The Riddle of Robert McNamara

Summary

Podcast Summary: History As It Happens – "The Riddle of Robert McNamara"

Host: Martin Di Caro
Guest: Frederick Logevall, Harvard University historian and author
Date: December 9, 2025

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Overview

This episode explores the complex historical legacy of Robert McNamara, the U.S. Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War. Utilizing insights from the new biography McNamara at War (by William and Philip Taubman) and drawing on Frederick Logevall’s extensive Vietnam War scholarship, the conversation delves into McNamara’s intellect, motivations, contradictions, regrets, and the broader lessons his tenure offers for U.S. foreign policy today.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. McNamara’s Regret and Public Reckoning

• McNamara is unusual among public officials: He publicly grappled with his mistakes late in life. Although his regret was “too late… and partial,” Logevall credits him for his willingness to confront past errors and aim to teach future policymakers.

  “We were wrong, terribly wrong. That’s a quote from him. Maybe it was too late… but he at least came out there and expressed regrets…” – Frederick Logevall (02:42, 49:35)

• Contrast with Other Officials: Logevall and Di Caro agree few officials like Kissinger or Cheney have followed suit.

  “More than Kissinger or Cheney did.” – Martin Di Caro (50:13)

2. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident and Escalation

• The podcast reconstructs how McNamara, despite doubting the Vietnam War’s winnability early on, was pivotal in escalating the conflict, particularly through his handling (and misrepresentation) of the Gulf of Tonkin incidents, which catalyzed wider U.S. involvement.

• McNamara privately acknowledged covert U.S. operations likely provoked North Vietnamese responses, which was not publicly disclosed.

  “There’s no question but what that had bearing on it... we had four TP boats from Vietnam... attacked two islands and we expended over a thousand rounds of ammunition... that with this destroyer in that same area, undoubtedly led them to connect the two events.” – Robert McNamara, archival audio (03:59)

• Doubts about the "second attack": Contemporary military reports cast doubt on what was officially described as an unprovoked North Vietnamese attack.

• Despite uncertainties, McNamara publicly insisted the attacks were unprovoked, helping secure the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and expand the war.

  “I can’t explain them. They were unprovoked. As I told you last night, our vessels were clearly in international waters.” – McNamara, news conference (07:41)

3. McNamara’s Analytical Mindset: Triumph and Trap

• McNamara’s background in statistical analysis and operations research profoundly shaped his approach—sometimes leading to a focus on data (body counts, bombing tonnage) over political realities.

  “Measured everything except the most important thing of all, and that would be the Vietnamese people’s unrelenting determination to liberate their country from foreign occupation.” – Martin Di Caro (19:11)

• Logevall notes McNamara saw the analytical limits early and was not blindly wedded to numbers, but the system shaped policies nonetheless.

  “He wasn’t as beholden to those numbers as we sometimes believe.” – Frederick Logevall (21:08)

4. McNamara as the President’s Man

• Not “the decider,” but highly influential—McNamara consistently did his president’s bidding (Kennedy, then Johnson).

  “Not for the last time… Robert McNamara did his President’s bidding.” – Paraphrased from the Taubman book, as cited by Logevall (35:20)

• Di Caro and Logevall stress that McNamara’s most significant failing was not urging withdrawal or rallying fellow skeptics, even as his doubts grew.

5. Personality vs. Structure in Policy Decision-Making

• The hosts examine whether McNamara’s personal traits or broader structures (Cold War ideology, U.S. credibility) most influenced escalation.

• Logevall argues that by 1965, structural pressures mattered, but contingent choices by individuals—especially Johnson—were decisive.

  “I might actually want to elevate contingency, human agency. The decisions of Lyndon Johnson in particular… are key.” – Frederick Logevall (31:03)

• There’s ambivalence about how much can be learned about policymaking from psychoanalyzing McNamara given that many officials made similar choices regardless of temperament.

6. Cold War Ideology and Its Shifting Influence

• Initially, the domino theory (loss of Vietnam would cause regional collapse) dominated, but this shifted toward concerns about international and domestic credibility (“credibility cubed”) as the true rationale for staying the course.

  “Domino theory gave way... to something else, greater emphasis on credibility, which I think Jonathan Schell called a psychological domino theory…” – Frederick Logevall (26:08)

• The concern for U.S. credibility came to be as much about partisan and personal reputation as about actual foreign policy consequences.

• Many top officials were more skeptical of Cold War dogma than their public statements suggested.

7. The Missed Opportunity for Dissent and Resignation

• McNamara’s steadfast refusal to advocate for withdrawal or resign remains a point of historical critique.

  “He should have resigned… I think that a decision by him to resign and to do so with due publicity would have made a... difference.” – Frederick Logevall (44:21)

• The hosts argue that—contrary to some views—McNamara’s resignation could have altered the course of escalation.

8. "There Were Two McNamaras": Public Contradictions

• McNamara often displayed one stance in public (optimistic, hawkish) and another in private (deeply skeptical).

