THE ANGRY AFTERMATH TO McNAMARA’S CONFESSION

I’ll take my history lessons wherever I can get them. I want to thank David Halberstam for making the real truth clear, of what my generation was up against in the ‘60s, and who did the manipulating and why in his review of “In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam” by Robert McNamara (Book Review, April 16).

From Kennedy’s myopic Asian policy (due to fear of red baiting), to the bureaucratic lying and maneuvering of “public servants” Lyndon Baines Johnson, McNamara, et al., I now clearly see (from the review--not the book), the underpinnings of why I narrowly escaped going down with 60,000 of my classmates and ghetto brothers, not to mention a million and a half Vietnamese. I now clearly see the blood on the correct hands: power hungry men, who don’t get that the new warrior’s strength is not to fight.

JOHN DENSMORE, SANTA MONICA

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So Robert McNamara is now a confessed war-criminal. David Halberstam, however, says that our U.S. war criminals should not be punished because “there was enough responsibility to go around for everyone involved.” There was certainly enough responsibility to go around in the aftermath of World War II, but that didn’t stopped the Nazi hunters who are seeking war criminals even today.

McNamara and his cronies sent hundreds of thousands of my generation off to war. They are directly and irrefutably responsible for the deaths of more than 58,000 men and women. Our streets and homeless shelters are littered with the damaged bodies and wounded minds of those who were irreparably harmed by “McNamara’s War.” Our VA hospitals are glutted with the carnage of McNamara’s misadventures in Southeast Asia. Many others were themselves tried as criminals because they found the war an abomination and immoral and refused to participate. Entire families were destroyed because of the lies promulgated by Bob and his henchmen, who did this because they didn’t have the nerve to tell the truth to those paragons of virtue: Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon.

For Halberstam to suggest that the responsibility for McNamara’s crimes of war against mankind should go unpunished because “there was enough responsibility to go around” is an egregious affront to an entire generation and a slap on the faces of those who died in McNamara’s stupid war.

JIM COOK, SANTA BARBARA

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I read with great fascination David Halberstam’s review of Robert McNamara’s memoir on his role in the Vietnam War. Halberstam correctly concludes that McNamara’s greatest sin occurred when he chose to remain silent after realizing that our policy was wrong and that the U.S. could never win the war, silent inside the Johnson administration, and silent when he left the cabinet in 1968. McNamara states he was required to saying nothing out of loyalty to the two presidents he served.

Let us compare his actions with those of Clark Clifford, who replaced McNamara as Secretary of Defense in early 1968. A supporter of the war, Clifford quickly realized that our efforts were doomed afer talking to political and military experts in the government. Instead of remaining silent, Clifford initiated a debate with the hawks, and by the end of March, 1968, had convinced Dean Rusk, Walt Rostow, and others to oppose sending an additional 200,000 troops to South Vietnam, and to begin real negotiations to end the war. Clifford did this not only because he wanted to serve his nation, but also because he sought to protect his president from the ravages of Vietnam.

Loyalty is a strange game, and people define it differently. But I have a hunch that Clark Clifford has slept far more soundly in the past 25 years than has Robert McNamara.

RALPH S. BRAX, LANCASTER

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I am disappointed by your coverage thus far of the McNamara book, “In Retrospect.” Halberstam’s review of April 16 is particularly unhelpful and very objectionable.

McNamara is undoubtedly the most informed and credible living witness of what went wrong in the Vietnam war and why. In his book he attempts to give us his testimony. His awkward style may be pedantic, at best. But that should not discredit the substance and it certainly cannot justify the vicious personal attack by Halberstam. His piece is neither probative, persuasive or informing. It is self-congratulatory, vindictive, outrageously opinionated and seriously misleading. I am truly puzzled why you ran it except as an experiment in reader tolerance. Halberstam can do better. So can The Times. You would better serve your readers by a reasoned analysis of the book--assigning someone who has read it without prejudice. Then tell us: Is it factually reliable? Are the lessons reasonable? What is its significance respecting current public policy? Is the conclusion correct that U.S. unilateral military interventions in other nations’ troubles are doomed from the start? How does that square with the risks of multilateral interventions? etc. etc.

Taking on these unaddressed issues would help restore some of your intellectual lustre.

ROBERT TARTAUL, LA JOLLA

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Thank you for David Halberstam’s brilliant review. Where is the accountability for criminal behavior performed in the name of the state? Under “Three Strikes You’re Out” we can now imprison a person for life for stealing a bike or a piece of pizza, while Robert McNamara, who, as much as anyone, is responsible for 3 million deaths in Vietnam goes scot-free.

TANJA WINTER, LA JOLLA

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Reading the review by David Halberstam and the editorial by Robert Scheer were a relief because after reading the Newsweek review of “In Retrospect” I was left with a sick feeling of horror.

Having graduated from high school in 1967 I have witnessed so many of my generation deeply affected by the policies on Vietnam. My niece, now 23, struggles to try and understand her father who was a point man in Vietnam and came back dramatically changed and still walks the forest tormented. But at least he did return home.

I remember having very heated discussions with elders against the policies of Vietnam using the very reasons McNamara now admits were correct while they argued in return of the continuation of the war based on what Robert McNamara was saying then, which he now admits were misrepresentations.

So when I read the large typeset in Newsweek which stated, “In a candid, poignant new book” I purchased the magazine. I was disappointed and distressed after reading the excerpts quoted in the article. Still no discussion regarding the moral and ethical responsibility of a government to its people. Twenty-five years later the suffering of my generation still reduced to a number’s game, a miscalculation of poor analysis based on inadequate information.

McNamara, only now, grows “sick at heart witnessing the cynicism and contempt” my generation and younger generations view Washington and our leaders. We have been sick at heart having witnessed what our political institutions and its leaders did to its citizens, and in the name of its citizens to the people of Vietnam.

I tell my 13-year-old-son repeatedly: Never believe your government or any reason it gives for going to fight in a war. What McMamara is now confessing is proof positive Washington and its leaders cannot be trusted. While the arrogant few hung on to power in Washington, the best and the brightest died on the battle field or were protesting the monstrous policies of their government on the streets.

ELIZABETH FOSTER, WOODLAND HILLS