ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, October 27, 1996 TAG: 9610290024
SECTION: BOOKS PAGE: 4 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: BOOK REVIEW
THE LIVING AND THE DEAD: Robert McNamara and Five Lives of a Lost War. By Paul Hendrickson. Alfred A. Knopf. $30.
This view of the Vietnam War is provocative, disturbing and ultimately cheerless; of Robert McNamara, regarded in liberal demonology as the war's architect, it is thorough, unremittingly hostile and often churlish. That having been said, it must be added that ``The Living and the Dead,'' for all its flaws, is a highly useful addition to the literature on the war that tore the U.S. to pieces, brought down a president and left an inheritance of unhealed scars. It is a complex book about a complex man and the equally complex man in the White House whom he served.
McNamara was a quintessential technocrat: autocratic, brilliant and arrogant, and it was at once his blessing and curse to be serenely untroubled with second thoughts. He was a ``whiz kid,'' one of a handful of like-minded and talented men who brought fiscal discipline and organization to the War Department from Harvard's faculty during World War II and who, when the war was over, were lifted up as one and taken to Ford Motor Co. to do the same for the company's new proprietor, Henry Ford II.
He became president of Ford in 1960. Almost immediately, political operatives of the newly elected John F. Kennedy targeted McNamara as the new secretary of the treasury. When he declined, they offered him the defense position, and he took it.
The whole mating dance, the wooing and the final surrender, according to Hendrickson, was filled with the kind of artless and fairly harmless dissimulation that later, in more stressful times, became outright deception and mendacity on an epic scale.
All this is recounted in sometimes numbing detail and confusing chronology, but the war in Vietnam is the meat of this book - its prosecution by McNamara and Lyndon Johnson, and its effect on five lives.
The lives of the title: One is an artist who, in 1972, when McNamara had retired to private life, tried to kill McNamara by throwing him off the ferry to Martha's Vineyard. One is a Marine veteran of the war, who was once pictured, weeping, on the cover of Life magazine. The third is a Quaker, who one winter afternoon in the Pentagon garden killed himself by pouring gasoline over himself and striking a match. The fourth is an Army nurse with bloody dreams, who wanted assurance that the cause was good. The fifth is a Vietnamese man who, with his family, was a staunch friend of the U.S. and who, as a result, was cruelly imprisoned by the North Vietnamese before he found his way to America.
The U.S. commitment in Vietnam proceeded little by little. The handful of advisers and observers sent to South Vietnam as far back as 1950 had grown almost imperceptibly to 23,000 military personnel in fall 1964, when Johnson won the presidential election, and to 184,000 a year later. By then, the war had expanded from what Hendrickson calls ``a nice little one-column firefight'' to a gigantic whirlpool. McNamara, the ultimate numbers man, saw sheer numbers as the key to victory - numbers of soldiers, aircraft, bombs.
But numbers this time weren't enough. As Gen. William Westmoreland called for more and more, and victory was no nearer, McNamara began wondering privately if the war was winnable, if a stalemate might be the best way out.
McNamara had lost faith in victory by the end of 1965, and said so both in his own book, ``In Retrospect,'' and testifying in the Westmoreland/CBS libel trial. But that was years later. True, he had told others in Washington the same thing during the war. George Ball, undersecretary of state, described in his memoirs how McNamara would come to see him and declare that the war was going nowhere and how the next day in a White House meeting, ``there'd be not a trace of what had gone on the day before.''
Hendrickson provides several examples of this ambivalence on McNamara's part. As the war more and more tore at the country, it tore at McNamara as well. Joseph Califano wrote in his book that Johnson had concerns about McNamara's ``mental and physical health.''
Finally, with ``a textured thing of chicanery and manipulation and genuine caring and solicitude,'' Johnson eased his doubting lieutenant out of the war and into the chairmanship of the World Bank, a post McNamara had long wanted.
McNamara, this tortured, complicated man, deserves from history a cool, objective compassionate judgment. ``The Living and the Dead,'' alas, is deficient in these essential qualities.
Donlan Piedmont is author of ``Peanut Soup & Spoonbread: An Informal History of the Hotel Roanoke.'' Is media coverage of Clinton fair? Reviewed by LARRY SHIELD
PATTERN OF DECEPTION. By Tim Graham. Media Research Center. $18.95.
As this book discusses media bias, I must state here that I did not support President Clinton in 1992, I do not support him today, and I will not support his re-election efforts in November. That being said, I will turn to this book, published under the imprimatur of the Media Research Center, which looks at the very favorable media coverage that Clinton received during his election run in 1992 and in the years he has been in office.
With extensive annotations, Tim Graham critically dissects press, radio and television reporting and commentary on topics including Gennifer Flowers, Whitewater, feminism, health care, Dan Quayle, Paula Jones and Hillary Rodham Clinton. Unfortunately, it is a one-note story. The sarcastic, sniping style Graham uses rapidly becomes boring. His prose reminds me of a Jack Russell terrier that has bitten down on the nose of a groundhog and would rather die than let go.