  “There isn’t a square mile in Vietnam that I would consider pacified.” (private to Harvard faculty, 1966); yet in public, he is bullish about U.S. progress. (48:44)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “We were wrong, terribly wrong.” – Robert McNamara, multiple instances and as cited by Logevall (02:12, 49:35, 50:34)
• “Measured everything except the most important thing of all…” – Martin Di Caro (19:11)
• “He should have resigned... Would it have made a difference? Quite possibly.” – Frederick Logevall (44:21)
• “Not for the last time, Robert McNamara did his President’s bidding…” – Logevall, paraphrasing the Taubmans (35:20)
• “I think he deserves some credit… wanted to grapple with the mistakes he made so that successors could learn from those mistakes…” – Frederick Logevall (49:35)

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Important Timestamps

• 02:42 – Logevall credits McNamara with post-facto remorse for Vietnam decisions
• 03:59 – McNamara discusses covert operations’ role in Gulf of Tonkin incident
• 07:41 – McNamara’s news conference: claims attacks were “unprovoked”
• 13:54 – Logevall critiques biographies’ coverage of “long 1964” decision-making
• 19:11 – Di Caro on McNamara's focus on quantitative metrics
• 22:52 – McNamara’s duplicity: private skepticism vs. public optimism
• 26:08 – Evolution of Cold War ideology’s role in policymaking
• 31:03 – Structure vs. agency in the escalation decision
• 44:21 – Debate on whether McNamara’s resignation would have mattered
• 48:44 – Contradictory McNamara statements: same day, different audiences
• 49:35 – Logevall on the rarity of officials publicly grappling with their mistakes

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Conclusion: Lessons for Today

• The episode finishes with a reflection on the McNamara legacy’s enduring relevance to U.S. foreign policy. The same structural and individual tendencies—risk aversion, concern for credibility, failure to confront doubts or dissent—still shape U.S. decision-making, with current and future policymakers challenged to heed, or ignore, McNamara’s hard-won lessons.
• Frederick Logevall emphasizes the need for rigorous, honest self-examination and for policy officials to take responsibility—before it’s too late.

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This summary preserves the analytic and reflective tone of the conversation while distilling key arguments and the most significant moments for listeners who want the full picture without listening to the episode.

Transcript

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Ad free included with Prime History as it happens. December 9, 2025. The riddle of Robert McNamara.

[C]

North Vietnamese surface vessels attack US destroyers operating on routine patrol in international waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. 500,000American troops, 14,000American dead. 50 billion American dollars later. Viet Cong. The Communists have lost 89,000 men killed in South Vietnam.

[A]

It seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is.

[C]

To end in a stalemate. Yet we were wrong. I believe we were terribly wrong.

[B]

The most consequential Secretary of Defense in our history is the subject of a new biography, a political psychological portrait that takes us inside the mind of Robert McNamara as he escalated the Vietnam War and misled the American people about imaginary progress on the battlefield. He never formally apologized, but admitted we were wrong, terribly wrong, in the hope future policymakers would avoid his mistakes. That's next as we report history as it happens. I'm Martin DeCaro.

[A]

I think he deserves some credit. It's not very common that we see public officials after the fact go back, grapple with what they did while in office and then say, I want to talk about this. We were wrong, terribly wrong. That's a quote from him. Maybe it was too late. In fact, I would say it was too late. Maybe it was partial. I would say it was partial. But he at least came out there and expressed regrets, wanted to grapple with the mistakes that he made so that, as you say, successors could learn from those mistakes. I think he deserves some credit for that.

[B]

August 2, 1964. A U.S. destroyer, the Maddox, was attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin, east of Vietnam. The next day, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara is on the phone with President Johnson explaining to LBJ that the attack wasn't really an unprovoked act of communist aggression. Rather, the North Vietnamese were responding to De Soto patrols, secret CIA backed sabotage missions by South Vietnamese units, also known as Oplan 34A. An important fact the public might have been interested in knowing.

[C]

And I think I should also, or we should also at that time, Mr. President, explain this op plan 34A, these covert operations. There's no question but what that had bearing on it. Friday night, as you probably know, we had four TP boats from Vietnam manned by Vietnamese or other nationals, attacked two islands and we expended over a thousand rounds of ammunition, one kind or another, against them. We probably shot up a radar station and a few other miscellaneous buildings. And the following 24 hours after that with this destroyer in that same area, undoubtedly led them to connect the two events. Well, say that to Dirksen. You notice Dirksen says this morning that we got to reassess our situation, do something about it. And I tell him that we're doing what he's talking about.

[B]

The following day, August 4th, McNamara informs Johnson another US vessel was attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin.

[C]

Now, where are these torpedoes coming from? Well, we don't know. Presumably from these unidentified craft that I mentioned to you a moment ago. We thought that the unidentified craft might include one PT boat which has torpedo capability and two SWATKOW boats which we don't credit with torpedo capability, although they may have it. What are these planes doing around while they're being attacked? Well, presumably the planes are attacking the ships. We don't have any word from Sharp on that the planes would be in the area at the present time, all eight of them.

[B]

As William and Philip Taubman write in McNamara at War, this second attack on the sea Turner Joy almost certainly did not occur at all. Doubts about the second attack were relayed to Washington through the Navy chain of command. Review of action makes many reported contacts and torpedoes fired appear doubtful, according to Capt. John J. Herrick, commander of the two Navy ships in the Gulf of Tonkin, in his report to the Pentagon's Pacific Command in Hawaii on August 4th. The Taubmans go on to say subsequent messages from Herrick reaffirmed doubts about the second attack and raise questions concerning the accuracy of reports about the initial attack on the Maddox, though Herrick said he continued to believe that the first attack had happened.

[C]

My fellow Americans, as President and Commander.

