Every year on my Christmas list (yes, I am close to entering my mid 20s, and my mom still insists I write one), I normally ask for a movie or two. Generally, the movies in my DVD collection fall into two categories - (A) Overtly masculine action thrillers (i.e. The Hunt for Red October) and comedies, such as Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein. To be added to my personal collection, a movie must fulfill but one requirement - I must feel compelled to watch it repeatedly. This year, I requested, of all things, a documentary.
Errol Morris' "The Fog of War" was released in 2004. It chronicles the life and work of former Secretary of Defense Robert Strange McNamara. He was 86 years old at the time of the film's making, and he is still with us today, at 91. Between 1961 and 1968, he served Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, and is widely considered one of the primary "architects" of the Vietnam War. He also was a key player in crafting American nuclear strategy, and the development of modernized systems analysis for the Pentagon. A man of incredible intellect and complexity, McNamara is one of the last surviving political links to the increasingly distant Cold War Era. The film itself is far more than just an interview - it is a cinematic masterpiece. Morris mixes old archival footage with beautifully shot one -on - one interview with McNamara. Philip Glass links all of the imagery to a hauntingly beautiful musical score.
Due to his deep involvement in the development and escalation of the Vietnam War, McNamara has received much criticism since leaving his post in 1968. Perhaps one of the most scathing critiques is that he was a "human IBM machine who care(d) more for statistical logic than for human judgments." At one point in the film, McNamara makes this point more bluntly, stating, "A lot of people think I'm a son of a bitch." "The Fog of War" proves that nothing could be further from the truth. Instead, we see McNamara for who he is - a deeply sensitive, introspective, and conflicted human being, destined to carry a tremendous mental burden forever.
Long before John F. Kennedy won the presidency, McNamara was exposed to the rigors of formulating defense policy. In the early 1940s, as American involvement in World War II escalated, he left his position as an Assistant Professor at Harvard Business School to serve as a captain in the United States Army Air Force. His primary role was to analyze the effectiveness of America's bombing campaign against the Japanese, and find ways to increase its effectiveness. He reported to General Curtis LeMay, the aggressive, abrasive (some would say careless) leader of the American bombing effort. To increase the effectiveness of bombing against the Japanese, McNamara analyzed data, and found that the high altitude B-29 bombers lost their effectiveness when bombing from high altitudes. As a result, General LeMay ordered the aircraft to bomb Japanese cities from 5,000 feet - a much more risky, but effective proposition.
We gain a lot of insight into the man's emotional side during his discussion of the bombing campaign. When describing the firebombing of Tokyo, he is blunt, but seems controlled -
McNAMARA: "I was on the island of Guam in his (LeMay's) command, in March of 1945. In a single night, we burned to death a hundred thousand Japanese civilians in Tokyo - men, women, and children. "
However, later on, he becomes more emotional.
"I participated in the interrogation of the B-29 bomber crews that came back that night. A room full of crewmen and intelligence interrogators, a captain got up - young captain, and said, 'God Damnit, I'd like to know who that son of a bitch was that took this magnificent airplane designed to bomb from 23,000 feet, and he took it down to 5,000 feet, and I lost my wingman. He was shot and killed...He (LeMay) stood up and pointed at the map, 'Why are we here? WHY are we here? You lost your wingman. It hurts me as much as it does you. (McNamara becomes choked up) I sent him there, and I've been there, I know what it is. BUT, you lost one wingman, and we destroyed Tokyo.'"
In addition to showing his emotional response to the tremendous loss of life brought about by the low altitude bombing, McNamara also shows his deep personal conflict. He stops short of condemning the decision to firebomb Japan, but he also stops far short of the saber rattling that General LeMay was known for.
MORRIS: "Were you aware that this (the massive civilian casualties in Tokyo) was going to happen?"
McNAMARA: "Well I was...part of a mechanism that in a sense recommended it. I analyzed bombing operations and how to make them more efficient - i.e., not more efficient in the sense of killing more, but more efficient in weakening the adversary..."
McNamara seems to lapse into the standard military synonyms, and who can blame him? The burden of living with the knowledge that he played a role in bringing about the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians must be mind boggling - I don't know that I could live with it. Thus, he feels compelled to partially insulate himself, while at the same time acknowledging the consequences of his actions. He is, in short, deeply conflicted. His ideas helped pave the way for victory in the Pacific theater, but it came at a tremendous human cost.
Another portion of the movie that offers great insight into the man is his discussion of his relationship with President Lyndon Johnson. Johnson was a very different (and some would say much more difficult) man to work for than Kennedy. He had an extremely domineering personality, and could intimidate even the most formidable politicos in Washington. Yet, McNamara was fiercely loyal to both men.
