All language subtitles for The.Fog.of.War.2003.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.x264-ABM_track2_eng

[TEST TONE AND NOISE
FROM MICROPHONE]

[CHATTERING]

Is this chart at
a reasonable height for you?

Or do you want it lowered?

MAN:
A little bit more
in the middle.

MAN 2: Fine.
All right.

Earlier tonight--

Let me first ask the TV.
Are you ready?

All set?

[**]

[INDISTINCT RADIO CHATTER]

[RADIO CHATTER CONTINUES]

MCNAMARA:
Let me hear your voice level,
to make sure it's the same.

MORRIS:
Okay, how's my voice level?

MCNAMARA: That's fine.
MORRIS: Terrific.

Now, I remember exactly
the sentence I left off on.

I remember how it started,

and I was cut off in
the middle.

But, you can fix it
up someway.

I don't want to go back--
introduce the sentence,

because I know exactly
what I wanted to say.

MORRIS: Go ahead!
Okay.

Any military commander
who is honest with himself,

or with those he's
speaking to will admit

that he has made mistakes

in the application
of military power.

He's killed people,
unnecessarily.

His own troops
or other troops.

Through mistakes,
through errors of judgment.

A hundred, or thousands,
or tens of thousands,

maybe even 100,000.

But he hasn't
destroyed nations.

And the conventional wisdom is

don't make
the same mistake twice.

Learn from your mistakes.

And we all do.

Maybe we make
the same mistake three times,

but hopefully
not four or five.

There'll be no learning period
with nuclear weapons.

Make one mistake and you're
gonna destroy nations.

MCNAMARA:
In my life,
I've been part of wars.

Three years in the U.S. Army
during World War II.

Seven years as
secretary of defense

during the Vietnam War.

Thirteen years at the
World Bank. Across the world.

At my age, 85,

I'm at an age
where I can look back

and derive some conclusions
about my actions.

My rule has been,
"try to learn."

Try to understand
what happened.

Develop the lessons
and pass them on.

HARRY REASONER:
This is
the Secretary of Defense

of the United States,
Robert McNamara.

His department absorbs
10 percent

of the national income
of this country

and over half of every
tax dollar.

His job has been called
the toughest in Washington,

and McNamara is the most
controversial figure

that has ever held the job.

Walter Lippmann calls him

not only the best
secretary of defense,

but the first one who ever
asserted civilian control

over the military.

His critics call him a
"con man,"

"an IBM machine with legs"

"an arrogant dictator."

INTERVIEWER:
Mr. Secretary, I've noticed
in several cabinet offices...

that little silver calendar
thing there.

Can you explain that?

MCNAMARA:
Yes, this was given
by President Kennedy.

On the calendar are engraved
the dates: October 16,

17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23,

24, 25, 26, 27, and finally
28, were the dates when we

literally looked down
the gun barrel

into nuclear war.

[GEARS CLICK]

MCNAMARA:
Under our cloak of deceit

the Soviet Union introduced
nuclear missiles...

into Cuba,

targeting 90 million
Americans.

The CIA said the warheads
had not been delivered yet.

They thought 20 were coming
on a ship named the Poltava.

We mobilized 180,000 troops.

The first day's air attack
was planned at
1080 sorties...

a huge air attack.

MCNAMARA:
Kennedy was trying
to keep us out of war.

I was trying to help him
keep us out of war.

And General Curtis LeMay,
whom I served under,

as a matter of fact,
in World War II, was saying:

"Let's go in.
Let's totally destroy Cuba."

On that critical Saturday,
October 27th,

we had two Khrushchev
messages in front of us.

One had come in Friday night,
and it had been dictated

by a man who was either drunk,
or under tremendous stress.

Basically, he said,
"If you'll guarantee you
won't invade Cuba

we'll take the missiles out."

Then, before we could
respond, we had a
second message

that had been dictated
by a bunch of hard-liners.

And it said, in effect,
"If you attack...

we're prepared...

to confront you with
masses of military power."

So, what to do?
We had the--

I'll call it the soft message
and the hard message.

At the elbow of President
Kennedy was Tommy Thompson,

former U.S. ambassador
to Moscow.

He and Jane, his wife, had
literally lived
with Khrushchev

and his wife upon occasion.

Tommy Thompson said,
"Mr. President

I urge you to respond
to the soft message."

The president said to Tommy,

"We can't do that.
That'll get us nowhere."