[B]

In chief, President Johnson leaped at the opportunity to order American forces to retaliate after the reports of a second attack. In a nationally televised speech on August 4, he declared, it is my duty.

[C]

To the American people to report that renewed hostile actions against United States ships on the high seas in the Gulf of Tonkin have today required me to order the military forces of the United States to take action.

[B]

In reply, William and Philip Taubman go on to say Johnson quickly submitted a draft resolution to Congress authorizing him to take all necessary steps, including the use of armed force to counterattacks against US Forces and to prevent further aggression in Southeast Asia.

[C]

I have been given encouraging assurance by these leaders of both parties that such a resolution will be promptly introduced.

Freely and expeditiously debated, and passed with overwhelming support.

[B]

The administration privately informed a handful of senators that American covert military and intelligence operations against North Vietnamese targets might have provoked the attacks. Congress approved overwhelmingly the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. August 5, 1964. The Defense Secretary holds a news conference where he repeats the bogus claims about unprovoked aggression, although he was asked by reporters about the possibility US and South Vietnamese forces provoked the incident.

[C]

Mr. Secretary, how do you explain these attacks?

I can't explain them. They were unprovoked. As I told you last night, our vessels were clearly in international waters. Our vessels, when attacked, were operating in this area roughly 60 miles off of the North Vietnamese coast. There have been reports that South Vietnamese.

[A]

Vessels were shelling or taking some sort.

[B]

Of action against North Vietnam in this.

[C]

Area at approximately this time. No, to the best of my knowledge, there were no operations during the period I was describing last night.

[B]

The Gulf of Tonkin incident was a critically important step on the road to Americanization of the Vietnam war, and Robert McNamara was the chief architect of escalation. Although from an early stage he doubted the war could be won, doubted whether it was worth the cost in lives and treasure in US standing. Yet, as the Talbons tell the story, Robert McNamara never counseled his boss, the President, to leave to withdraw. And it was only decades after this epic and avoidable tragedy when McNamara admitted they had gotten it all wrong. Here he is in 1995 after the publication of his memoirs.

[C]

I believe today we could and should have withdrawn, as I suggest, on any one of several different occasions between 1963 and 73. With hindsight, I do not believe that US withdrawal at any of those junctures, if it had been properly explained to the American public and to the rest of the world, would have led Western Europeans to to question the credibility of our guarantee to NATO or led the Japanese to question the credibility of our guarantee to their security.

[B]

So is there still something to learn from the rise and fall of Robert McNamara, whose letters to his mother, family and Jackie Kennedy make up a good portion of the new evidence presented in the Taubman's book, how this truly brilliant man failed to exert his influence to at least try to keep the United States out of the Vietnam quagmire. William and Philip Taubman were not available to come on the podcast to discuss their new book. My guest in this episode is Harvard University historian Frederick Logeval, the author of essential books about the Vietnam War including choosing War in 1999 and Embers of War in 2012. He's now working on a three volume biography of JFK. Volume one was published in 2020. He'll give us an update on volume two next, but remember, you can enjoy ad free listening, bonus content and access to the entire catalog of 500 episodes by subscribing Tap. Subscribe now in the Show Notes or go to history as it happens.supercast.com and support the important work we're doing here. History as it happens.supercast.com the holidays always remind me how special it feels to give the perfect gift or serve a meal everyone loves. That's why I'm obsessed with Omaha Steaks. From holiday hosting to unforgettable gifts, they deliver the world's best steak experience. From USDA Certified Tender Steaks to cozy comfort meals, Save big on gourmet gifts and more holiday favorites with Omaha steaks. Visit Omaha steaks.com for 50% off site wide during their Sizzle all the Way sale and for an extra $35 off use promo code Flavor at checkout. Terms apply. See site for details. That's Omaha Steaks.com code flavor AI agents are everywhere, automating tasks and making decisions at machine speed. But agents make mistakes. Just one rogue agent can do big damage before you even notice. Rubrik Agent Cloud is the only platform that helps you monitor agents, set guardrails and rewind mistakes so you can unleash agents, not risk. Accelerate your AI [e-mail] that's R U B R-I K.com hey guys, have you.

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[A]

I'm delighted to be with you because.

[B]

I say this to you all the time. Your work continues to shape my thinking. You're the first person I thought thought of after reading Philip and William Taubman's new book Another Way of saying. It's just great to have you here to discuss this topic again.

[A]

Well, it's good to be back with you.

[B]

Always update on JFK Volume 2. You did mention this to me when we spoke in April already. My goodness, the year has flown by. Refresh our listeners memory.

[A]

You're a good man to ask. So volume two is completed and it is submitted. It's in the hands of my editor, so I'm waiting to get edits back. Feels great to have it submitted. It takes the story to the end of inauguration day in 1961. And so there will be a third and final volume which of course then will cover the Thousand days in the White House and the Assassination. That volume I've Outlined I've done a fair amount of research for. And obviously the subject we're discussing today, Vietnam. And McNamara is going to figure prominently in that, in that final volume.

[B]

Maybe the Taubman's book will show up in your bibliography.

[A]

Oh, of course it will, yes, no question.

[B]

Well, you know, the biography that Deborah Shapley wrote some 30 years ago is in the bibliography of your book from 1999, Choosing War. I checked that to see because do we really need another book about Robert McNamara? Hasn't this subject been covered already? When I picked up the book, I was looking for a thesis, you know, why should this new history, as they call it, enhance or change our understanding of how and why the United States sank into the quagmire has implications for the present. I'll get into those later. What do you think of that, Frederick Logeval? Did you find it convincing?