I know it is a book on bias, and I don't know if a balanced book on bias could be written. This one is not. Somewhere, sometime, the media spoke negatively about Democrats and positively about Republicans, but not in this book.
Larry Shield trains horses and dogs in Franklin County. BOOKMARKS Richards, former Roanoker, writes romance novel Reviewed by PEGGY DAVIS
IRON LACE. By Emilie Richards. Mira Books. $5.99.
Emilie Richards lived in Roanoke from 1972 to 1976 while her husband was minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church. She was a counselor for Mental Health Services. Since leaving Roanoke, Richards has won the Janet Dailey Award and the RITA Award from Romance Writers of America. She was also named the Best New Series Romance Writer in 1986.
Her latest novel, ``Iron Lace,'' is available in bookstores. In the acknowledgments of the book, she gives credit to Kate Chopin (among others) and with good reason, because the opening of ``Iron Lace'' bears strong resemblance to ``The Awakening.'' But this work is a longer and more complex romance than ``The Awakening,'' which is subtle and literary. However, this saga of intertwining families from all sections of New Orleans, including Storyville, is a page-turner.
Richards uses the dictated-memoir device to tell the story of Aurore Gerritsen, one of the grand dames of the Garden District, who has secrets that reach like an octopus into the lives of many who don't even know who she is. The events ring true with the one possible exception of a death in Chicago, but this event is central to the outcome of the lives of Aurore and the other players in the drama.
At the end of the book, its sequel, ``Rising Tides,'' is previewed.
``Iron Lace'' is an easy read that will catch you even if you don't want to be caught. I hope Richards doesn't get me hooked, but I admit I can't wait to learn the answers to Aurore's story.
Peggy Davis lives in Fincastle and reviews a variety of books for this page.
Authors to sign books
L.B. Taylor, a native of Lynchburg, has written five books about ghosts in Virginia. He will speak about the lore and legends of ghosts in the Roanoke Valley at Mill Mountain Theatre on Monday at 7 p.m. A reception and book-signing will follow at the Roanoke Valley History Museum. For information, call the museum at 342-5770.
Jeanne Larsen, professor of English at Hollins College, will read from ``Manchu Palaces,'' the concluding novel of her Chinese trilogy, in the Green Drawing Room in Main Building at Hollins on Thursday at 8:15 p.m. Also, Larsen will be signing books at Ram's Head Book Shop on Saturday from 1 to 3 p.m. Books in Brief
Story, facts about bats
STELLALUNA.
Narration by David Holt. Music by Steven Heller. High Windy Audio. $9.98.
Here is a cassette for children with four selections devoted entirely to bats. The title story, about a young fruit bat who gets lost, is gentle, just right for bedtime. A folk tale, a fantasy and facts about bats complete the production. David Holt narrates in his characteristically expressive, but never overly sweet, voice.
Most kids like being afraid of bats. This is a safe way to learn about them without having to look at them. On the other hand, a picture book with the tape wouldn't be a bad idea. But that might distract you from the soothing music of Steven Heller's guitar. - MARY SUTTON SKUTT
BROTHERS.
By Ben Bova. Bantam. $22.95.
The premise is fascinating enough: The aggressive young scientist begins work on a technique to regenerate organs - new hearts for elderly failing ones, new nerves for spina bifida children, and so forth. How the science will work itself out isn't exactly clear at first, but surely good, old-fashioned pluck and determination will see the hero through. Wait now...
Venal politicians and equally suspect evangelists turn out to be bigger obstacles than scientific mysteries. Mix in an occasional affair here and there, not to mention an idealist of a younger brother who loves the same woman as the hero. The stew gets spicier, more like soap opera than good, realistic fiction.
The plot is needlessly complicated, the characters shallowly drawn, the prose pedestrian. This book might make a decent movie if a good scriptwriter took a sharp scalpel to it, but the serious reader of decent science fiction ought to look elsewhere for thought-provoking pleasure. - SIDNEY BARRITT
THE HAND OF THE NECROMANCER.
Brad Strickland. Dial Books for Young Readers. $14.99.
Professor Childermass has lent some artifacts that once belonged to an evil wizard to the local museum, but he hides one, a mysterious wooden hand. The sinister Mr. Mergal arrives, asks threatening questions and steals the exhibit. The professor and his friend, Johnny Dixon, have their hands full dealing with wild summer lightning, nightmares and walking skeletons - and then the professor disappears.
Brad Strickland has previously completed four unfinished books by the late John Bellairs. This is Strickland's first original story using Bellairs' characters, and he does an excellent job of re-creating Bellairs' style.
``Necromancer'' is a fun book, quick and shivery. Young readers should find it an entertaining alternative to the ``Goosebumps'' series and other young-adult horror. - WENDY MORRIS
Mary Sutton Skutt is a Lexington writer.
Sidney Barritt is a Roanoke physician.
Wendy Morris lives with her husband, her cat and a growing number of books.
LENGTH: Long : 206 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: headshot of McNamaraby CNBbook covers of Stellaluna and Iron Lace