Tommy said,
"Mr. President,
you're wrong."

Now, that takes a
lot of guts.

In Thompson's mind
was this thought:

"Khrushchev's gotten
himself in a hell of a fix."

He would then
think to himself,

"My God,
if I can get out of this

with a deal that I can say
to the Russian people:

'Kennedy was going to destroy
Castro and I prevented it.'"

Thompson, knowing Khrushchev
as he did, thought:

"Khrushchev will accept that."

And Thompson was right.

That's what I call empathy.

We must try to put ourselves
inside their skin

and look at us
through their eyes,

just to understand
the thoughts

that lie behind their
decisions and their actions.

[SPEAKS RUSSIAN]

Khrushchev's advisors
were saying:

"There can be no deal

"unless you somewhat
reduce the pressure on us

when you ask us to reduce
the pressure on you."

MORRIS:
Also, we had attempted
to invade Cuba.

Well, with the Bay of Pigs.

That undoubtedly influenced
their thinking.

I think that's correct.

But more importantly,

from a Cuban and a Russian
point of view,

they knew what, in a sense,
I really didn't know.

We had attempted
to assassinate Castro

under Eisenhower
and under Kennedy,

and later, under Johnson.

And in addition to that,

major voices in the U.S.
were calling for invasion.

In the first message,
Khrushchev said this:

"We and you ought not pull
on the ends of a rope,

"which you have tied
the knots of war.

"Because the more
the two of us pull,

"the tighter the knot
will be tied.

"And then it will be
necessary to cut that knot,

"and what that would mean is
not for me to explain to you.

"I have participated in two
wars and know that war ends,

"when it has rolled through
cities and villages

"everywhere sowing
death and destruction.

"For such is the
logic of war.

"If people do not
display wisdom,

"they will clash like
blind moles

and then mutual annihilation
will commence."

I want to say,
and this is very important:

At the end, we lucked out.

It was luck that prevented
nuclear war.

We came that close
to nuclear war at the end.

Rational individuals.
Kennedy was rational.

Khrushchev was rational.
Castro was rational.

Rational individuals
came that close

to total destruction
of their societies.

And that danger exists today.

The major lesson of the
Cuban Missile Crisis is this:

The indefinite combination
of human fallibility

and nuclear weapons
will destroy nations.

Is it right and proper
that today

there are 7500 strategic
offensive nuclear warheads

of which 2500
are on 15-minute alert,

to be launched by
the decision of one
human being?

It wasn't until
January, 1992,

in a meeting chaired
by Castro in Havana, Cuba,

that I learned
162 nuclear warheads,

including 90 tactical
warheads, were on the island
at the time

in this critical moment
of the crisis.

Uh...

I couldn't believe
what I was hearing

and Castro got very angry
with me, because I said:

"Mr. President,
let's stop this meeting.

"This is totally new to me.

I'm not sure I got the
translation right."

"Mr. President,
I have three questions to you.

"Number one, did you know
the nuclear warheads
were there?

"Number two, if you did,

"would you have recommended
to Khrushchev

"in the face of a U.S. attack,
that he use them?

"Number three,
if he had used them,

what would've happened
to Cuba?"

He said, "Number one,
I knew they were there.

"Number two, I would not have
recommended to Khrushchev.

"I did recommend to Khrushchev
that they be used.

"Number three, what would
have happened to Cuba?

It would've been
totally destroyed."

That's how close we were.

MORRIS:
And he was willing
to accept that?

Yes--
Oh, and he went on to say:

"Mr. McNamara,
if you and President Kennedy

"had been in
a similar situation,

that's what you
would've done."

I said, "Mr. President,
I hope to God

we would not have done it."

Pull the temple down
on our heads? My God!

In a sense, we'd won.

We got the missiles
out without war.

My deputy and I brought
the five chiefs over

and we sat down with Kennedy.

And he said,
"Gentlemen, we won.

"I don't want you ever
to say it,

but you know we won,
I know we won."

And LeMay said,
"Won? Hell, we lost!

We should go in
and wipe them out today."

[LAUGHS]

LeMay believed that
ultimately

we're going
to confront these people

in a conflict
with nuclear weapons.

And by God...

we better do it when we have
greater superiority

than we will have
in the future.

At the time, we had a 17-to-1

strategic advantage
in nuclear numbers.

We'd done 10 times
as many tests as they had.

We were certain we could
retain that advantage

if we limited the tests.
The chiefs were all opposed.