[A]

I did find the book broadly convincing, although with an important caveat that I think we should discuss in terms of what I think is the most important part of the story, which is what I've called elsewhere, the long 1964. But I would say that the Taubmans do a good job overall of describing for us this remarkable American public servant, the most, I think, consequential Secretary of Defense we've ever had. And that's in part because of substantially, in part, although not solely in part because of the war in Vietnam. I would also say this in response to your opening that in fact, though we know a lot about McNamara, it has been striking to me for a long time that we've not had more in depth examinations of this giant in the Pentagon. So both with respect to Vietnam, but more generally, his tenure as Secretary of Defense, I think is just hugely important. He's, I think, fascinating. The materials are so rich. There was room for this book that the Talbots have produced.

[B]

You know, I learned a lot about McNamara himself and anytime I read a book like this, it refreshes my memory, reinforces what I already learned. Or I can apply what I've learned in other books you to the new book, but I'm not sure they deliver when it comes to, yes, those key decision making months, the long 1964, as you call it, if it enhanced my understanding of how we got into this mess.

[A]

I think I share your view on this and I reviewed it myself in Foreign Affairs. It should be in the next issue. And I talk about this a little bit, that this is for me a shortcoming that is really coming to grips with McNamara's advocacy and his position on what became the Americanization of the war under Johnson. But really going back, understanding more fully, let's say the late Kennedy period and then those first 12, 15 months of Johnson's administration, it seems to me this is where I had hoped for more, because we don't get enough of a sense of why, despite his misgivings, which I happen to believe were really there from the very beginning, why he nevertheless becomes not just a supporter of escalation, but in fact one of the principal architects of the Americanization of the war. This is something we have to try to understand, and I think they could have done a better job on that part of it.

[B]

Part of it is McNamara was himself not the decider. He was a very influential decider, but not the decider. And we'll get into that, you know, in my own review, which I should say was fine, yours is superior to mine. It'll be published soon. Of course, if yours was not better than mine, it'd be something really wrong in the universe. Frederick Logeval but something I wish I had tweaked just a bit. I did say that as early as autumn 1965, McNamara is having serious reservations. That is autumn 1965, serious reservations post ground troops commitment, but even before the ground troops commitment in 65, starting in da Nang, really in March, as you say, going back to the early 1960s, those doubts are already there. Before we dive a little bit deeper into that, I just want to set up a little context here for folks who don't know a lot about Robert McNamara at all, who was this Harvard Business School whiz with the brilliant mind, managerial government.

[A]

He is a. He's an amazing figure. And I do think the book the Talbons are excellent, in my view, on his early life in California. And he excels really at every level of education and blazes a path at Harvard Business School is so good there that he's invited to join the faculty soon after graduation. Even now we see a kind of iconoclastic spirit in that 98 out of 100 HBs Harvard Business School faculty vote Republican. He's one of two people who votes for FDR in the presidential election in 1940. I guess it is. So you see here, I think a fascinating figure for me comes alive on the page, it seems to me, in the tman's book. They're very good on this, as was Deborah Shapley, and has an important role to play in the war subsequently, which we can get into. And then, of course, joins Ford Motor Company and then Rises very quickly and becomes president and lasts in that role for all of about a month before Kennedy taps him to be Secretary of Defense. That's a capsule. A capsule biography if I've ever given one.

[B]

Shorter than your JFK biography, I dare say. You know, a big part of his approach once he's in the pentagon in the 1960s, is statistical analysis. His charts and his graphs and his body counts. As I said in my review, they measured everything except the most important thing of all, and that would be the Vietnamese people's unrelenting determination to liberate their country from foreign occupation.

[C]

I think it's primarily significant in indicating that the North Vietnamese have used up or dried up the source of individual fillers who could be recruited, trained and sent back to fight in South Vietnam, and that they're now having to call upon the regular units of their forces for that purpose. And this is understandable. I believe I'm correct in saying that in the past four and a half years, the Viet Cong, the Communists, have lost 89,000 men killed in South Vietnam. Now, not all of these men have been infiltrated from the north, but an important number have been.

And with that, plus the expansion of the Viet Cong forces in the south, you can see the heavy drain upon the filler resources of the north and the reason why they are having to turn to their regular military units to continue the supply of men over these infiltration routes. A supply that's absolutely essential to them if they are to offset the continuing casualty.

[B]

McNamara got this analytical approach from his experience under Curtis LeMay, who he would cross paths with again in the 1960s, during World War II. McNamara was analyzing aerial bombardment of Japan in the Pacific Theater, 1945, on how to make the bombardment more efficient, which is euphemism for kill more Japanese civilians.

[A]

Yeah, no, it's absolutely true. I think he helps. Perfect, if that's the right word, the firebombing of. Of Tokyo and is later, I think, quite content to, if not cover this up. At least he doesn't want to talk about it all that much later and expresses understandably more ambivalence about lame than he feels at the time. And of course, as you alluded to now, quite fascinating that in the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962, they will. The two of them will clash. But this long history with lame, I think you're quite right to underscore its significance. I think it might have had ultimately, or the. The faith in statistical analysis and the faith in numbers may have misled us a little bit. In the sense that I think many later commentators believe that McNamara held to this all the way through the Vietnam experience. And I think in fact he was able to see the shortcomings in his own and in his teams statistical analysis from a very early point. He wasn't. My point is he wasn't as beholden to those numbers as we sometimes believe.

