McNamara discusses the lessons of Vietnam
America's ignorance of the peoples and cultures of the rest of the world
not
only played a large part in the critical mistakes the country made in the
Vietnam War, but also continues to hamper the country's ability to
conduct
sound foreign and military policy, according to former Secretary of
Defense
Robert McNamara. TThe country's longest-serving defense secretary
(1961-68),
McNamara discussed his new book, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and
Lessons of
Vietnam, at The Carter Center on May 3. he event was sponsored by the
Jimmy
Carter Library and Museum, Oxford Book Store and Times Book Publishers.
Although McNamara's principle revelation in the book is his belief that
American involvement in Vietnam was a tragic mistake, he also said that
Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson and their cabinet
advisers
cannot be faulted "in terms of their ability. They were the best and the
brightest of their time," McNamara said. "But if a president doesn't have
a
depth of knowledge of the rest of the world, he must surround himself
with
people who do. We don't know the rest of the world. We didn't know Iraq
in
1991." After the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, McNamara said, most
American
leaders and a majority of the people came to believe that communism in
southeast Asia had to be contained in order to avoid a nuclear war with
the
former Soviet Union. McNamara said he believes that had Kennedy not been
assassinated in 1963 he would have eventually pulled American troops out
of
Vietnam.