McNamara’s Book

* The one outstandingly good clarification coming out of former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara’s book is to finally settle the issue of why we fought so hard over Vietnam: not to contain communism, not to satisfy any greater geopolitical or national security imperatives; but merely to satisfy perceived domestic political needs.

To appreciate that assertion, one has to consider those times. I grew up in the ‘50s and ‘60s. I can recall the steady drumbeat of accusation from that era’s political right; “Who lost China? Who lost Eastern Europe? Who lost Poland? Who lost Hungary?” (Like they were “ours” to lose.) The answer invariably was: those Commie sympathizers Truman and Acheson and their pinko fellow-traveling buddies in the Democratic Party. Eisenhower re-achieved only the status quo in Korea, so the right labeled him merely a “conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy.”

I came of age hating Lyndon Johnson. (“Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids,” etc.) With the wisdom acquired with time and experience, one realizes that Johnson didn’t give a flying damn about the objectives or motivations of Ho Chi Minh. Johnson was terrified of the American right wing. Could he or the Democratic Party have survived “Who lost Southeast Asia?” in that environment? Possibly not.

The lesson for us in this democracy today from all that? We deserve the leadership we select. We deserve the policies and the results of the policies of the leaders we chose to follow. Who is responsible for the debacle in Vietnam? We are.

TED LEWIS

Los Angeles

* When will McNamara inform us of all the stupid, damaging and costly mistakes that he (and the best and brightest bureaucrats) made while he was head of the World Bank? Must we wait another 25 years?

BUCK HARDIN

Los Angeles