[B]

Well, on one hand he would talk about them in meetings, in private, in the cabinet for instance. But he would then also say in another audience or maybe to himself, he knows that these body count numbers aren't real. I mean, maybe the most famous scene, if you will, that sticks in my mind is McNamara's on an airplane and we're now talking about the Vietnam War. He's on an airplane having a conversation with someone basically saying, I'll paraphrase, we're not winning the war. And what we're telling the American people is BS Gets off the plane, greets a group of reporters on the tarmac and says the exact opposite for the public.

[A]

Oh yeah, this happened frequently. I quote in my review. This is in a key moment in the spring of 65, as I recall. I don't have the review in front of me. And this was not in the Taubman's book. This is, I think maybe from my Choosing War. He candidly admitted to a British official that none of us at the center talk about winning this war. In other words, he is, as you've just pointed out, able to say one thing privately and then present a completely different picture in, in public, on the tarmac.

[B]

And in that he was not alone.

[A]

No, in fact, I think this is characteristic of maybe there are some exceptions, but it's something that senior officials routinely were able to do, including the presidents themselves. You know, jfk, who of course is of special interest to me currently could say things behind closed doors that he wouldn't say publicly. And that same that's certainly true of his successors, both Johnson and Nixon.

[B]

And I don't think the Tallmans were trying to psychoanalyze McNamara, but the premise of their book is, you know, how did this man's personality, what we're learning now with the trove of letters that he wrote to his wife, his family, Jack E. Kennedy, how did that maybe influence his decision making? Well, there were a lot of people who had much different personalities than McNamara. Smaller egos, more self secure, maybe less volatile, who did the same things he did. Said one thing in one audience, a different thing to another audience. So I guess my point is focusing on an individual's personality to try to understand decision making. It can work, maybe. I mean, you're the historian here, you would know better than I. Yeah, it's.

[A]

Really tricky on some level. I think we're going to come up short. I think it might have been George Packer who said in his biography of Holbrooke in the early pages, and this stuck with me, he said, only in fiction can we ever really know what goes on inside another person's head. He said it a bit more elegantly than that. But I mean, there's truth to this that in terms of trying to really get into somebody's mind and or trying to really figure out their personality, it's hard. I do think we have to try as authors to do it, especially on a subject. The Taubman book is a kind of biography. It's not a cradle to grave biography of the type that I'm doing for Kennedy. But I do think they have an obligation to try to figure out this complex person, Robert McNamara. And of course I have the same obligation with respect to Kennedy. So we have to try. But I think you're right to express some skepticism about how close we can really get.

[B]

Broader structural forces I think can be more important. One of those is Cold war ideology. The McNamara that appears in the Taubman's pages, at least to my mind, does not strike me as a Cold War ideologue. Yet when it comes to domino theory, U.S. credibility, Cold War credibility, it seems that McNamara, you know, whether he was insecure, self secure, hot headed, cool cucumber, he subscribed to these same ideas as the others. Do you agree with that? And in your answer tell us a little bit about how, as the 1960s proceed, domino theory gives way to other more important things.

[A]

It's a really good question. Certainly the Taubmans believe, and I note this in my review, that McNamara more or less accepted the prevailing ideological position, predominant at the time in the United States, that warned of falling dominoes, believed in falling dominoes, believe that if you didn't confront the Communists in Vietnam, you're going to be confronting them elsewhere, ultimately on the streets of San Francisco. I guess I'm a little more skeptical about his position on this. And I also believe that others at the top of the decision making hierarchy were themselves privately skeptical of that prevailing Cold War ideology. I think it mattered more in the 1950s, as you were just suggesting. Toward the end of your question, it began to shift, I think in the Kennedy years. This is a task for me in the third volume is to try to Trace this, how it shifts. But I do think the domino theory gave way, as you put it, to something else, greater emphasis on credibility, which I think Jonathan Schell called a psychological domino theory, which is interesting because it suggests that the notion of geographic dominoes falling is not that far removed from credibility. Now. What it is is a concern about adversaries and allies around the world losing faith in the United States in its ability or its willingness to really stand up to adversaries and to defend allies. I do think that becomes more important. But I would say one more thing about this. I don't think it's sufficient to talk about credibility in the usual sense, which is the international sense, America's credibility. I suggest in Choosing War and in some of my other work, that there's also partisan credibility, in this case, the Democratic Party's credibility. There's also personal credibility, careerism. How will I, as the Secretary of Defense fare if I'm seen as now going back on my public bullishness? For example, I've talked about credibility cubed as a way to think about this credibility in three parts. But it's all to say that I do think Cold War ideology, at least as I see it, becomes less salient as we get into the. Certainly by the mid-60s, it matters less than I think, for example, domestic politics.

[B]

Well, I have your book here, Choosing war. On page 31, you write, the moves the United States made, Kennedy told Rusk and McNamara in mid November would be scrutinized on both sides of the Iron Curtain. And if it chose to negotiate in Vietnam, it might, quote, in fact, be judged weaker than in Laos and cause a major crisis of nerve throughout Southeast Asia. Similarly, a Rusk McNamara report worn that same month, the loss of South Vietnam would undermine the credibility of American commitments. Elsewhere, you write, the doctrine of credibility had by the fall of 1961, supplanted the domino theory in American thinking on Vietnam, or at least altered the way that theory was conceived.

