Kennedy, from “I

called the superintendent of Arlington Cemetery” at 01:00:36 until “That’s where he’s buried.” at

01:00:43 (Morris, 2003). Fifthly, McNamara seems astonished when he talks about his meeting with the

former Foreign Minister of Vietnam, Thach, in Hanoi in 1995 (Morris, 2003, 01:18:38). Sixthly, while

explaining the death of Norman Morrison, the anti-war activist who incinerated himself on November 2,

1965 (Time Magazine, 1965), McNamara becomes quite emotional (Morris, 2003, 01:25:23).


Page | 9

Seventhly, McNamara is literally speechless when he addresses President Johnson as Secretary of

Defense for the last time (Morris, 2003, 01:35:28). Eighthly, McNamara seems to become slightly angry

when he talks about the decisions that President Johnson made during his time in office (Morris, 2003,

01:36:47). Lastly, McNamara is unable to control his emotions after quoting T.S. Eliot, at the end of the

documentary (Morris, 2003, 01:41:52).

If we analyze each one of the aforementioned elements in our two categories (i.e., happiness

and sadness or anger), we come across a number of striking similarities. First of all, if we look at our first

category, ‘happiness’, it seems as if McNamara has a simple, childlike sense of humor. For example, he

laughs out loud when he says that he will not tell Harry Reasoner any of his own mistakes if Reasoner

does not know them already (element nr.3), when he explains that he was one of the best students in

first grade (element nr.2), when he explains why he answered ‘coal miner’ instead of ‘florist’ to a

question on an intelligence test for Ford (element nr.6), as well as when he explains how his first wife

came to know his middle name (element nr.5). One might even suggest that all of the aforementioned

elements seem to contain this childlike sense of humor. Secondly, talking about his first wife, Margaret,

seems to lift McNamara’s spirit. One can see this for example in element number five, and element

number eight. Thirdly, if we look at the element in the second category, it becomes clear that death is

something McNamara seems to have a considerable amount of trouble coping with, be it someone very

close to the heart as in the case of John F. Kennedy (element nr.4) or close to the eye as in the case of

Norman Morrison (element nr.6). Also, McNamara seems to be touched by tragic events for which he

was responsible in a certain way or another, for example in the case of him quoting Curtis LeMay after

the firebombing of Tokyo (element nr.1 and, in relation to that, element nr.2), in the case of the first

sentences of his answer to Errol Morris’s question concerning Vietnam (element nr.3), and, to a lesser

extent in his account of his meeting with the former Foreign Minister of Vietnam, Thach (element nr.5).

So, in summary, after analyzing the elements in The Fog of War that do not coincide with the personality

traits we attributed to McNamara in the first section of this paper, we can say that McNamara seems to

have a childlike sense of humor and is having trouble coping with death, be it the death of a relative or

the death of people that McNamara does not know personally but seems to feel responsible for in some

way or another. It is hard to ignore the fact that a number of sentences at the very beginning of the

documentary clearly represent this ‘curse of personal responsibility’. In these sentences, McNamara

states the following: “Any military commander who is honest with himself (…) will admit that he has

made mistakes in the application of military power. He’s killed people unnecessarily – his own troops or

other troops – through mistakes, through errors of judgment.” McNamara seems to do his utmost best


Page | 10

to control his emotions, but this goes hand in hand with brittleness; brittleness that causes McNamara to

show his deepest emotions at some points in the interview.

Now, what is it that McNamara tells those watching The Fog of War about the reasons for his

resignation? One of the first indications is in a sound clip of a phone call between President Johnson and

McNamara that took place on February 25, 1964 (Morris, 2003, 01:02:05). Johnson states: “I always

thought it was foolish for you to make any statements about withdrawing. I thought it was bad

psychologically. But you and the president thought otherwise, and I just sat silent”, to which McNamara

answers: “The problem is…” before being cut off by Johnson who says: “Then come the questions: how

in the hell does McNamara think, when he’s losing a war, he can pull men out of there?” (Morris, 2003,