They said,
"The Soviets will cheat."

Well, I said,
"How will they cheat?"

You won't believe this,
but they said:

"They'll test them
behind the moon."

I said,
"You're out of your mind."

I--
That's absurd.

It's almost impossible
for our people today

to put themselves back
into that period.

In my seven years
as secretary,

we came within a hairsbreadth
of war with the Soviet Union

on three different occasions.

Twenty-four hours a day,
365 days a year,

for seven years as
secretary of defense,

I lived the Cold War.

During the Kennedy
administration,

they designed
a 100-megaton bomb.

It was tested
in the atmosphere.

I remember this.

Cold War?
Hell, it was a hot war.

I think the human race needs
to think more about killing,

about conflict.

Is that what we want
in this 21st century?

My earliest memory is
of a city exploding with joy.

It was November 11, 1918.
I was 2 years old.

You may not believe that
I have the memory, but I do.

I remember the tops
of the streetcars

being crowded
with human beings

cheering and kissing
and screaming.

End of World War I.
We'd won.

But also celebrating
the belief

of many Americans,
particularly Woodrow Wilson,

we'd fought a war
to end all wars.

His dream was

that the world could avoid
great wars in the future.

Disputes among great nations
would be resolved.

I also remember

that I wasn't allowed
to go outdoors

to play with my friends,

without wearing a mask.

There was an ungodly
flu epidemic.

Large numbers of Americans
were dying, 600,000.

And millions across
the world.

My class in the first grade

was housed in a shack,
a wooden shack.

But we had an absolutely
superb teacher.

And this teacher gave a test
to the class every month,

and she re-seated the class

based on the results
of that test.

There were vertical rows,

and she put the person
with the highest grade

in the first seat
on the left-hand row.

And I worked my tail off
to be in that first seat.

Now, the majority of the
classmates were whites,

Caucasians, so on.

WASPs, if you will.

But my competition
for that first seat

were Chinese,
Japanese and Jews.

On Saturday and Sunday,

I went and played
with my classmates.

They went to their
ethnic schools.

They learned their
native language.

They learned their
culture, their history.

And they came back determined
on Monday

to beat that damn Irishman.

But they didn't do it
very often.

One congressman called you

"Mr. I-Have-All-The-Answers
McNamara."

And there's been suggestion
from some congressmen

that you come up there,

in spite of the weight
of their experience,

prepared to give them simple
little lessons in things.

Is that your attitude?

No. Perhaps they don't know
how much I don't know.

And there is much indeed.

I do make a serious effort

to prepare myself properly

for these
congressional discussions.

I suppose I spend, perhaps,
100 or 120 hours

in testifying before
Congress each year.

And each hour
of testimony requires,

uh, three to four hours
of preparation.

REASONER:
What about the contention

that your attitude
is sometimes arrogant?

That you'd never admit
you were wrong.

Have you ever been wrong, sir?

Oh, yes, indeed.
My heavens.

I'm not gonna tell you
when I've been wrong.

If you don't know,
I'm not going to tell you.

Oh, on countless occasions.

I applied
to Stanford University.

I very much wanted to go.

But I couldn't afford it,

so I lived at home
and I went to Berkeley.

Fifty-two dollars
a year tuition.

I started Berkeley at the
bottom of the Depression.

Twenty-five million males
were unemployed.

Out of that class of 3500

three elected to
Phi Beta Kappa at the
end of sophomore year.

Of those three, one became
a Rhodes Scholar,

I went to Harvard

the third went to work
for $65 a month

and was damn happy
to have the job.

The society was on
the verge of, uh...

I don't want to say
revolution.

Although, had Roosevelt not
done some of the
things he did

it could've become
far more violent.

In any event, that was
what I was thrown into.

I never heard
of Plato and Aristotle

before I became
a freshman at Berkeley.

And I remember the professor,
Lowenberg,

the freshman
philosophy professor--

I couldn't wait
to go to another class.

I took more philosophy
courses, particularly one
in logic

and one in ethics.

Stress on values,

something beyond one's self

and a responsibility
to society.

After graduating
University of California

I went to Harvard Graduate
School of Business

for two years,

and then I went back
to San Francisco.

I began to court this
young lady

that I'd met when we were 17

in our first week
at Berkeley:

Margaret Craig.

And I was making some
progress after eight or
nine months.

I proposed and she accepted.

She went with her
aunt and her mother

on a trip across the country.