[A]

I think it's a very interesting moment in time, the fall of 61, which, of course, therefore, I'm going to be dealing with closely in this book that I'm writing. And what's interesting, Martin, is that I think it begins to shift again. In other words, I think what they're saying in the fall of 61 and what Kennedy is saying here, McNamara and Rusk are saying here, begins to shift. In other words, I think they begin to see at least some senior officials that the outcome in South Vietnam might not matter so much to Western security, that American credibility is Maybe not on the line in South Vietnam. That, as George Ball would famously point out, what allies and adversaries are going to question is not our credibility, but more or less the, the soundness of our thinking. And so there are these shifts that we see as the decade progresses. Really interesting and I think historically important.

[B]

Because if you subscribe to psychological dominoes, then there are no peripheral interests. They all become core interests.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Just to reset the conversation, people say, why are we talking about McNair? Because this matters. Because our country continued to make the same mistakes after Vietnam, intervening in places where it didn't belong and where that intervention resulted in disaster. And we're having this debate today as the Trump administration moves for regime change, possibly in Venezuela. How do we balance in our analysis the force or importance of structures versus the ideas of an individual? No one who, say in the 1960s disagreed with Domino theory or wasn't a cold warrior would ever have gotten into the position of Secretary of Defense. So there is a structure, an idea, I think, that weighs more heavily on this than say, personality.

[A]

It's a fascinating topic and one that is worth a more extended conversation about this because it seems to me one could make the argument that in fact, as we get to the heart of the matter, as we, as we really get to the key weeks of decision, and I would say those are probably in the first few weeks of 1965. If you pinned me down and you said, what's the single most important two or three week stretch in the entire 25 year US involvement in Vietnam, I might choose those critical early weeks of 1965, long before, by the way, July of 65. By then, as I've argued in various places, I think the train has left the station. So the more important decisions are earlier. I think, Martin, you could make the argument that by then it's not structure as much as, I mean, obviously in the causal hierarchy, you have to put structure. It's there. But I might actually want to elevate contingency, human agency. The decisions of Lyndon Johnson in particular, obviously he's the most important policymaker. McNamara, I think I would say is second. So he's right there. But it's really Johnson's decisions in particular that I think are key. And the reason I would de. Emphasize structure is that I think it's a contingent moment. Johnson had choices, choices that are not just evident in hindsight, but in the context of their own time. That is to say, there were people, notably his Vice President, Hubert Humphrey, the Senate Democratic leadership, other people of influence who were basically saying to him, you shouldn't do this. You should not escalate this war. So an interesting debate about structure versus agency.

[B]

And, Fred, I have to say that when I start to talk about structure, I find myself walking in a maze and I suddenly can't get out because structure can be slippery, at least for me. McNamara can appear slippery because there is a McNamara for everyone, if you will. Mark Silverstone wrote a terrific book, the Kennedy Withdrawal, which the title should really be the Possible Withdrawal, where if you read that book, you'll see McNamara talking about getting out of Vietnam. Matter of fact, about 1,000 troops, I think, were reassigned, which was about what, one out of every 16. There were 16,000 advisors, not troops. These were advisors at the height of the JFK commitment. But it was predicated on planned or assumed or hoped for progress on the battlefield that would never come in JFK's lifetime. Pick it up from there.

[A]

You could add the following. And maybe there's tension here. Maybe there's a contradiction. Like many, many people, in fact, probably like all of us, McNamara could contradict himself. I mean, he says in. I think it's on October 3rd, we need a way out of Vietnam, he says on one of the tapes. So to his. To his colleagues. Now, that can be interpreted in various ways, but I am among those who believes that he was never really a. A true believer on the war. I think he had doubts even now that there existed a military solution in South Vietnam. So in that sense, some kind of graduated withdrawal schedule, I think, is consistent with what he would probably like to see. I've also suggested that had Robert McNamara served a president who wanted to get out of Vietnam, he would have been just as forceful an advocate for disengagement as he was for ultimate Americanization. I still agree with Mark, and I agree with you that in this particular case, this plan for withdrawal was predicated, as you put it, on progress in the war effort. JFK even says on one of the tapes that, you know, if it's not going well, you know, then we can change the schedule, we can change our minds. And so that's, I think, how to interpret that planning in the fall of 63.

[B]

Yeah, I said slippery because I don't know if that's the right term. But when LBJ is president, as you said, now he's going along with what his new boss wants to do. So we're looking for McNamara, the decider, but he's also doing what his boss wants. You know, when people criticize Kissinger, and that includes Me, Kissinger was doing what his boss wanted. Richard Nixon.

[A]

Yeah. And I think the Taubmans quote this line in my review. The Taubmans at some point say, you know, not for the last time, I'm paraphrasing here, but not for the last time. Robert McNamara did his President's bidding or words to that effect. And I think that's exactly right. I think what we see is a very intelligent man, a very sensitive man, in some respects quite appealing, as I think about him, as a Persona. He read poetry and he was interested in ideas and wasn't, you know, the pure number cruncher that we often think of him as being. And yet time and again, as the Taubmans point out, he pursued the line that his boss wanted him to pursue. Which of course then raises questions, well, why did he do this? Which we can talk about. But there's no question, as you say, that that's who Robert McNamara was, at least in part.

