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Before seeing The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons of Robert S. McNamara, my only knowledge of the subject was through Simon and Garfunkel's "A Simple Desultory Philippic (Or How I Was Robert McNamara'd into Submission)," which was a parody of Bob Dylan, and that's funny because Dylan Baker played McNamara in Thirteen Days (thus completing this unusual circle of inconsequence). From what I've been able to gather - and my American History textbooks educated through only the early 1950s - McNamara wasn't exactly well-liked when he was the Secretary of Defense to Kennedy and Johnson, especially by those opposed to the war in Viet Nam.
McNamara, now a spry 85-year-old, sat down in front of documentarian Errol Morris's Interrotron for over 20 hours of interviews, and those have been cobbled into just over 90 minutes of very entertaining, extremely informative footage, aided by archive material and a monotonous, slightly apocalyptic Philip Glass score. But before delving into war stories, we learn the basics: McNamara was educated in places like Berkeley and Harvard in subjects like logic, statistics and philosophy before being tapped as the first non-family president of the Ford Motor Company.
Since most people associate McNamara with the bungling of Viet Nam, some will be surprised to hear his tales of World War II, where the young Lieutenant Colonel was partially responsible for creating the battle plan that saw the US firebomb 67 Japanese cities to the point where the word "leveled" might not even apply. That campaign, which was led by General Curtis LeMay (the basis for the General Buck Turgidson character in Dr. Strangelove), might have led to McNamara being tried for war crimes had Japan managed victory in WWII.
On to Viet Nam, where recently declassified White House audio tapes reveal McNamara's position to be quite different than what he displayed in public. His cool head helped Kennedy ignore LeMay's insistence that the US invade Cuba to end the 1962 missile crisis, and McNamara's love for JFK appears on his sleeve as he openly weeps while discussing the slain leader. Johnson comes off even more buffoonish than ever here, as McNamara suggests he still isn't sure whether he quit or Johnson fired him.
So how does McNamara, who is responsible for two of the ugliest, deadliest black marks in the most violent century this world has ever seen, come off so likable? Is it more than his apparent hawk-to-dove transition? Is he allowed to be cut this kind of slack using the ability of 20-20 hindsight when he justifies his use of military force (at least initially) but also cautions against use of the same force in present-day situations? There aren't any easy answers in War, and devotees of Morris (Mr. Death) should know that going in.
One question begs to be answered, though: How is it possible that McNamara looks younger than Donald Rumsfeld?
1:35 - PG-13 for images and thematic issues of war and destruction
========== X-RAMR-ID: 36466 X-Language: en X-RT-ReviewID: 1198038 X-RT-TitleID: 1126863 X-RT-SourceID: 595 X-RT-AuthorID: 1146 X-RT-RatingText: 8/10
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