She telegraphed me,
"Must order engraved
invitations

to include your middle name,
what is it?"

I wired back,
"My middle name is Strange."

She said, "I know it's
strange, but what is it?"

Well, I mean, it is Strange.
It's Robert Strange McNamara.

And it was a marriage
made in heaven.

At the end of a year,
we had our first child.

The delivery costs were $100,
and we paid that $10 a month.

Those were some of the
happiest days of our lives.

And then the war came.

I'd been promoted
to assistant professor.

I was the youngest assistant
professor at Harvard.

And on a salary, by the way,
of $4000 a year.

Harvard Business School's
market was drying up.

The males were being drafted
or volunteering.

So the dean,
being farsighted,

brought back
a government contract

to establish
an officer candidate school

for what was called

Statistical Control
in the Air Force.

We said to the Air Force,

"Look, we're not gonna
take anybody you send
up here.

We're gonna select the
people."

You have a punch card
for every human being

brought into the Air Corps.

We're gonna run
those punch cards

through the IBM
sorting machines,

and we're gonna sort on age,
education, accomplishment,

grades, et cetera.

We were looking for the best
and the brightest.

The best brains,
the greatest capacity
to lead,

the best judgment.

The U.S. was just beginning
to bomb.

We were bombing by daylight.

The loss rate was very,
very high.

So they commissioned a study.
And what did we find?

We found the abort rate
was 20 percent.

20 percent of the planes
that took off from England,

to bomb targets in Germany,

turned around before
they got to the target.

That was a hell of a mess.

We lost 20 percent
of our capability right there.

The form, I think,
was called Form 1-A

or something like that.
It was a mission report.

And if you aborted a mission,
you had to write down why.

So we get all these things
and we analyze them,

and we finally concluded:

It was baloney.

They were aborting
out of fear.

Because the loss rate
was four percent per sortie.

The combat tour
was 25 sorties.

It didn't mean 100 percent
were gonna be killed,

but a hell of a lot
of them were gonna be killed.

They knew that
and they found reasons

to not go over the target.

So we reported this.

One of the commanders
was Curtis LeMay.

Colonel in command
of a B-24 group.

He was the finest
combat commander

of any service
I came across in war.

But he was extraordinarily
belligerent,

many thought brutal.

He got the report.
He issued an order.

He said, "I will be in the
lead plane on every mission.

"Any plane that takes off
will go over the target

or the crew will be
court-martialed."

The abort rate dropped
overnight.

Now, that's the kind
of a commander he was.

ANNOUNCER:
Ladies and gentlemen,

the president
of the United States.

ROOSEVELT:
My friends,
on this Christmas Eve

there are over 10 million men

in the Armed Forces of
the United States alone.

One year ago, 1,700,000
were serving overseas.

By next July first,

that number will rise
to over five million.

Plenty of bad news
for the Japs

in the not-too-far-distant
future.

[TURNSTILES DING]

MCNAMARA:
The U.S. Air Force had a new
airplane, named the B-29.

The B-17s and B-24s in Europe
bombed from 15, 16,000 feet.

The problem was that they
were subject to
anti-aircraft fire

and to fighter aircraft.

To relieve that,
this B-29 was being developed

that bombed from
high altitude,

and it was thought
we could destroy targets

much more efficiently
and effectively.

I was brought back
from the 8th Air Force

and assigned
to the first B-29s,

the 58th Bomb Wing.

We had to fly those planes
from the bases in
Kansas to India.

Then we had to fly fuel
over the hump into China.

The airfields were built
with Chinese labor.

It was an insane operation.

I can still remember them
hauling these huge rollers,

to crush the stone
and make them flat.

A long rope,
somebody would slip,

the roller would roll
over him,

everybody would
laugh and go on.

We were supposed
to take these B-29s--

There were
no tanker aircraft there.

We were to fill
them with fuel,

fly from India to Chengdu,

offload the fuel,
fly back to India,

make enough missions
to build up fuel in Chengdu,

fly to Yawata, Japan, bomb
the steel mills

and go back to India.

We had so little training
on this problem

of maximizing efficiency,

we actually found,
to get some of the B-29s back

instead of offloading fuel,
they had to take it on.

To make a long story short,
it wasn't worth a damn.

And it was LeMay who really

came to that conclusion
and led the chiefs

to move the whole thing
to the Marianas,

which devastated Japan.

LeMay was focused
on only one thing:

Target destruction.

