THE MCNAMARA YEARS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01350R000200010007-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 21, 2004
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: July 8, 1971
• Content Type: NSPR

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Approved For Release 2004/ 0t1 : CIA-RDP88-01350R00020"VQ,07, q 4t,
Geot?rye C. Wilson .. BQU~~
,ton Post, covered i1lcNama- ~~11cNf11If1Rt1. By Henry L. Trewhitt.
re's tenure at the Pentagon, Ularper & Ron-. 307 on.. $7.95)
lie is also author of a book, Also, through the accident
"Bridge of No Return," on of timing, the Pentagon Pa- ' aMeNaniara had overesti-
the capture of the U.S.S. pcrs became public property mated the efficacy of U.S.
Pueblo. -after Mr. Trewhitt had writ power, and he had grossly
As the propeller-driven ten his eminently fair ac- underestimated the will of
transport bucked eastward count of McNamara's stew- the enemy. All the military
'through the night and into ardship of the Pentagon. ?erit]cisins of him were incor-
?.the next day, the questioner Those papers would have porated in the remark of .a
could not resist asking.Navy buttressed the book. senior commander: 'He gave
Secretary John Jr. Chafes But_ that is not .telling, us enough to .deny success
~wliy he had left the coinpar- what is in this book-only to the enemy. He did not
i
at
ve ease of his Pentagon what no doubt will be in the
office for the grueling trip
he had just completed on next one on the Defense
-the West Coast. Secretary who served Pres-
"Because," Chafee said idents Kennedy and John-
with earnestness, "I get ter- son from 1961 until he was
.rified every time I think of , fired with distinction In.
?a smart guy like McNamara 1967--enough distinction to
ending up with a half-million stay on the job until the end
men on the. ground in Viet- of February, 1968. What is in
mam without knowing how the book is a dispassionate
they got there. I have to get review of those McNamara
out and see things for my-, years-overly dispassionate
Iself." ? ? perhaps, since the prose sel-
Just how and why a smart dom manages to pull the.
guy like former Defense reader inside McNamara,
:Secretary Robert . S. Mc-, the man, and let him share.,
Namara did indeed let that the agony and ecstasy.
happen is one of the intrigu- "He was a creature of tow-
Ing questions running ering accomplishment and
through the post-mortems substantial failure," author
'on the fatal Vietnam policy Trewhitt tells us in typically
.of the 1960s-fatal, anyhow, even-handed fashion after
;.for some 50,000 Americans taking its from McNamara 's
.who died in battle and vii- reorganization of the Penta-
countect ; thousands ., of. gon, through the follies of .
Asians, many of them civil: the TFX and finally to his
?i9ns, whom the policy niak- backing away from the Viet
ers went to war to save. nam war he helped lead the
In hopes of finding the an nation into. About one-third
of the
swer, many students of the 307-page book is do.:
Vietnam war no doubt will voted to the e war.
turn to Henry.L. Trewhitt's _ Discussing Vietnam spe
'book, "McNamara." He cifically, Trewhitt writes:,
watched the Defense -Secre- "At the end as at the begin-
-tart' as a reporter-first for ning, McNamara accepted
,The Baltimore Sun and then the. underlying premise of
:Newsweek ;and interviewed. U.S. policy In Southeast
:him at length after Mc Asia. Vietnam was an aspect
Namara had left the Penta
gon. But the reader will not of global rivalry, with free-.
,find the answer In this book dom from externally im
posed Communist rule as
E-only some more evidence.
kMcNarnara himself is no. ? the local objective., It was a
..where directly quoted on place for. the application of
'how and why he went wrong' the latest theories of limited
'on Vietnam. So the defini? war, uniting political, eco-
tive explanation must await nonile and military compo-
his own report, or perhaps a nents. But as it worked out,
B a r b a r a Tuchman-type the undertaking in Vietnam
[treatment of his personal unquestionably was a failure
,papers. ti .3 as it a applied uniquely to,
giVe us enough to male the
enemy stop trying'.' "
The book leaves , the
reader wondering how lie-
Nainara--the man - who
made the ? bloody "body
count" a yardstick for mili-
tary progress In Vietnam
would respond to the moral
backlash to the war now
cracking through the land.
To Mylal. To the civilian
casualties documented, iron-
ically enough, by one of his
friends-Sen. Edward M.
Kennedy (D-Mass.). We are
reminded of McNamara's
.past moralizing, like In the
Montreal speech, but not of
show lie squares' it W11,11 tile
results in Vietnam. War
demonstrators in the past
have posed the question to
him by occasionally hurling
missiles through the win-
dows of the World Bank-
the Institution McNamara
now heads
"What a..splendid time It
would' have been," Trewhitt
writes in his final line on
McNamara, "without Viet-
nam." And-with - forgive-
ness for such flawed Mc-
Namara projects as the TFX
and' C-5A -aircraft-it might
have been splendid-given
his potential contribution to
world arms control.
As It Is, McNamara must
ue crcuiteU with giving-the
world a- crash course in the
limited political power. of
nuclear weapons. His efforts
just might keep the world.
from killing itself with the
same mad ? weapons Mc-
Namara lielped bring Into
being--the MIRY offense
and Audi defense, to name
two. "Ills crowning accom-
plislinient," Trewhitt'has de-
cided after his careful study
~J a c., 4 .?(. 1 {L'l~ [~esr lCr(, yr
of. McNamara, "could ''be
simply put: he had caused
the world, more than just
the narrow circle of Ameri-
can strategists, to look at
nuclear weapons with
thought, rather than Instinct
or emotion."
Approved For Release 2004/10/13 : CIA-RDP88-0135OR000200010007-6