I thought the most interesting thing about it was the personal character development of Macnamara himself. His history, from whiz kid to war monger to old man apologist trying to right his place in history and potentially with his maker. Lots of guilt there. It's an amazing character study.
I agree, but did he really become a war monger or "bad guy"? A lot of his studies did end up causing massive amounts of harm and he was the SOD during the Vietnam war but in many of the recordings he wasn't outspoken in any opinion. He said to LBJ that they needed to scale back the troops in Vietnam , LBJ disagreed, and so McNamara ended up going with the presidents opinion. I think he was more walking a very fine line than anything else. Am I holding McNamara in a high regard? Yeah and that's probably causing me to overlook some points made in the documentary about him being a war monger. Maybe you can point some out to me that I forgot.
But declassified records from the Lyndon Johnson Library indicated that McNamara misled Johnson on the attack on a U.S. Navy destroyer by withholding calls against executing airstrikes from US Pacific Commanders. Instead, McNamara issued the strike orders without informing Johnson of the hold calls, constituting a usurping of the president’s constitutional power of decision on the use of military force.[26] McNamara was also instrumental in presenting the event to Congress and the public as justification for escalation of the war against the communists. The Vietnam War came to claim most of McNamara's time and energy.During the Kennedy administration, the U.S. military advisory group in South Vietnam steadily increased, with McNamara's concurrence, from 900 to 16,000.[22] U.S. involvement escalated after the Gulf of Tonkin incidents in August 1964, involving an attack on a U.S. Navy destroyer by North Vietnamese naval vessels.[25]
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Exactly. But the film shows what he (RM) chooses for us to see. Morris just throws a camera in front of him and lets him talk. It's up to you as the viewer to know some history. Combine those two things, the documented history of events vs RM's self-preservation like biographical account and you've got a really compelling film.
mk pointed out that we've discussed this film on Hubski, tangentially, years ago. b_b, you should chime in on this discussion, you're a big Errol Morris fan. Thoughts?