McNAMARA’S WAR : Vietnam’s Political Costs Still Escalating

So former Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara says the Vietnam War was “wrong.” Big deal. The American people figured that out 27 years ago.

It happened in 1968, to be precise, a few months after the Tet Offensive disproved the Johnson Administration’s claim that there was “a light at the end of the tunnel.” Beginning in 1965, the Gallup poll regularly asked Americans whether the United States had made a mistake sending troops to Vietnam. In August, 1968, a majority said “yes” for the first time. And the number kept growing--to more than 60% by the war’s end.

Gallup asked the question again in 1993. By then, 68%, an all-time high, said the Vietnam War was a mistake. They didn’t need McNamara to tell them.

President Bill Clinton claims that McNamara’s confession vindicates him and other anti-war protesters. “I know that sounds self-serving,” he said, “but I do.” Why exactly does the President need vindication on this issue? If most Americans concluded the war was wrong back in 1968, doesn’t that mean they supported the protesters?

No, it doesn’t. The protesters may have gotten their point across. But they were still hated by the American public.

Most Americans opposed the war. And most Americans also opposed the anti-war protesters. They believed the protesters were undermining U.S. troops and tearing down the country. The protesters said there was something wrong with America. The public never accepted that. Americans believed there was something wrong with the nation’s leaders--people like McNamara were failing the country.

Even now, when two-thirds of Americans believe the war was a mistake, a majority still says it was not justified for draft-age men to use all legal means to avoid military service. The issue isn’t whether Clinton was right or wrong about the war. The issue is whether he behaved honorably or dishonorably in the way he got out of military service.

Vietnam poisoned U.S. politics in two ways. It created a civil war within the country’s governing class. Hawks vs. doves. The Establishment vs. its children.

At the same time, Vietnam created a deep estrangement between the people and the governing class. The American people were cynical and distrustful of the hawks who were perpetrating the war. And they were cynical and distrustful of the doves protesting the war.

In the late ‘60s, when the governing class was sharply divided between hawks and doves, pollsters kept coming up with a peculiar finding. They asked people whether they agreed with the hawks, who wanted to intensify U.S. military pressure in Vietnam, or the doves, who wanted to end the war. The answer they kept getting was, “Both. I think we should either win or get out.”

Pollsters were amazed to discover that many self-described hawks voted for Eugene J. McCarthy, the most famous dove of his time, in the 1968 New Hampshire primary. The voters were not irrational. They wanted to end the war, one way or the other. Most of all, they were angry at Lyndon B. Johnson. It was Johnson’s war, and they wanted him out. The best way was to vote for McCarthy. They did and it worked.

Vietnam created the tone of ideological bitterness that now pervades U.S. politics. Early on, the conflict was mostly within the two parties. The doves, led by George S. McGovern, overthrew the Democratic Party Establishment in 1972 and got their revenge for Vietnam. They took over the party and pulled it to the left.

The hawks, led by Ronald Reagan, overthrew the Republican Party Establishment in 1980. They were infuriated by detente, the Nixon-Ford-Kissinger policy of peaceful coexistence with communism that emerged out of the stalemate in Vietnam. They took over the GOP and pulled it to the right.

The war within the Democratic Party is over. The doves won. McNamara’s book is the article of surrender. Clinton and McNamara have reconciled. Clinton was McNamara’s house guest when he vacationed on Martha’s Vineyard.

The war is over within the Republican Party as well. The hawks won, and all the GOP presidential candidates are trying to prove their Reaganite credentials. Sen. Bob Dole’s rush to the right this month--signing the New Hampshire tax pledge, attacking Hollywood, promising to repeal the assault-weapons ban--amounts to an article of surrender by the old GOP Establishment.

The war between left and right goes on, but now it’s between Democrats and Republicans. Not Clinton vs. McNamara, but Clinton vs. Dole. It’s still the World War II generation vs. its children. And it’s still infused with the bitterness of Vietnam. Since Vietnam, the left and right haven’t just dreamed of winning. They’ve dreamed of annihilating one another.

All that ideological rancor is alien to most Americans. The American people stopped fighting Vietnam a long time ago. The elites have not. The estrangement between the governing class and the people has now become a permanent fixture of U.S. politics. And nothing symbolizes it as much as the draft issue.

After all, the educated upper-middle class of this country avoided military service in Vietnam. Every politician of a certain age has to deal with the question, “Where were you and what were you doing during the Vietnam War?” Dan Quayle had to deal with it in 1988. Clinton in 1992. Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas) will have to deal with it in 1996. House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) will, too, if he ever runs for President. As far as the voters are concerned, they’re all part of the governing class who fought over the war but didn’t have to fight the war.

Dole breaks through that class barrier. That’s one reason he’s soaring in the polls. Like many others of his generation, Dole began his adult life with a sacrifice for his country. Vietnam also makes Colin L. Powell look good. Powell is a Vietnam veteran and a military hero. In the Persian Gulf War, he advocated the doctrine of overwhelming force: When the United States goes in, it must go in with overpowering force. It must fight to win quickly and get out. U.S. forces must have solid support at home. And, most of all, the United States must never get involved in another country’s politics. Those are all the rules we violated in Vietnam.

McNamara says his purpose in writing his book was to end the estrangement created by Vietnam. He says he had “grown sick at heart witnessing the cynicism and even contempt with which so many people view our political institutions.” In the book, however, he confesses that he knew as early as 1967 that the war was a catastrophic mistake. In effect, McNamara confirms the public’s worst suspicions. Americans were right to be cynical and contemptuous of their leaders. They were lying the whole time.