01:03:14). A second indication is in a sound clip of McNamara dating from December 2, 1965 in which he

states: “I am more and more convinced that we ought to think of some action other than military action

as the only program here. I think if we do that by itself, it’s suicide.” (Morris, 2003, 01:17:01). A last

indication is in McNamara’s answer to Morris asking: “When you talk about the responsibility for

something like the Vietnam War, whose responsibility is it?” (Morris, 2003, 01:31:21); an answer in

which McNamara describes the enormous rift between him and President Johnson, with McNamara

opting for troop withdrawal and Johnson opting for the exact opposite. So, if we summarize the

indications that can be found in The Fog of War as to why McNamara resigned, one can say that his

resignation was mostly due to a growing opposition between McNamara and President Johnson; an

opposition in which, according to McNamara “something had to give” (Morris, 2003, 01:34:14). Of

course, there was not merely growing opposition between McNamara and President Johnson, Johnson is

in this context a metaphor for Johnson himself as well as the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

What is that critics have to say about how they see McNamara while and after watching The Fog

of War? As I already mentioned in the previous section, The Fog of War is an award-winning

documentary: it won the Academy Award for best documentary in 2004 (Academy of Motion Picture

Arts and Sciences, n.d.). It has been especially praised for McNamara’s openheartedness and because of

the fact that McNamara’s eleven lessons can still be easily applied to modern conflicts (e.g. the conflicts

in Iraq and Afghanistan). Roger Ebert, a film reviewer for the Chicago Sun-Times, stated about

McNamara that “he speaks concisely and forcibly, rarely searching for a word (…); there is the uncanny

sensation that he is thinking as he speaks.” (Ebert, 2004, par.3). Another reviewer, Stephen Holden, a

reviewer for The New York Times, stated that “Mr. McNamara appears to be an exceptionally articulate,

self-confident man who came to this project prepared to deflect embarrassing questions about his

personal responsibility for the debacle” and that “he also has a streak of grandstanding sentimentality”


Page | 11

(Holden, 2003, par.4). So, according to Ebert and Holden, McNamara seems to present himself as self-

confident, calculating, well-prepared, and emotionally controlled. This seems to be in accord with the

findings in the previous section of this paper. James G. Blight and Janet M. Lang discuss another aspect of

The Fog of War. According to them, McNamara is an extremely courageous person who should be

admired for his “willingness to face the possibility that you [McNamara], as well as your former enemy,

might have been mistaken”. (Blight & Lang, 2007). In their opinion, we can speak of a phenomenon

called the ‘two McNamaras’, one being McNamara during his time as Secretary of Defense and the other

one being McNamara as the ninety-one-year-old man whose rule in life is to “try to learn, try to

understand what happened” (Morris, 2003, 00:04:42). However, on other subjects, some reviewers are

not as forthcoming. For example, Michael J. Shapiro, Professor of Political Science at the University of

Hawai’i, contended that McNamara does not seem to be blessed with “a self-reflective sense of

responsibility to those who turned out to be the victims of the policies that he [McNamara] helped put in

place” (Shapiro, 2005, pp.245). Also, both Ebert and Holden deem it important to note that McNamara

does in no way admit that he is sorry for any of the decisions he made as Secretary of Defense. As

Holden states: “when pressed about whether he feels guilty about Vietnam, he dances nimbly away from

the question” (Holden, 2003, par.4). The slightly odd aspect about this part of the documentary is that

Errol Morris probably already knows the answer to this question, assuming that he has read In

Retrospect, McNamara’s account of his days as Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War, which was

published eight years before The Fog of War.

Robert S. McNamara In Retrospect

Page | 12

IN RETROSPECT

Until 1995, when In Retrospect (full title: In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam) was

published, McNamara did not say a word about the Vietnam War in public. In fact, it almost seems as if

he wanted to take his story with him in his grave, considering the fact that he clearly stated in the

preface to In Retrospect that “This is the book I planned never to write” (McNamara, 1995, pp.xv).

However, with In Retrospect his silent treatment ended, for reasons he explains in the preface and on

which shall be elaborated later on.

In Retrospect will be explored with one additional question in mind, apart from the central research

question. This question is: What is the image Robert S. McNamara wants to give the reader of himself?

