THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, April 15, 1995 TAG: 9504150301
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: FROM WIRE REPORTS
LENGTH: Long : 119 lines
Robert S. McNamara's recently expressed regrets about U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War seem to be reopening wounds and reviving a raw debate that was beginning to slip into history.
Criticism has come from just about every quarter: combat veterans, former colleagues, hawks, doves and, of course, children of the 1960s, who took to the streets and to the grounds outside the defense secretary's Pentagon window to protest ``McNamara's War.''
In particular, many veterans bitterly fault McNamara for his most striking admission: that he knew as early as 1967 that involvement in the conflict was a catastrophic mistake, but could not bring himself to say so until now.
``It sure would have been helpful in May of 1967, when I volunteered for Vietnam, if he had said then that the war was unwinnable,'' said Max Cleland, who lost his legs in Vietnam and later served as head of the Veterans Administration.
``The title of his book should be `Sorry 'Bout That,' '' Cleland, who is now Georgia's secretary of state, added, dredging up an old ``grunt'' phrase of cynical resignation and frustration.
McNamara said on ABC-TV's ``Nightline'' program this week that fear that a misstep could bring on World War III was what caused him to be silent about Vietnam even when he concluded that the war was unwinnable.
``We were wrong, terribly wrong,'' McNamara wrote in his new book, ``In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam.''
But McNamara offered no direct reply to critics who said he had a moral obligation to state his misgivings about a military solution after he left office.
Similar criticism of McNamara and his revisonist view came from Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a former Navy pilot who was held for seven years in a Hanoi cell, and tortured by the North Vietnamese.
``I think it's about 25 years too late to save those Americans who would be alive if he hadn't pursued a policy that was doomed to failure,'' McCain said.
McCain spoke in a phone interview from Hanoi. He was there on a special mission to recover remains of dead Americans and to urge restoration of diplomatic relations.
``I can only assume,'' he said, ``that McNamara's doing it now because he's trying to assume some place in history. What that place would be, I don't know, unless it would be as one of the architects of a policy that doomed more than 40,000 American young people and caused a division in our country. That's McNamara's legacy.'' New Book does more harm than good, one veteran says
Martin Kaplan of Seattle, sent to Vietnam in 1969, is still angry about the war, and the McNamara book has only exacerbated that anger.
``I don't see McNamara's revelations doing any good for anyone,'' he said as he and several other veterans sat together, watching the former defense secretary discuss his book on TV's ``Prime Time Live'' Wednesday night.
``There's a sense of betrayal. To him it was just all an intellectual exercise. And he was called one of the best and brightest?''
Most of the other veterans sitting with Kaplan also expressed anger about McNamara's belated revelation about his true thoughts on the war. But then, with some wiping away tears as the former secretary spoke, himself in tears, the veterans offered an unusual perspective, one that was not forgiving but was nevertheless understanding.
``We're seeing another Vietnam veteran dealing with his grief and guilt,'' said Lee Raaen, a former Army draftee who was sent to Vietnam in 1970 and now is a Seattle lawyer. ``But I suppose I could say, from a historical standpoint, `It's about time.' ''
One of the few government leaders from the Vietnam era to speak up in McNamara's defense was McGeorge Bundy, who was a national security adviser at the White House in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.
``An excellent book, a very valuable one, a great contribution,'' he said.
But should it have been written sooner?
``That's a funny ex post facto judgment,'' Bundy replied. ``We are lucky to have the book now. It is understandable that it took this time to write the book. He was a very busy man 20 years ago.'' Robert McNamara's wish: that history not repeat itself
McNamara, now 78 and retired from a lengthy stint as president of the World Bank, contends as he makes the rounds of talk shows and book signings that his book is not a work of redemption. Already in its second printing after an initial run of 80,000 copies, it is meant, he says, to make people think and debate so that history does not repeat itself.
That contention has done little to silence his critics. In fact, even some formerly close colleagues and policymakers in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations are speaking out about him.
Theirs is a more gentle criticism, much of it tinged with disappointment that McNamara somehow has abandoned the cause that was in good part his creation.
``He obviously has something to get off his chest, but this is not the McNamara I did business with,'' said retired Gen. William Westmoreland, the top U.S. commander in Saigon for much of the war. ``None of this ever came up, never was indicated to me. Recall that we went into Vietnam promising we would bear any price, any burden to bolster the Vietnamese to self-sufficiency and we almost did until Congress cut us off. You can't turn your back on a promise like that. I think McNamara should be reminded of that.''
And what of the Vietnamese, especially those from the South whom McNamara tried to save? What do they think of his book?
One refugee from Saigon, Tony Lam, who fled the southern capital just before it fell in 1975 and eventually found refuge in Southern California, believes McNamara is terribly wrong on one important revisionist change of mind.
Lam takes unyielding issue with the former defense secretary's 1995 conclusion that the North Vietnamese leaders were primarily nationalists, not communists. He says McNamara had it right in the 1960s when he was arguing, passionately, that they were hard-line communists.
Still, Lam, now a city councilman in Westminister, Calif., has sympathy for McNamara and the torment that drove him to finally write his book.
``I praise his courage for admitting his mistakes,'' Lam said. ILLUSTRATION: Associated Press color photo
Criticism of former Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara has been
strong and widespread.
KEYWORDS: VIETNAM WAR by CNB