Volume 42, Number 8 · May 11, 1995
McNamara's Peace
By Theodore H. Draper
In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam
by Robert S. McNamara, by Brian VanDeMark
Times Books, 414 pp., $25.00
Former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara has written a 'Now It Can Be Told' book about the Vietnam War. He does not tell us all we need to know about the war; he has little to say about the battles on the ground and the local situation in South Vietnam, except as they bear on his main subject. McNamara deals almost entirely with how decisions were made at the top of the American command structure in Washington and what they were. We could not wish for a more highly placed witness, except for the presidents whom McNamara served, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, neither of whom left us anything comparable. Though McNamara has produced a personal testament, it is largely based on documentation, some of it unpublished, from the Kennedy and Johnson libraries and government files.
Review, 5543 words
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