The very first words in the book seem to provide us with a first indication:

In Memory of Marg,

one of God’s loveliest creatures.

She enriched the lives of all who knew her,

and she brought me strength and joy

as we journeyed through forty years of life together.

As we saw in the previous section, McNamara seems to rejuvenate when he talks about “Marg”, his first

wife. It is therefore no coincidence that he dedicates In Retrospect to this important figure in his life.

Marg provides us with a glimpse of McNamara’s family life even though McNamara states he is “not

comfortable speaking in such terms; by nature I am a private person” (McNamara, 1995, pp.xviii).

However, apart from talking about Marg, McNamara does not provide his readers, and, in the case of

The Fog of War any clear insight into his family life.

McNamara gives his readers a number of reasons why he did not talk about the Vietnam War for

so long. First of all, he explains that he was apprehensive to talk about Vietnam because he thought

people might misinterpret his reasons for doing so. As McNamara states “I might appear, self-serving,

defensive, or vindictive” (McNamara, 1995, pp.xv). Even though In Retrospect seems to be a break with

this apprehension, McNamara seems still afraid that his words might be misinterpreted. In fact, the

majority of the preface seems to be a proof of his lasting apprehensiveness to speak about Vietnam.

Secondly, up until 1995, he admits that he might have not been able to face the mistakes he made as

Secretary of Defense (McNamara, 1995).


Page | 13

Thirdly, and maybe more importantly because he writes it with so much conviction, is that he “has grown

sick at heart witnessing the cynicism and even contempt with which so many people view our political

institutions and leaders.” (McNamara, 1995, pp.xvi). However, he does admit that people have a reason

to do so, considering the fact that those very same political institutions and leaders have made and still

make mistakes, even though they are “mostly honest mistakes” (McNamara, 1995, pp.xvi).

However, writing In Retrospect was most of all a “journey of self-disclosure” (McNamara, 1995, pp.xviii)

for McNamara, a journey that allowed him to understand the Vietnam War much better than he did

during his days as Secretary of Defense (McNamara, 1995).

As one focuses his or her attention on how McNamara wants to present himself to his readers, a

number of basic elements become clear. Firstly, McNamara does not explain the viewpoints of the other

members of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations concerning the Vietnam War quite as fully as he

does his own thoughts on the matter. Of course, it is much harder to place oneself in another man’s

footsteps and think the way another man does, not even concerning the most simplest of matters, but

McNamara does not seem to put in much effort of empathizing with his friends (who, later on grew out

to become his opponents). He elaborately explains his own thoughts of why the “policy was failing”

(McNamara, 1995, pp.234), why “no amount of bombing of the North (…) could end the war”

(McNamara, 1995, pp.245), why he “could see no good way to win – or end – an increasingly costly and

destructive war” (McNamara, 1995, pp.260) and so on. On the other hand, he merely explains the

viewpoints of the other members of the administrations concisely and in an emotionally-controlled

manner to “organize the material in a way that is true to history” (McNamara, xviii).

In relation to this, McNamara seems to have forgotten to mention the fate of the Vietnamese or, as

Noam Chomsky stated: “What about the maybe, if you count them up, four millions Indochinese that

died, something on that order? What about them? Actually, he has a sentence or two about them”

(Chomsky, 1995, par.5). Secondly, McNamara is quite an analytical person. Because of that he may seem

to be cold and, according to some, even emotionless. His analytical nature comes forward on numerous

occasions, for example in statements such as: “I insisted to measure progress. (…) I was convinced that,

while we might not be able to track something as unambiguous as a front line, we could find variables

that would indicate our success or failure.” (McNamara, 1995, pp.237), and “things you can count, you

ought to count.” (McNamara, 1995, pp.238). The latter quote is part of McNamara’s reply to criticism

that his use of body count is an example of his “obsession with numbers” (McNamara, 1995, pp.238).