Most Air Force generals
could tell you

how many planes they had,

how many tons of bombs
they dropped,

or whatever the hell it was.

But he was the only person
that I knew

in the senior command in the
Air Force who focused solely

on the loss of his crews
per unit of target
destruction.

I was on the island of Guam,
in his command,

in March of 1945.

In that single night,
we burned to death

100,000 Japanese
civilians in Tokyo.

Men, women and children.

MORRIS:
Were you aware
this was going to happen?

Well, I was--

I was part of a mechanism
that, in a sense,
recommended it.

I analyzed bombing
operations,

and how to make them
more efficient,

i.e., not more efficient in
the sense of killing more,

but more efficient
in weakening the adversary.

I wrote one report analyzing

the efficiency
of the B-29 operations.

The B-29 could get above
the fighter aircraft

and above the air defense,

so the loss rate
would be much less.

The problem was...

the accuracy
was also much less.

Now, I don't want to suggest
that it was my report

that led to--
I'll call it the firebombing.

It isn't that I'm trying
to absolve myself

of blame for the firebombing.

I don't want to suggest
that it was I...

that put in LeMay's mind

that his operations
were totally inefficient,

and had to be drastically
changed.

But, anyhow,
that's what he did.

He took the B-29s
down to 5000 feet

and he decided to bomb
with firebombs.

I participated
in the interrogation

of the B-29 bomber crews
that came back that night.

A room full of crewmen
and intelligence
interrogators.

A captain got up,
a young captain said:

"Goddamn it, I'd like to know
who the son of a bitch was

"that took this
magnificent airplane,

"designed to bomb
from 23, 000 feet

"and he took it down to 5000
feet, and I lost my wingman.

He was shot and killed."

LeMay spoke in monosyllables.

I never heard him say

more than two words
in sequence.

It was basically,
"Yes," "No," "Yep"

"That's all,"
or "Hell with it."

That was all he said.

And LeMay was totally
intolerant of criticism.

He never engaged
in discussion with anybody.

He stood up.

"Why are we here?

"Why are we here?

"You lost your wingman.
It hurts me as much as

"it does you.

"I sent him there.

"And I've been there,
I know what it is.

"But you lost one wingman

and we destroyed Tokyo."

Fifty square miles
of Tokyo were burned.

Tokyo was a wooden city,

and when we dropped
these firebombs

and it just burned it.

MORRIS:
The choice
of incendiary bombs,

where did that come from?

I think the issue...

is not so much
incendiary bombs.

I think the issue is,
in order to win a war

should you kill
100,000 people in one night?

By firebombing or any
other way?

LeMay's answer would be,
clearly, "Yes."

"McNamara, do you mean to say

"that instead
of killing 100,000

"burning to death 100,000
Japanese civilians

"in that one night

"we should have burned to
death a lesser number or none?

"And then had our soldiers
cross the beaches in Tokyo

"and been slaughtered
in tens of thousands?

Is that what you're proposing?
Is that moral? Is that wise?"

Why was it necessary
to drop the nuclear bomb

if LeMay was
burning up Japan?

And he went on from Tokyo
to firebomb other cities.

58 percent of Yokohama.

Yokohama is roughly
the size of Cleveland.

58 percent of Cleveland
destroyed.

Tokyo is roughly the size
of New York.

51 percent of New York
destroyed.

99 percent of the equivalent
of Chattanooga,

which was Toyama.

40 percent of the equivalent
of Los Angeles,

which was Nagoya.

This was all done before

the dropping
of the nuclear bomb.

Which, by the way, was
dropped by LeMay's command.

Proportionality should
be a guideline in war.

Killing 50 to 90 percent

of the people
in 67 Japanese cities

and then bombing them
with two nuclear bombs

is not proportional,
in the minds of some people

to the objectives
we were trying to achieve.

I don't fault Truman
for dropping the nuclear bomb.

The U.S.-Japanese War was
one of the most brutal wars

in all of human history.

Kamikaze pilots, suicide,
unbelievable.

What one can criticize,

is that the human race
prior to that time and today

has not really grappled

with what are, I'll call it
"the rules of war."

Was there a rule then that
said you shouldn't bomb,

shouldn't kill,

shouldn't burn to death
100,000 civilians in a night?

LeMay said,
"If we'd lost the war

we'd all have been prosecuted
as war criminals."

And I think he's right.

He, and I'd say I

were behaving as
war criminals.

