Conversations with History: Robert S. mcnamara
March 11, 2010 by biotechconnection.com · 25 Comments
Robert S. mcnamara, former Secretary of Defense and former President of the World Bank reminisces with host Harry Kreisler about public service, the War in Vietnam, znc the dangers of the superpower confrontation during the Cold War. Series: Conversations with History [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 7131]
Small minded people like mcnamara do not understand that a PUBLIC SERVICE job is meant to serve the best needs of the public.. When taking on the Sec of Def. position he used it to best suit himself and his wants/needs.. Hence his abismal failure.. Works in business, but not in public service..
I have mixed feelings about McNamera. You can probably make a compelling case that he was war criminal becuase he was feeding people other information that was untrue. Clearly, McNamera was a very bright guy, who knows why he lied so badly. Such a shame.
you mean you won’t force the rest of us to live as communists?
McNamara was a great businessman but he was a horrific secretary of state. He was not a politician.
excellent worker!
Why would you care if people want to live communally with each other?
I spit on communism.
@happydeerSnake one of the greatest americans
I imagine he saw through the Cheney-Wolfivitz-Bush-Media-lets bomb Iraq blitz of ‘03. I wonder if anyone listened?
A great man.
One who can realised his own mistake and make changes.
One who is able to speak up his mind ….
Rest in peace Robert.
Have you seen the fog of war?
When was this interview?
I was at an oil industry conference ten years ago where mcnamara was speaking and this guy knew more about the industry than most of the people in the room. I was not alive during vietnam or the crazy 60’s but I believe if Kennedy left McNamara at Ford he would have been the greatest CEO in history.
B.This NEVER NEVER NEVER can do good to Americans who are too innocent to put an end to the self-defeating strategy of military violence as the sole driver of economic stability. Scrap Stanford, Harvard and similar moron pseudo economists.
Capitalism/ communism, dictatorship / democracy, human rights/ unjust governance, … these and other national issues are internationalizes by the successive US govt’s as a pretext for massive American military engagement to keep American weapons producers and armed forces busy, as economic strategy. .
You may have a point.
i’ll drink to your middle school graduation instead.
go to hell, you silly popinjay
shut up, peckerwood.
Brainy people usually come to occupy high offices everywhere. But, to occupy such offices, they can’t afford to have heart. They rationalize all the colossal sins they instigate or decide to commit on masses of people. War which was an affair bet.two military forces, has been made genocide in most cases including innocent civilians. EDUCATION FROM UNIVERSITIES WITH LIQUOR HALLS IN THE MIDDLE CANNOT PRODUCE EDUCATED MEN WITH CHARACTER.This is esply.true of the US and many European countries.
it would have been much worse if he wasn’t a participant.
McNamara was a good guy who was caught up in the cold war, plain and simple. Was he responsible, at least in part, for ‘Nam? Sure. Was LBJ the REAL guilty party? you bet yer ass he was. You should also hammer Kissinger and Nixon just as hard, they were, after all, in power for 5 years more of ‘Nam after Mac left.
Robert McNamara, Kennedies and anyone who made decision about Vietnam war should be damned in hell. They wasted 50K America soldiers, injured several hundred thousands others. That’s not included 3 million Vietnamese lifes and millions more injured in the war, crippled due to orange agent… The suffering list was endless. They were war criminals. They should be hanged like Japan and Nazi war criminals after World war II no lesss.
“liberalism” and “consevatism” have changed meaning so many times over the last 200 years that they are now only the intellectual tools of the brainwashed.
Some people see the country falling apart due to a corrupt and reckless political class and some think everything is hunky dory. If you think it was hunky dory fo LBJ and Mcnamara to run a fraudulent war, lying to the public about the Gulf of Tonkin and USS Liberty and calling the planes back so the Israelis could kill more sailors …
He called the planes back(planes that would have chased the Israelis away…it was an order. Then he lied about what happened. Why did he go along with this? I don’t know.