Even though McNamara seems to do his utmost best to prove his critics wrong, numerous reviews of In

Retrospect seem to support McNamara’s analytical, maybe even overly analytical, nature. For example,


Page | 14

Janet Landman referred to this by stating that “The book *In Retrospect] consists almost entirely of a dry

analysis of memos, meetings, and missions. McNamara doesn’t begin to make good on his promise in the

preface to record a journey of self-disclosure.” (Landman, 1999). Another reviewer, Mike Ervin refers to

McNamara as “The Great Administrator, who examined as if they were business reports the daily

mounting body counts, the spread of anti-war protests, and the request for more U.S. troops to embark

for Vietnam” (Ervin, 1995, par.7). Thirdly, referring back to In Retrospect as McNamara’s “journey of self-

disclosure” (McNamara, 1995, pp.xviii), Noam Chomsky claims that “the one interesting aspect of the

book is how little he [McNamara] understood about what was going on or understands today. He

doesn’t even understand what he was involved in.” (Chomsky, 1995, par.2). Later on, Chomsky goes even

further by stating that McNamara is “an extremely narrow technocrat, a small-time engineer who was

given a particular job to do and just tried to do that job efficiently, didn’t understand anything that was

going on, including what he himself was doing”. If we look back at a section in The Fog of War,

McNamara does seem to loosely state this in reply to Robert Kennedy offering him the position of

Secretary of Defense, as McNamara says: “Look, I was in World War II for three years. Secretary of

Defense? I’m not qualified to be Secretary of Defense.” (Morris, 2003, 00:54:59). Lastly, and perhaps

most importantly, reviewers en masse refer to In Retrospect as McNamara’s mea culpa (Commonweal,

1995; Ervin, 1995; Landman, 1999; Reeves, 1995; Rodman, 1995). This is a claim that is extremely hard, if

not impossible to refute, as McNamara uses phrases such as ‘I was wrong’ and ‘I misunderstood’ over

and over again. He even starts out his book by admitting that “we were wrong, we were terribly wrong”

(McNamara, 1995, pp.xvi). However, admitting one’s mistakes is obviously not the same as asking for

forgiveness of those very same mistakes. Nowhere in In Retrospect does McNamara ask for any sort of

forgiveness, he merely wants to set the record straight and explain his part of the story as fully as

possible. However, for many reviewers, mea culpa is a synonym for a plea for forgiveness, making

McNamara an even more controversial figure than he was before writing In Retrospect. Doves now

blame him for not pleading guilty earlier and Hawks blame him for betraying his country. As Peter W.

Rodman stated: “Robert McNamara must be wondering why he bothered” (Rodman, 1995).

If we look at what caused McNamara’s resignation as Secretary of Defense, just as we did for The

Fog of War, we are presented with, in general, the same causes for the rift between McNamara and the

large majority of the Johnson administration as in the documentary. The clearest indication of this rift is

a memo that McNamara sent to Johnson on May 19, 1967 (pp.266-271). As McNamara states “advancing


Page | 15

positions the Pentagon Papers3 later described as “radical”, the memo crystallized my growing doubts

about the trend of events and set the stage for the increasingly sharp debate that followed.”

(McNamara, 1995, pp.266). As was already discussed in the previous section, McNamara was opposed to

bombing North Vietnam any longer. For him it was becoming more and more certain that the Vietnam

War should be ended as soon as possible, even if this meant defeat for the US; the war was simply not

efficient anymore in terms of losses relative to gains. Nevertheless, after McNamara left office on

February 29, 1968, (U.S. Department of Defense, n.d.), the Vietnam War continued for another seven

years, ultimately claiming more than 58.000 American lives and over 3.400.000 Vietnamese lives.

3 The Pentagon Papers is a very elaborate study of almost every aspect of the US’s Vietnam policy from World War

II until the end of the Vietnam War (McNamara, 1995).

Robert S. McNamara Bibliography

Page | 16

CONCLUSION

Why did Robert S. McNamara resign from his position as the United States Secretary of Defense

on February 29, 1968? That was the question this paper intended to answer.

