Robert McNamara Essay Example for Free

Robert McNamara EssayAs Defense Secretary of two administrations, the Johnson and Kennedy administrations, respectively, Robert McNamara played a considerable agency in shaping US policies that led to the decision to intervene in the Vietnam War. Prior to his role in the Vietnam War, he was already involved in various roles in some of the most major decisions concerning nuclear weapons and delivery system. Such experience would have been useful for him to determine that going to war in Vietnam was a huge mistake and would end up catastrophically for the Americans. However, he certainly mistook Ho ki Minhs nationalist drive to unite Vietnam as the challenge of a monolithic Communist spurt and this proved to be fatal not only to the United States but to Vietnam as well as both camps suffered heavy losses not only in legal injury of lives but in terms of financial sources as well. But to his credit, he was the only with that kind of status who accepted responsibility for the V ietnam carnage which cost the United States thousands of force servicemen and millions of Vietnamese lives.Despite his belief that the war should have been ended tear down in the middle of it, McNamara remained loyal to the President. Hence, even if his views were altogether different from the other key players in the Vietnam war, he did not act responsibly toward the American people as he instead unplowed his tranquillize rather than challenging Johnson and his cabinet and quitting mid-war. His excessive faith in high-tech weapons and later expectations that massive bring outpouring and frontal battles could wear down the Vietnamese enemy certainly added to his accountability.Moreover, even with the increasing withdrawal of bear and criticism of the Vietnam War, McNamara fastidiously held on to his silence and this might have resulted in creating the tone of ideological causticity that now pervades U. S. politics, Bill Schneider, a contributing editor to Opinion, CNN, Los A ngeles Times (p. 134). This can be seen by the apparent gap or estrangement between the governing class and the people which is symbolized by the draft curve employed by the military.The number of Americans who believe the Vietnam War was a mistake has steadily risen in the years since. Its in the range of 80% now, said John Mueller of the University of Rochester in untested York, an expert on public opinion on foreign policy and war. Doyle McManus, Los Angeles Times opinion (p. 118). McNamara should not have kept his silence. As Vann puts it, he saw much that was wrong about the war in Vietnam, but he could never bring himself to conclude that the war itself was wrong and unwinnable (p. 8).In fairness to McNamara however, he strongly contrasted further bombing of North Vietnam and major deployment of a major ABM system which upset the military chiefs at that time. However, his resignation came in too late, when Johnson was already gunning for a re-election. He could have voice d out his objection when the odds are still with him and as Frank Rich succinctly puts it, the real light he might finally have attained a recognition that he was wrong not to announce his mid-war about-face and quit the Johnson Cabinet when lives might still have been saved eludes him. Frank Rich, New York Times opinion (p. 126).