After “The Fog of War” Dissipated

I used to think it didn’t much matter who we chose for president because once the person got into office and really got to know what is going on, the most logical options would become apparent and whoever was elected would make the best available choices.  And since there are so many people involved in a government the size of the USA, one person can’t really control that much anyway. 

But witnessing how much the Bush administration has used the threat of terrorism to upset the usual balance of constitutional powers has changed my mind slightly on this issue - now I facetiously say not to vote the same party for president and for congress!  And switch the party you vote for every other election so they will get the idea they can forget about re-election and get down to work while they are in office!

But now Robert McNamara’s The Fog of War has affected my thought on the choice of president even more profoundly, however, because in it he illustrates how significant the character of the president can be for the welfare of the nation.

By character I do not mean adherence to traditional standards of morality, but rather the orientation of what we might call one’s heart - the “set of the sails” - as the poem puts it: one’s demonstrated modus operandi.  People with this kind of character may fail miserably on some morality check lists; but what we need in public service are people who excel in general qualities such as described by the prophet Micah, regardless of their specific shortcomings as defined by various moral and ethical traditions. The best test of such character is the longtime, consistent report of acquaintances and coworkers, and in politics, even the reports of those in opposing parties who are close enough to know the person in question.

The Fog of War documents the career of Robert McNamara as he served both Presidents John F. Kennedy (JFK) and Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) as their Secretary of Defense.  Although its focus appears to be primarily on the complex character of Robert McNamara himself by presenting lessons he has learned, some reviewers have noticed what they believe to be social commentary by director Errol Morris (e.g. “it’s clear Morris is taking aim both at the tough-talking Texan who lived in the White House 40 years ago and the one who’s currently there,” JS ).

In his comments McNamara himself several times compares the Cuban missile crisis under Kennedy and the Vietnam War under Johnson.  He believed the president was primarily responsible in each case, and that his role was to serve the president.  His role was to do what needed to be done, even if it required what might look like ruthless violence.  It was only when he found himself at complete odds with LBJ in 1968 that he was compelled to leave office.

From McNamara’s perspective in hindsight, the biggest factor that made a difference in how these conflicts developed was the ability to empathize with the enemy, and the existence of that factor for the Cuban crisis was just a matter of “luck” since a member of the administration who knew Khrushchev was able to convince JFK to respond to confusing diplomatic messages in a way that would allow Khrushchev to brag that he had protected Cuba from destruction by withdrawing Soviet missiles from the island.  Unfortunately, McNamara implies, we had no insider who could fill that same role when it came to Vietnam.  However, it is simply unknown to us now whether there really was such a person available if LBJ or McNamara had asked the right questions.

I think the tape recordings documenting McNamara’s account suggest a different explanation than his “just luck” thesis.  I want to suggest that the attitudes, the orientation, the outlook of the president, really do set in motion how investigations will be carried out and how business will be conducted.  In other words, the demeanor of the head of state really is significant.

Witness these brief excerpts that were selected for this documentary to highlight key moments in each of these conflicts:

JFK in the Cuban Missle Crisis

10/16/62

JFK     In the next 24 hours, what is it we need to do?

RM     …two things…  First we need to develop a specific strike plan…  second… consider the consequences.  I don’t know quite what kind of world we’ll live in after we’ve struck Cuba.  How do we stop at that point?   I don’t know the answer to this.

JFK     The chances of this becoming a much broader struggle are increased as you step up the talk about the danger to the United States.

McNamara explains to the viewer that “Kennedy was trying to keep us out of war… I was trying to help him keep us out of war… and General Curtis Lemay… was saying lets go in… let’s totally destroy Cuba.” 

What we see here is a president who wants to avoid war if possible, and McNamara is supporting the president’s goal.   We also see a president who is open to thoughtful ideas about consequences (or Mcnamara would not have been so nebulous) and JFK is asking a consensus building question rather than making demands (by asking what “we need to do”).