The results from the personality analysis in the first section indicated that McNamara is an emotionally

controlled, controlling and passive speaker. Considering the fact that the latter two personality traits are

contradictory, the decision was made to analyze The Fog of War more closely in the second section. The

results from this section showed that McNamara seems to have a childlike sense of humor, is having

considerable trouble coping with the loss of human life for which he feels personally responsible. Also,

we found that reviewers see McNamara as an emotionally-controlled, calculating, well-prepared, but

sometimes overly analytical person. However, McNamara’s tendency to control his emotions goes hand

in hand with brittleness. The third section discussed In Retrospect. Firstly, the reasons McNamara gives

for not speaking out about the Vietnam War earlier were discussed, In Retrospect turning out to be most

of all a “journey of self-disclosure” for McNamara (McNamara, 1995, pp.xxviii). After that, the image

McNamara wants to give of himself was discussed, concluding that McNamara does not try to put

himself in the shoes of friend and foe, that he seems to be a very analytical person, that, according to

some, he does not seem to understand the Vietnam War up until this day, and that In Retrospect seems

to be McNamara’s way of admitting guilt and taking responsibility for his actions.

If we apply the results from this paper to the research question, we may conclude that the

combination of McNamara’s analytical nature as well as his decreasing control over his emotions,

because of his realization of the gruesome results of the Vietnam War and increasing public unrest,

eventually led to his resignation on February, 29, 1968. His reluctance to accept and empathize with the

views of others is most likely to be simply the result of these two personality traits (i.e. his analytical

nature and his decreasing emotional control).


Page | 17

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Picture on front page: Courtesy of Dr. X’s Free Associations (http://drx.typepad.com)

Weintraub, W. (2003). Verbal Behavior and Personality Assessment. In: Post, J.M. (ed.) The Psychological

Assessment of Political Leaders. Ann Arbor, MI, The University of Michigan Press. pp.137-153

Time Magazine (No Author). (November 12, 1965). The Pacifists. Time Magazine. Retrieved: January 18,

2008 from http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,834576,00.html

Roberts, R. (September 8, 2004). Weddings Bells for Robert McNamara. Washington Post. Retrieved:

January 18, 2008 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3686-

2004Sep7.html

Reading Is Fundamental (No Author). (2007). In Memory of Margaret McNamara. Retrieved: January 18,

2008 from http://www.rif.org/about/leadership/founders/mcnamara.mspx

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (No Author). (No Date). Academy Awards Database.

Retrieved: January 19, 2008 from http://awardsdatabase.oscars.org/ampas_

awards/DisplayMain.jsp?curTime=1200760441061

Ebert, R. (January 23, 2004). The Fog of War. The New York Times. Retrieved: January 19, 2008 from

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F20040123%2

FREVIEWS%2F401230302%2F1023

Holden, S. (October 11, 2003). Film Festival Review; Revisiting McNamara and the War He Headed.

Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved: January 19, 2008 from http://movies.nytimes.

com/movie/review?res=9805E6DD153FF932A25753C1A9659C8B63

Landman, S. (Summer 1999). The Confessions of a War Maker and a War Resister. Michigan Quarterly

Review XXXVIII(3), pp.393

Blight, J.G., & Lang, J.M. (Winter 2007). Robert McNamara: Then & Now. Deadalus 136(1), pp.120-131


Page | 18

Rodman, P.W. (May 29, 1995). In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. –Book Reviews.

National Review. Retrieved: January 14, 2008 from

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_n10_v47/ai_16936595

Commonweal (No Author). (May 5, 1995). In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. –Book

Reviews. Commonweal. Retrieved: January 14, 2008 from


Reeves, R. (April 1995). In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. Washington Monthly.

Retrieved: January 14, 2008 from


Ervin, M. (June 1995). In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. –Book Reviews. The

Progressive. Retrieved: January, 14, 2008 from


Chomsky, N. (1995). Robert McNamara. Retrieved: January 17, 2008 from

http://www.chomsky.info/books/warfare01.htm

United States Department of Defense (No Author). (No Date). Robert S. McNamara. Retrieved: January

17, 2008 from http://www.defenselink.mil/specials/secdef_histories/bios/ mcnamara.htm

wout gijsbers - robert s. mcnamara: personality & politics

Documents