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Robert McNamara In Retrospect Random House New York, 1995

Vietnam had long since been a place of controversy, and where our government focused

it's fear of communism for many years. Throughout the Kennedy and Johnson administrations

the government maintained that the war between the communist north and the south can only be

won by the South Vietnamese, and that our military cannot win it for them. It stressed that the

fall of South Vietnam to communism would threaten the rest of the western world.

Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense during the Kennedy and Johnson

administrations, wrote In Retrospect because he wanted to "Put Vietnam in context,"(xx).

McNamara wanted to explain why the mistakes of Vietnam were made, not to justify them, but

to help the American public understand them. He relies not only upon his memories, but upon

People have often called Vietnam, McNamara's war, because he made it his

responsibility. As he learned more and more about south Vietnam, he became well acquainted

with it's leader Ngo Dinh Diem. Diem portrayed himself as a man who shared our western

values. Though as our government would soon realize he was not the man we had hoped for.

McNamara has now concluded that the second attack never happened. Using the Gulf of Tonkin

Vietnam was to oppose General Westmoreland's petition for 200,000 supplementary troops.

of alternatives such as stopping the bombing of the north to bring about negotiations, transferring

trained in the finer workings of the military which caused the escalation. Their were many times

conclusion that continuing on the present course would eventually prove fatal and cost many of

injustices, McNamara feels that all other resources were not exhausted before we ventured into a

president the broad war powers. Meanwhile this resolution had been based on an attack that

think of consequences before they reacted to a situation. McNamara is not only to blame for this

of Vietnam. They include that the U.S. embellished the danger it would cause us had we not

Our government overestimated the fall of South Vietnam, would it really have threatened

regarding the next course of action. What they needed was a rapid end to this war, and he felt

that if South Vietnam fell to communism than the rest of the east would fall like a line of

administration supported a general's coup to get Diem out of power. Diem and his brother Nhu

Approximate Word count = 1191
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Miscellaneous

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