1. A Review of Robert S. McNamara’s In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of
Vietnam
By Oleg Nekrassovski
The present paper is a review of McNamara’s memoir, In Retrospect. It will first take a
brief look at this book’s purpose, main ideas and aims, together with some relevant background
and evaluation. This will be followed by the summary of the book’s main points. And the final
section of the paper will evaluate the book’s contents, focusing on such things as the academic
quality of the book, what relevant information it has left out, what new information it has
added to the subject, and which information in it is unconvincing.
McNamara states that the purpose of his book is to explore, and explain to the
American people, why the US “government and its leaders behaved as they did” with regards to
the Vietnam War, “and what we may learn from that experience.”1
One of the main aims of McNamara’s book is to explore how the exceptionally selected
group consisting of him and his associates in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations,
managed to get it all wrong, with regards to Vietnam.2
However, even though McNamara thinks
that he and his associates were wrong, he claims that they “made an error not of values and
intentions but of judgment and capabilities.”3
According to Draper,Eisenhower (the first president who showed strong interest in
Vietnam), as well as his successors, Kennedy and Johnson (who seriously got involved in
Vietnam, and under whom McNamara served his term) believed in two incompatible ideas.4
One was the unsubstantiated ‘domino theory,’ according to which the loss of South Vietnam to
the Communists, will lead to the rest of the non-communist Asian countries, succumbing to
Communism. So the United States had to intervene militarily if it wanted to stop the global
spread of Communism.5
At the same time, the three consecutive presidents also believed that
victory in South Vietnam ultimately depends on the South Vietnamese themselves, and thus
requires a strong internal political leadership. So, if this required leadership is lacking (as was in
fact the case throughout the Vietnam War), the war, against the fall of South Vietnam into
Communist hands, is unwinnable and, presumably, should be given up.6
Perhaps not
surprisingly, McNamara also believed in these two incompatible ideas for most of his term as
the Secretary of Defense, and this, according to Draper, instantly tells us a lot about his book.7
Other key aims of McNamara’s book include a desire “to show the full range of
pressures” experienced by the US government at the time, and the lack of knowledge among
defense officials about the situation in Vietnam; 8
as well as to see what can be taken away
from the lessons of Vietnam “that is constructive and applicable to the world of today and
tomorrow.”9
Finally McNamara claims and promises to show in his book that “One reason the
Kennedy and Johnson administrations failed to take an orderly, rational approach to the basic

2. questions underlying Vietnam was the staggering variety and complexity of other issues” they
were facing at the same time.10
In Retrospect opens up with a short sketch of McNamara’s early life, from his birth to
the day he became the secretary of defense in the Kennedy administration. It recounts the
events leading up to this post, and the beliefs and values McNamara claims he brought along. It
continues with a description of decisions relating to Vietnam that were made by the Kennedy
administration since the first days of its operation up to, and including, the time of the political
crisis in Saigon in the summer of 1963. Along the way, several of the administration’s
assumptions, behind its decisions leading to an increase in US involvement in Vietnam, are
described. Two of these assumptions are particularly stressed; in no small part because they
contradict each other. While one of them states that the security of the West will be
threatened if South Vietnam will be conquered by the Communists, the other counters by
asserting that the involvement of the US military in Vietnam should be limited to providing
training and logistical support to the South Vietnamese forces.
The book continues, chronologically, by describing Kennedy’s administration during the
second half of 1963, while focusing on two important events that took place during that time
period. The first is South Vietnam president Diem’s overthrow and assassination. The second is
Kennedy’s October 2nd
decision to begin the withdrawal of US forces from Vietnam.
Next, a few trivial events, surrounding Kennedy’s assassination, are described; followed
by speculations on what could have happened differently, in Vietnam, had Kennedy lived. The
book continues with a description of the gradual slide into deeper US involvement in Vietnam in
the first eight months under Johnson administration. Along the way it explains that one of the
reasons for the deeper American involvement in Vietnam, during that time, was the chaotic
political situation in Saigon that followed Diem’s death and a growing demand for more direct
action by the US military in Vietnam.
The book moves on to describing the events surrounding the Tonkin Gulf incident,
especially the relevant actions of the Johnson administration, the quick and overwhelming
Congressional approval of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, and the Resolution’s subsequent misuse
by Johnson and Nixon. This is followed by a description of the dilemma, experienced by the
Johnson administration in the second half of 1964, between avoiding the loss of South Vietnam
to the Communists and avoiding directly involving the US military into the conflict. Along the
way it is related how this dilemma led to deep divisions within the American government. It is
further described how this dilemma soon led to two distasteful alternatives, at the start of
1965. One of these alternatives consisted of focusing all resources on negotiations, to preserve
South Vietnam as is, without increasing US military risks. The second alternative, which soon
received a widespread support within the Johnson administration, consisted of escalating the
war in Vietnam.

