macnamara’s band and critical oral history.
pay any price .. bear any burden.. kennedy.
robert j macnamara was the secretary of defence for kennedy and Johnson 1961-68. he was an ivy-league mba. its probably fair to say that he was principle in the policy of mutually assured destruction... .
in the case of the action of the usa in Vietnam'62 -75 , like all violence, there were only losers. 3.8 million Vietnamese were slaughtered (unknown number maimed or wounded). some 50,000 american personel perished. Vietnam suffered an horrendous event but is now slowly recovering.. people still argue that America achieved its objective in stopping the domino effect. they are becoming fewer. ...the major result is that people stopped believing in the usa.
in his 1999 book*, macnamara describes that ‘critical oral history’ is a basis to learn from the mistakes of the past. it is the intersection of 1.political science, 2. group recollections of the people in power who made the decisions and 3. the documentary evidence…... it gives more depth to understanding history from more than one perspective.. with the aim of finding a way to avoid repeating mistakes. you’d have to say that it appears at least a step in the right direction.
the first case of application of ‘critical oral history’ was regarding the October 1962 cuban missile crisis. . between 1987 and 1992 conferences were arranged between the surviving principle actors from cuba, ussr and usa. to meet and compare notes. apparently it came closer to ‘utter disaster’ than they thought. there was more fire power in cuba than the cia thought. and castro and the kremlin heads were prepared to use it. the point macnamara claims to be making is that human fallibility and nuclear weapons carries a very high risk of disaster. (um.. this guy was defence minister of the largest nuclear arsenal….)
the positive outcome of these meetings led to the idea to organise a parlay between the people involved in the Vietnam war came about and is the subject of his second book. argument without end.
the meetings between the americans led by macnamara and the vitnamese group with general vo nguyen giap took place bwtween 95 and 98 . .(one small detail.. it was over 30 years too late for parlay.)
despite an American perception of lack of candour on the part of the Vietnamese government, the meetings went ahead…
the result seems to have been less fruitful than the missile crises meetings…
it was misunderstanding and doctrinaire approach rather than the problem of human fallibility according to macnamara's analysis... from the initial Tonkin incident to the domino theory to the idea that America could win a war against the Vietnamese without genocide.
the Vietnamese bielived and believe still that the americans simply wanted to resume where the French left off.. squeezing the country for what they could. macnamara thinks it was a misunderstanding.
for the general it was a noble sacrifice .(to fight ruthless neo-colonialism in the guise of liberalism). for macnamara it was a tragedy of mistakes and missed opportunity to avoid the suffering.
certainly looks like crocodile tears…. but you cant be too certain.
oh.. btw.
seems like it maybe now when the price has to be paid and the burden borne.
*argument without end. robert macnamara. public affairs. 1999 new york
it is 10 years ago. I know... many people do not have access to it. the American war as the Vietnamese call it is a subject about the roots of commitment..
seems that he did for the usa what he did for Ford.
tejasfu
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