Robert McNamara Quotes
We we’re wrong, terribly wrong [about the Vietnam war.]
Robert McNamara,1916-2009, U. S. Secretary of Defense (Democrat), In Retrospect
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The United States along with France, Britain and other Western nations maintained an arms embargo against both sides of the Spanish Civil War. However, Italy and Germany, not only shipped arms to the Nationalists but sent planes and crews to fight against the Republicans. Bowers warned that the freely elected Republican government would not be able to hold out against the Fascist attacks of two outside countries and the nationalists in Spain. Further that the arms embargo would force the Republicans politically into the hands of the Russians who became the only possible sourced of arms. The American right wing was opposed to involvement in such foreign disputes. After the Fascists took over Spain, the lesson was not lost on Roosevelt in terms of arms to Great Britain when WWII broke out.
The U. S. was evacuating all its forces and agents as the Viet Cong overran Saigon. This ended the Vietnam War. The CIA, had been telling the President and the National Security Staff that the Army reports were exaggerated and we were not faring well in the Vietnam War. Events proved them right. Their earlier track record, especially with President Nixon was very poor in intelligence analysis and prediction. See {634511}, {634509}, and {634503} for Nixon’s view of the CIA.
sending American troops to Vietnam
Later, when he ran for the Democratic Presidential Nomination had had changed his mind and was a major opponent of the Vietnam War. This was the pattern of so many Americans whose first instinct was to support the government’s decision to wage war, and over time grew disenchanted with the war and ended up opposing the war actively.
Robert Strange McNamara was an American business executive and the eighth United States Secretary of Defense, serving from 1961 to 1968 under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. He played a major role in escalating the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War. McNamara was responsible for the institution of systems analysis in public policy, which developed into the discipline known today as policy analysis.