3. The subsequent section of the book describes the first half of 1965, during which the
action of US forces in Vietnam was rapidly escalated. The book argues that this change was
responsible for the destruction of Johnson’s presidency and the creation of deep divisions
among Americans, unlike anything since the Civil War. Hence, at the same time, the book
explores how this happened; how the Johnson administration arguably failed to foresee the
consequences of its actions; and what perceptions, judgments, hopes, and fears, whether
accurate or inaccurate, shaped the administration’s thinking and actions on the matter.
Be as it may, the book further relates how in the second half of 1965, the various
problems and limitations, undermining the increased American military effort in Vietnam,
started to become apparent. This led to proposals for further escalating the war, which, when
carried out, proved their ineffectiveness and only increased the desire for a diplomatic
resolution of the war. This soon led to a month-long, highly controversial, bombing pause at the
end of 1965, to show to North Vietnam that the US was willing to negotiate. The strategy did
not work out, however, and 1966 started with pressures to continue to widen the war.
The book next describes how throughout 1966 and the first third of 1967, the war effort
and its casualties increased substantially; debates, in the US government, over bombing,
ground strategy, and pacification, became more frequent and more heated, putting ever
greater pressure on the Johnson administration. In response to these pressures, three further
attempts to start negotiations, which McNamara describes as “amateurish,” failed. The final
noteworthy event, of this period, was General Westmoreland’s (the leader of the US ground
forces in Vietnam, at the time) yet another request to increase the levels of US troops in
Vietnam. Even though public support for the war still remained strong, during this period,
public opposition to the war and a gap between the views of McNamara and the president, on
the war, began to grow.
McNamara next relates how on May 19, 1967, he submitted a memorandum to
Johnson, which stated that the US forces cannot win in Vietnam. According to McNamara, this
memorandum proved to be highly controversial. It led to an intensification of an already strong
debate, within the administration, on the American role in Vietnam. It also caused the almost
hostile Senate hearings which pitted the Joint Chiefs of Staff against McNamara on the question
of utility or disutility of US bombing campaigns in Vietnam. And it led to an ever greater
increase in disagreements, on the question of Vietnam, between McNamara and Johnson.
However, the difference in opinion, between McNamara and Johnson, on how to best proceed
with the war, reached its limits after McNamara sent another “antiwar” memorandum to the
president on November 1st
, 1967.
Along the way, the book also describes how between McNamara’s May 19, 1967
memorandum and his last day as the Secretary of Defense on February 29, 1968, the US
government was overwhelmed by a mixture of other international and domestic crises. The list
includes an attempt by angry antiwar protestors to shut down the Pentagon; major US cities

4. being beset by racial riots; and the Arab-Israeli war which necessitated the first use of the
Moscow-Washington “hot line.”
The book ends with reflections on the Vietnam War. In particular, it looks at whether
the US military intervention in Vietnam, was a wise move in the first place; what mistakes were
made during the course of that intervention; and what lessons can be learned out of those
mistakes and applied to the present and future policy making.
In Retrospect, in spite of being a memoir, must be of higher academic quality than most
such memoirs, for the simple reasons that, while writing it, McNamara did not rely on his
memory, and instead “consulted the documentary record, examining the vast quantity of
recently declassified materials and some sources not yet available to historians, such as
Johnson's tape-recorded phone conversations.”11
He also collaborated with the historian Brian
VanDeMark, who helped him obtain and analyze the many relevant historical documents, to
make sure McNamara’s memoir accurately describes all the relevant historical events.12
However, according to Draper, despite being a memoir, In Retrospect, “does not always
represent fully what” McNamara “thought or did during his period in office.” Moreover, it does
not tell the readers all they need to know about the war, because it doesn’t say much about the
ground battles or the local situation in South Vietnam, except as they relate to the book’s main
subject.13
However, Draper praises the book for enabling us to see the Vietnam War as it was
fought and lost on the Washington’s battleground; if only because the portrait of the presidents
that McNamara served, and their inner circle, has much to teach us.14
Despite all these efforts, or, according to Herring, because of them, McNamara’s book
“reveals little on the interaction of personalities in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations,
the decision-making process, or the conflict with the military and Joint Chiefs of Staff that raged
throughout his tenure and reached a crisis point in late 1967.”15
However, In Retrospect does
add new information to the subject. It sheds “new light on the origins of the bombing halt of
late 1965.”16
It provides new details about how and why McNamara started the Pentagon
Papers project; while presenting “some illuminating personal insights, especially on his growing
disillusionment with the war.” It also “provides important new examples of the way Johnson in
the last years of his presidency squelched internal dissent.”17
However, McNamara’s occasional attempts to be apologetic obscure a number of key
facts and common arguments about the Vietnam War. “He continues to insist that the alleged
second Gulf of Tonkin attack of August 4, 1964, "appears probable but not certain" yet presents
no new evidence.”18
He defends the heavily criticized “body count as a measure of progress in
the war yet rejects charges that he was a mindless number cruncher.” Finally, he claims that
“the much-criticized McNamara line, his project for an electronic barrier, helped reduce North
Vietnamese infiltration into South Vietnam.”19
McNamara stresses in his book that the sources of all US failures in Vietnam were the
absence of American experts on Vietnamese politics and culture, and the large number of other