McNamara believes that it was simply luck that someone in the administration who was familiar with Khrushchev was available and able to confront the president and convince him against taking the more protectivist hard-line approaches being advocated.  But credit has to be given to JFK for creating enough of a social climate in which such a confrontation could take place. 

We will never know if McNamara was right that similar information on Vietnam was not available to LBJ.  I remember viewing the kind of information McNamara said was needed in order to “empathize with the enemy” on documentary films when I was in college (1965-69), but I can’t remember if they were “underground” films or commercial ones - but in any case that information was freely available at the time.  Of course, the whole point of this documentary, and I think it is consistent with his In Retrospect, in which he documents that so many key decisions were made hastily without adequate information, is that in war you are often groping as if in a fog, and you make many mistakes as a result.

At certain pivotal turning points, however, a president with imagination could draw on his resources to have people do research for him - that, for example, is the role of the Library of Congress.    Or he and his advisors could just decide to shoot from the hips.

LBJ and the Vietnam War

3/2/64 

LBJ     This morning Senator Scott said, ‘The war which we can neither win, lose, nor drop is evidence of an instability of ideas… which is deeply disturbing.’  Do you think it is a mistake to explain about Vietnam and what we are faced with?

RM     …it would be wise for you to say as little as possible.  The frank answer is we don’t know what is going on out there.  The signs I see coming through the cables are disturbing signs.  It is a very uncertain period.

3/10/64

LBJ     We need somebody over there that can get us better plans than we got.  What I want is somebody that can lay up some plans to trap these guys and whoop the hell out of ‘em.  Kill some of ‘em, that’s what I want to do.

RM     I’ll try and bring something back that will meet that objective.

In these interactions we sense LBJ conceives of himself as carrying a heavy burden of responsibility, but that he seems guided more by his emotions than by his intellect.  Senator Scott’s criticism was about an “instability of ideas,” and McNamara affirmed that “we don’t know what is going on.”  LBJ’s reactions were to fight the enemy rather than to think through the larger issues.  Neither one apparently knew enough to ask the right questions about the larger issues, or had the imagination to inquire.

The preceding were scene selections that were chosen to depict both LBJ’s attitude and RM’s alignment with it.  Under JFK McNamara tried to avoid war because that was the president’s orientation, but under LBJ his role reflected the attitude of the president he served.  As he puts it later in the film, in this respect he views himself in the same tradition as Lemay and Sherman - people he says would be considered war criminals (including himself) if they were on the losing side.

But this gets back to my main observation about the difference a president can make.  The attitude of violence and destruction carried out in the Vietnam War emanated from the office of the president.  That implies that if there was a different attitude in that office, the Vietnam War might have had a less traumatic impact on Indochina and on the USA.  The choice of president really did make a difference!

Whatever one thinks of McNamara, he was a thoroughgoing professional and very much a soldier-like figure serving his commanding officer whoever it may be; but as I see it, the significant picture that emerges in this documentary portrait is the contrast between JFK and LBJ.

Robert McNamara seems to think the difference between the level of our involvement in these two conflicts is blind luck.  But he acknowledges that if Kennedy had lived to oversee Vietnam, he does not think the US would have invested so many US lives in Vietnam.  He says…

I am inclined to believe that if Kennedy had lived he would have made a difference.  I don’t think we would have had 500,000 men there [in Vietnam].

This little insight needs to be thoroughly contemplated because it points to the significance of presidential character as we have been describing it.  The Vietnam War would have had a totally different impact in every way if it involved far fewer personnel. At the end of the film McNamara refuses to answer further questions about Vietnam because he knows his words are so significant and controversial - he seems to suggest they would be misunderstood and distorted.

If anything, Robert McNamara appears to be very loyal to both the presidents he served. He sought to carry out their policies and he will not disparage them now that his service to them is over.  But in this insight regarding the difference between how LBJ did act and how he thinks Kennedy would have conducted the Vietnam War differently, I think he has given us a glimpse of what he means about the significance of his words - and we should recognize that this insight from his experience is a very big deal indeed!  I think that in pointing out this difference he is acknowledging that the character of the president really does make a difference in the affairs of our country.