Quickthink

Robert McNamara made quite an impression on people. He was a smart dude. He hung with the right crowd. He got things done. If you need more persauding on this, check out what Clark Clifford wrote about him

In my years in Washington, only a handful of people below the presidential level have dominated the scene: George Marshall, Dean Acheson and Henry Kissinger all come to mind. But no one held the capital in sway more powerfully than McNamara, from 1961 until the end of 1967.  (emphasis added) (Quoting from Philip Bobbit’s editorial — the link is below)

Strong words. But sad to say, McNamara also was one of the experts who argued that the US could/should win the Vietnam war, and he put his impressive mind to that task by raining devastation on the enemy. He “escalated” and then “escalated” again, and then still again in order to win. Well, a lot of people got killed, things didn’t work out, and so, it is no surprise that his legacy is a bit … complex. Should we disparage him (as Bob Herbert did), or honor him (as Bobbit and Morris try to do — see below)? Was he a monster, or one of us, or both? How do we find the right “standard” to assess McNamara?

Philip Bobbet argues that we should remember McNamara’s great “compassion”. And Phil makes some good points about what McNamara did as head of the World Bank (though this is a mixed legacy too).  Errol Morris argues McNamara was complicated — sort of a don Quixote of rationality who tried to serve too many masters. The point — he was a human being who did his best. Bravo! Both of the above articles are thoughtful, and merit our attention. I do not dismiss Herbert’s condemnation either. At the same time, I do not think these pieces set the standard for learning how to move on from McNamara.

Here is my best shot. McNamara was a product of his generation. He championed the values that he grew up with. Unfortunately for him and everyone else, arrogance was part of that baggage. Paraphrasing Churchill “not only did he believe he had the ace of spades up his sleeve, he believed that almighty God put it there for his exclusive use”. ´Thus, McNamara’s famous policy myopia (and later Rumselfd’s) is our myopia.

With that in mind, you might read what Clark Clifford said about McNamara in a different light. “Holding the capital in sway” and “dominating the scene” do not leave much room for humility as a value, or understatement, or strong democratic values at all. To the contrary, the words are more commonly found in an imperial setting, n’est ce pas? So, perhaps Graham Greene had a point in the Quiet American. Idealism mixed with two fingers of arrogance is a powerful cocktail that can disorient even the “best and the brightest”.  Is there a lesson here? We may not want to become less idealistic, but we may need a re-think on how to build better policy (including policy discussion) that embodies our ideals.

There is one more thing to add to the McNamara legacy. To his credit, McNamara sobered up after he left power and then after some years went by, he talked forthrightly about what went wrong. Accepting the consequences, he admitted that mistakes were made at the highest levels. This type of honesty is rare, especially among men who retire from positions of high authority. It does not absolve anyone of blame (as Herbert points out). But it does give us a chance to see the real people “behind the curtain” who pulled the levers of power (yes, as did the Great and Mighty Oz). It is to McNamara’s credit that he saw the value in this civilizing if not redemptive exercise. By comparison, I have not yet heard any chirping from Mr. Kissinger about  ”mistakes”. Au contraire! Or, could we see Mr. Rumsfeld engaging in a similar dialogue over Iraq? I would be very surprised.

So there are things to learn from McNamara. His flaws are our flaws. But we should work at taking over his strengths, because he became a leader, albeit after he gave up his position of power.

FOLLOW - As I wrote the sentence above about “escalation” policy, I was aware that some have defended McNamara on the grounds that escalation was actually Johnson’s idea. McNamara merely showed perhaps excessive loyalty in implementing the policy. I would agree with Herbert here that especially in light of the enormous and terrible consequences of the policy direction, this is no defense. Even if the initial push came from Johnson, escalation became McNamara’s policy when he agreed to implement it, and endorsed it publicly. BTW, this “just following orders” argument, provides further accent to my main point that McNamara’s impact as a leader comes from what he did much later on in his life.

2d FOLLOW - McNamara wrote this editorial in NYT in 1999 about Kosovo. This quote jumped out at me

It was once famously said that the United States did not have 10 years of experience in Vietnam, but one year of experience 10 times over.

Overall, McNamara’s fears about Kosovo may have been misplaced. But his suggestion that we learn from what we do resonates still.

Tags: Leadership

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 at 10:42 am and is filed under People, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.