It was under Johnson's leadership that the campaign in Vietnam was escalated. Through the incorporation of recorded conversations with Johnson, Morris implies that McNamara was ultimately unable to shake himself loose of the "mechanism" that led to the destruction of Tokyo. Take, for instance, a recorded phone conversation between the two men from February of 1964 (not long after Kennedy's death):
JOHNSON: "I hate to modify your speech because it's been a good one, but I just wonder if we should find two minutes in there for Vietnam."
McNAMARA: "Yeah...the problem is what to say about it."
JOHNSON: "All right, I'll tell you what I would say about it, I would say that we have a commitment to Vietnamese freedom. We could pull out of there, the dominoes would fall, and that part of the world would go to the communists. We could send our Marines in there, get tied down in a third world war or another Korean action. Nobody really understands what it is out there. And they're asking questions and saying why don't we do more? Well, I think this - you can have more war or more appeasement. But we don't want more of either. Our purpose is to train the South Vietnamese and our training's going good. "
McNAMARA: "All right sir...I'll uh, I'll..."
JOHNSON: (cutting him off) "I always thought it was foolish for you to make any statements about withdrawing (Kennedy and McNamara had discussed exit strategies extensively). I thought it was bad psychologically. But YOU and the President thought otherwise and I just sat silent.
McNAMARA: "The problem is..."
JOHNSON: (cutting him off again) "And THEN come the questions - how in the hell does McNamara think when he's losing the war he can pull men out of there?
Indeed, McNamara had deep reservations about the war nearly from the beginning. Yet, in public, he never tried to remove himself from the political mechanism that he was a part of. One has to believe that, on some level, Johnson was able to intimidate McNamara into remaining loyal to him. Near the end of his tenure, McNamara sent Johnson a memo, in which he claims he advocated for a change of course in American policy. Johnson would have none of it. It was not long after that McNamara was dismissed.
And yet, at the same time, it seems McNamara wanted to remain loyal to Johnson. Despite the fundamental differences that ultimately led to his dismissal, McNamara still seems loyal to the man, even almost 40 years later.
After dismissing him from his cabinet post, Johnson awarded McNamara the Presidential Medal of Freedom. At the ceremony, McNamara was overcome by his emotions, so much so that he could not speak. Today, it appears that none of that emotion has been lost.
When asked to sum up his feelings, he states, "I know what many of you are thinking. You are thinking this man (Johnson) is duplicitous. You're thinking that he has held things close to his chest. You're thinking that...he did not respond fully to the desires and wishes of the American people. And I want to tell you you're wrong. Of course he had...personal idiosyncrasies. No question about that. He didn't accept all the advice he was given. On several occasions, his associates advised him to be more forthcoming. He wasn't. People did not understand at that time, there were recommendations and pressures that would carry the risk of war with China! And carry the risk of nuclear war! And HE was determined to prevent it!"
Again, we see personal conflict. The realist versus the loyalist. The loyalist wins out. We also see the human being - a far cry from the IBM machine characterization. We see one man grieving over a crisis that ultimately consumed and destroyed his boss. We also see a man clearly more comfortable talking about the future and what we can learn, as opposed to reliving the darker side of our past.
Despite all of the darkness in McNamara's life - the two wars, the stress, and tremendous personal toll, Morris makes it clear that McNamara has lost none of his intellectual fire. The man, now entering his 90s, is still driven by an almost superhuman desire to learn. Perhaps the greatest lesson he can take from his experiences is the importance of being willing to reexamine one's reasoning. Many years after the Vietnam War ended, he returned to the country, and concluded that he and many others had misread the Vietnamese people completely. They did not view it as a war for communist expansion, but rather, as a war for independence from colonialism. Ultimately, they had no interest in collaborating with the Chinese or Soviets to spread Communism around the world. Ironically, they wanted what Johnson himself articulated - Vietnamese freedom!
Ultimately, "The Fog of War" demonstrates that war is too complex for any one person to completely understand. McNamara tried, and clearly, he failed. Even today, it seems clear that he cannot fully wrap his mind around everything that transpired during his life as a public servant. When pressed on his personal stance on the war, McNamara clams up, saying, "you don't know how inflammatory my words can appear." Morris replies by saying, "is it this feeling that you're damned if you do and damned if you don't, no matter what you say?"
McNamara's reply says it all. "Yeah, that's right. And I'd rather be damned if I don't."
We should not condemn the man for trying to insulate himself. Frankly, no human can fully embrace those realities. Imagine trying to live from day to day, carrying the knowledge that this man possesses. It is an inhuman undertaking. If we are to learn anything from his story, it is that destructive power, concentrated in the hands of small number of human beings, will likely have dire consequences. Humans are fallible. It’s been that way since Adam and Eve. The burden of maintaining peace and prosperity, in other words, is a tremendous one. Furthermore, humans, whether they are in positions of power, or in the masses, should never trivialize the process of wartime decision making. It's too damned hard to make light of, and never as simple as it appears.
"We make our decisions. And then our decisions turn around and make us."