5. problems faced by the US government at the same time, and hence limited time available for
thinking about Vietnam, leading to rushed decision making. It is doubtful, however, that the
picture was so simple. After all according to the 1968 testimony of the former National Security
Council official James C. Thomson, Jr., “even the available expertise was difficult to get to the
top. And when it got to the top it was ignored.”20
Even McNamara incidentally admits this
problem in his book, by recalling how the dissenting views, of the Undersecretary of State
George Ball, were termed “Eurocentric” and promptly dismissed.21
Moreover, the policy, of
global containment of Communism, was accepted for more than two decades, without serious
questions, by most Americans in and out of government. “Even those who had time to think,
intellectuals, for example, shared this view, as did most experts.”22
Hilsman’s view of the book is even more critical. In fact, according to Hilsman,
“McNamara twists the truth, falsely accuses others, and soils the historical record.”23
He takes
full credit for “many policy decisions that were in fact joint decisions and brags” a lot about
them.24
One of Hilsman’s examples of this, in McNamara’s book, is Kennedy administration’s
new approach to US nuclear strategy aimed at reducing the risks of nuclear war, which involved
shifting the defense doctrine from overreliance on nuclear weapons, in the case on an outside
attack, to a more flexible approach equally adept at responding with more conventional
weapons. “While it is true that McNamara adopted and developed the idea, it had originated in
academia and on Capitol Hill (where Kennedy had a lot to do with it) while McNamara was still
making Ford automobiles and had little if any knowledge of military strategy.”25
And in
response to McNamara’s claim that one of the key causes of US failures in Vietnam was the
absence of American experts on Vietnamese and Chinese politics and culture, Hilsman states
that “the United States government had a large number of such experts. The State Department
alone had at least a dozen.”26
Thus, In Retrospect is clearly not the best book for a serious student of American
involvement in Vietnam. However, it is an easy read, made entertaining by the fact that its
many historical accounts are interspersed with McNamara’s many personal vignettes (also of
questionable validity). Hence, the book makes a fairly good, widely accessible, introduction to
this important period in the history of US foreign policy.

6. Notes
1. Robert S. McNamara with Brian VanDeMark, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons
of Vietnam (New York: Times Books, 1995), xv.
2. Ibid., xv.
3. Ibid., xvi.
4. Theodore Draper, “McNamara’s Peace,” review of In Retrospect: The Tragedy and
Lessons of Vietnam, by Robert S. McNamara, with Brian VanDeMark, New York Review, May 11,
1995, http://dingo.sbs.arizona.edu/~ggoertz/pol202/draper1995.pdf.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Robert S. McNamara with Brian VanDeMark, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons
of Vietnam (New York: Times Books, 1995), xvi.
9. Ibid., xvii.
10. Ibid., xvii.
11. George C. Herring,“The Wrong Kind of Loyalty- McNamara'sApologyfor Vietnam,”
review of In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, by Robert S. McNamara, with
Brian VanDeMark, Foreign Affairs, May/June 1995,
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/50985/george-c-herring/the-wrong-kind-of-loyalty-
mcnamara-s-apology-for-vietnam.
12. Ibid.
13. Theodore Draper, “McNamara’s Peace,” review of In Retrospect: The Tragedy and
Lessons of Vietnam, by Robert S. McNamara, with Brian VanDeMark, New York Review, May 11,
1995, http://dingo.sbs.arizona.edu/~ggoertz/pol202/draper1995.pdf.
14. Ibid.
15. George C. Herring,“The Wrong Kind of Loyalty- McNamara'sApologyfor Vietnam,”
review of In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, by Robert S. McNamara, with
Brian VanDeMark, Foreign Affairs, May/June 1995,
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/50985/george-c-herring/the-wrong-kind-of-loyalty-
mcnamara-s-apology-for-vietnam.
16. Ibid.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid.

7. 23. Roger Hilsman, “McNamara's War--Against the Truth: A Review Essay,” Political
Science Quarterly 111 (1996): 151-63.
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid.

8. Bibliography
Draper, Theodore. “McNamara’s Peace.” Review of In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of
Vietnam, by Robert S. McNamara, with Brian VanDeMark. New York Review, May 11,
1995. http://dingo.sbs.arizona.edu/~ggoertz/pol202/draper1995.pdf.
Herring, George C. “The WrongKind of Loyalty - McNamara'sApologyfor Vietnam.” Review of In
Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, by Robert S. McNamara, with Brian
VanDeMark. Foreign Affairs, May/June 1995.
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/50985/george-c-herring/the-wrong-kind-of-
loyalty-mcnamara-s-apology-for-vietnam.
Hilsman, Roger. “McNamara's War--Against the Truth: A Review Essay.” Political Science
Quarterly 111 (1996): 151-63.
McNamara, Robert S., with Brian VanDeMark. In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of
Vietnam. New York: Times Books, 1995.