[B]

And in my review I mentioned that he was ignorant of Vietnam, its history and its culture, at least for a time. He made a number of visits to the country in that he wasn't much different than most of the other key decision makers. Didn't know a lot about this country, their history, their culture. Whether you know anything about Vietnam or not, you should be able to understand that people tend to not like foreign occupiers in their country. But to McNamara, this was. He was a problem solver. Yes, there was Cold War ideology. He subscribed to the ideas that we've discussed. But to him this was something that he could crunch and make it work even after he started to see evidence it wasn't working.

[A]

I think that's right. Although again, I think some part of him knew, Martin, that this was a problem he couldn't solve. I think we should be careful not to exaggerate the degree to which he thought there would be a solution to this that he could come up with early on. Yeah, probably later on, not so much. And I think it's also true, as you point out, that he didn't know very much about Vietnam, its history or its culture. Neither did practically everybody else at the top of the decision making hierarchy. But they knew more than they let on. He would later say it became almost a kind of mantra for McNamara. If only we had known, only we had understood our adversary better, we might not have done this, or we could have found a negotiated solution sooner. The truth is, they did know. They knew much more than that quote suggests. They were not experts on Vietnamese history and culture. Anything really about the Vietnamese past. But I think they had a pretty good sense of the obstacles in the way of victory. They had a good sense of the weakness of the South Vietnamese ally, in many respects, the tenacity of the North Vietnamese. Nobody needed to tell them that the road ahead was going to be difficult.

[B]

At best, and they would have learned more had they been willing more. More willing early in this process to sit down and talk to their adversary.

[A]

I think it's a very good point, and I think that Kennedy is guilty here and as is Johnson, and I think under Nixon it took too long. But this unwillingness to really sit down with the adversary and try to come up with some kind of political solution is a great failing. It takes way too long. Here, too, McNamara is interesting. The latter day, McNamara held, I think, to a view in hindsight that we could have, you know, we could have struck a deal. But he never seems to quite grasp that for the North Vietnamese, any kind of real agreement involved a cessation of the bombing and ultimately US disengagement. So late in life, it seems to me he's more optimistic about what might have been achieved when had negotiations occurred.

[B]

Sure. And I just want to emphasize an important point you made there. The McNamara, his thinking of 61 different than his thinking by 65, when it's more apparent to him that this is going south and there's no way to save it. I do want to move on to the post Pentagon years here, but I want to play an audio clip of a conversation between Johnson and McNamara, July of 1965, where McNamara is counseling the master political manipulator himself, Lyndon Johnson, about how to coax Congress into going along with a plan to call up the reserve. So we're in July of 65, a key moment here, and it's what McNamara doesn't say. He never counsels Johnson to withdraw. He's telling him how you could make it possible politically to call up the reserves.

[C]

I don't know whether those men have ever thought in making their calculations. One, whether we can win with the kind of training we have, the kind of power. And two, I don't know whether they've taken into their calculations whether we can have united sport here at home. I think. Mr. President, two thoughts on. First, if we do go as far as my paper suggested, sending numbers of men out there, we ought to call up reserves. You have authority to do that without additional legislation, but I doubt that you would want to use it. Almost surely if we called up reserves, you would want to go to the cops to get additional authority. This would be a vehicle for drawing together support. Now you'd say, well, yes, but it also might lead to extended debate and divisive statements. I think we could avoid that. I really think if we were to go to the clerks and the McGoverns and the churches and say to them, now this is our situation. We cannot win with our existing commitment. We must increase it if we're going to. When in his limited term, in his limited way, we define when it requires additional troops. Along with that approach, we are embarking upon or continuing this political initiative to probe for a willingness to negotiate a reasonable settlement there. And we ask your support under these circumstances. I think you'd get it from them under those circumstances.

And that's a vehicle by which you both get the authority to call up the reserves and also tie them into the whole program. Now that makes sense.

[A]

It is a fascinating conversation and the topic is fascinating about the reserves. McNamara is not alone in advocating the call up. McGeorge Bundy argued. The National Security Advisor, Mac Bundy, argued along similar lines. I think it was a belief on the part of both of them that you need the country with you. At some point they're going to have to really make the case to the American public anyway. This is the time to do it. I think for McNamara there was also the logistical issue. If you were going to have a large scale escalation in Vietnam, this was going to be important, it was going to help the war effort. And certainly if you were going to escalate faster, as some people advocated, then in his view, and in the view of some of his subordinates, a call up really made. If it wasn't imperative, it made really good sense. Johnson, of course, wanted to escalate on the sly. The last thing he wanted was a real public debate because frankly, I think Johnson knew that he might lose that debate. That a lot of senior Democrats, both in the House, but especially in the Senate, had grave misgivings about this whole thing. The New York Times, other key voices in the American press, felt the same way. So he doesn't want this, but this conversation shows where McNamara is unwilling, as you say, to advocate any kind of disengagement. I think he still believes at this point that you can perhaps make this thing work and again, nevertheless wanting this call up of the Reserves. It's a very interesting conversation.

[B]

Not to defend McNamara, but. But you know, he did understand that you could not bomb a pre industrial country really into defeat. That this is different than the strategic bombing of Japan as morally questionable and strategically questionable. That may have been. The strategic bombing of Japan did reduce Japan's ability to project power in the Pacific basically down to zero by the time the Japanese surrender in August 1945. North Vietnam, South Vietnam, a different situation. So he understood the limits of air power. Yet as we've been discussing here, he continued to mislead the public about imaginary progress on the battlefield. He's also dealing, and again, not to defend him, dealing with people who want to do even more in the highest levels of the military. And the Johnson administration, had he pushed harder or had he threatened to resign, would this have made a difference? This question has implications for what we're dealing with today with the Trump administration. If the serious people resign or go public with their protests. Right. Will that make a difference? I don't know. I'm not sure it would have.

[A]

It's a really important topic. My own view is that he should have. He should have resigned. To extend the point more broadly, I think, though it's not common in the American political system as it is in parliamentary systems, I do think that more senior public servants should resign. Then do. Would it have made a difference? Quite possibly. Of course, it depends partly on timing when it happens. But I'm not among those who would say, oh, it wouldn't have made any difference. He would have been on the front page of the New York Times for two days or one day, and then he would have been forgotten. I don't think so. Given McNamara's immense stature, given the clout that he carried among many in, on Capitol Hill and elsewhere, I think that a decision by him to resign and to do so with due publicity would have made a. I think it would have made a difference. And he was not, as you say, really willing ever to do that. And what's just extraordinary about this is that he knew from an early point that the air war was not succeeding and likely would not succeed. He had been, I think, skeptical of ground troops early on. This is a difference between him and Johnson. Lbj, I think, believed that ground troops had to be an important part of the equation from the beginning. And of course, he was the ultimate decider. So you have Robert McNamara right from the beginning, practically speaking, with these deep doubts about what the military option was going to actually be able to achieve. And yet he stays in month after month, year after year in office.

[B]

Sure. You know, that's a great point, Fred. He wasn't George Ball, who was the designated devil's advocate. He was Robert McNamara. Maybe he would have Made a difference. You know, though he didn't try. That's the problem. He didn't try. Maybe had he tried to get the others in the administration. I said before that there were others who wanted to do even more, but there were others who also had serious doubts about what they were doing. Heddy tried to rally all of these people, people, and counseled Johnson, as you convincingly argue in your book Choosing War. They did have an option to get out of this before it was too late. He didn't try. And I think that's why people never forgave him, among other reasons.

[A]

I think you make a really interesting point. It could be about rallying others in the administration to your side. And so if you're not wanting to just go out and resign either because of personal ambition, you want to retain your position in the administration or whatever, then what about banding together with other skeptics? Because we know now that the government was filled with skeptics, the middle levels, some at the senior levels, people on Capitol Hill. There is a lot of nervousness on a part of a great many people. And I think there's an opportunity here, and it's one that Robert McNamara never takes. And I do think that, as you point out, many people never forgive him. And I, I've reflected on this and the Taubmans reflect on this. You know, it wasn't quite an apology that he ever offered late in life. And so maybe that's part of why people can't forgive him. But it's also this sense that comes out, I think, in the Talman's book and in other accounts, I guess, including my own, which is that he knew from an early point this thing was, was going to be a very, very hard thing to achieve. And yet publicly he expressed this bullishness. You know, there's a quick. I just want to mention, there's a quick scene in the Taubman's book, which is when he comes to Harvard in the fall of 1966, to the students that confront him in Harvard Yard, he is aggressive and basically says, I was tougher than you when I was in college and I'm tougher than you now, and gives the sense of somebody who has full faith in what the country's doing in Vietnam, what the administration is doing in Vietnam. The same day, in a closed door meeting with faculty members at Harvard, completely different picture here. To the faculty, to the professors, he says, there isn't a square. I'm paraphrasing, but there isn't a square mile in Vietnam. That I would consider to be pacified. You get again these two McNamaras on the same day, one with the students, one with the faculty.

[B]

Some military men would tell him, oh, no, it's fine. And then he would retort, okay, then I'm going to take a jeep and go out by myself. And they say, no, no, you can't do that. No.

[A]

It's an extraordinary moment with the professors, one or two of whom are still my colleagues. In other words, they're still around and were part of that meeting.

[B]

McNamara wrote memoirs hoping that decision makers, policymakers would learn from his mistakes. In their eyes, he was so discredited that why are we going to listen to Robert McNamara, this washed up guy who's going around and talking about how tormented he is?

[A]

Yeah, I think that's right. I wonder.

Because I also think at the same time I agree with you. And yet I think he deserves some credit.

It's not very common that we see public officials after the fact go back, grapple with what they did while in office, and then say, I want to talk about this. We were wrong, terribly wrong. That's a quote from him. Maybe it was too late. In fact, I would say it was too late. Maybe it was partial. I would say it was partial. But he at least came out there and expressed regrets, wanted to grapple with the mistakes that he made so that, as you say, successors could learn from those mistakes. I think he deserves some credit for.

[B]

That more than Kissinger or Cheney did.

[A]

Correct. Correct.

[B]

It's a political comment by me, Fred, but it's true.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

We have the Kennedy and Johnson administrations who participated in the decisions on Vietnam, acted according to what we thought were the principles and the traditions of this nation.

We made our decisions in the light of those values. Yet we were wrong. I believe we were terribly wrong. And I believe, therefore, we owe it to future generations to explain why.

[B]

On the next episode of History as it Happens. From band bandits to Marxist revolutionaries and insurgents to communists and Islamic terrorists to narco terrorists, America's long war on terror. And remember, you can sign up for my newsletter. It is free. Go to substack and search for history as it happens.

[A]

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