LeMay recognized
that what he was doing

would be thought immoral

if his side had lost.

But what makes it immoral
if you lose

and not immoral if you win?

JOHNSON: Okay, Bob.
MCNAMARA: Thank you.

MORRIS:
At some point,
we have to approach Vietnam,

and I want to know

how you can best
set that up for me.

Yeah, well, uh...

that's a hard, hard question.
I think--

I think we have to approach it
in the context of the
Cold War.

But first I'll have
to talk about Ford.

I've got to go back
to the end of the war.

I had a terrible headache,

so Marg drove me in to the
Air Force regional hospital.

A week later, Marg came in

many of the same symptoms.

It's hard to believe,
and I don't think

I've ever heard of
another case

where two individuals,
husband and wife,

came down, essentially,
at the same time with polio.

We were both in the hospital
on V-J Day.

A friend of mine said:

"We're gonna find a
corporation in America
that needs

"the advice and capabilities
of this extraordinary group

"of people I'm going
to bring together.

and you gotta be part it."

I said, "To hell with it.
I'm going back to Harvard.

That's what Marg and I
wanna do. I'm gonna spend my
life there."

He said, "Look, Bob, you can't
pay Marg's hospital bills.

You're crazy as hell."
He said, "By the way

the company that most needs
our help in all the
U.S. is Ford."

Well, I said,
"How'd you learn that?"

Oh he said, "I read an article
in Life magazine."

Of the top 1000 executives
at Ford Motor Company.

I don't believe there were
10 college graduates

and Henry Ford II
needed help.

They were gonna give
us tests.

Two full days of testing:

intelligence tests,
achievement tests,

personality tests,
you name it.

This sounds absurd,
but I remember

one of the questions
on one of the tests was:

"Would you rather be a
florist or a coal miner?"

I should tell you
I had been a florist.

I worked as a florist during
some of my
Christmas vacations.

I put down coal miner.

I think the reasons
are obvious to you.

This group of 10 people
had been trained

in the officer candidate
school at Harvard.

In some tests we actually had
the highest marks

that had ever been scored.

In other tests, we were
in the upper one percentile.

From 1926 to 1946,
including the war years,

Ford Motor Company
just barely broke even.

It was a God-awful mess.

I thought we had
a responsibility

to the stockholders,

and God knows
you cannot believe

how bad the situation
had been.

They didn't have a market
research organization.

I set one up.

The manager said to me,
"What do you want
me to study?"

I said, "Find out who in the
hell is buying Volkswagens.

"Everybody says it's
a no-good car.

"It was only selling about
20,000 a year,

"but I want to know
what's gonna happen.

"Is it gonna stay the same,
go down, or go up?

Find out who buys them."

He came back six months later,
he said:

"Well, they're professors,

"and they're doctors,
and they're lawyers

and they're obviously people
who can afford more."

Well, that set me to thinking

about what we in
the industry should do.

Was there a market
we were missing?

At this time nobody believed
Americans wanted
cheaper cars.

They wanted conspicuous
consumption.

Cadillac, with these huge,
ostentatious fins

set the style for the
industry for 10 or 15 years.

And that's what
we were up against.

We introduced the Falcon
as a more economical car,

and it was a huge success
profit-wise.

We accomplished a lot.

[CROWD CHATTERING]

I said, "What about
accidents? I hear a lot
about accidents."

"Oh, yes, we'll get you
some data on that."

There were about 40-odd
thousand deaths per year

from automobile accidents,

and about a million,
or a million-two injuries.

And I said,
"Well, what causes it?"

Well he said, "It's obvious.

It's human error
and mechanical failure."

I said, "Hell, if it's
mechanical failure,

"we might be involved.
Let's dig into this.

I wanna know if it's
mechanical failure,
I want to stop it."

Well, he said, "There's
really very few
statistics available."

I said, "Damn it, find out
what can we learn."

He said "Well, the only place
we can find

that knows anything about it
is Cornell Aeronautical Labs."

They said, "The major problem
is packaging."

They said, "You buy eggs and
you know how eggs come
in a carton?"

I said, "I don't buy eggs.
My wife does it."

They said, "Well, talk to her
and you ask her,

"when she puts that carton
down

on the drain board when
she gets home, do the
eggs break?"

And so I asked Marg
and she said no.

So Cornell said,
"They don't break because

"they're packaged properly.

"Now, if we packaged people
in cars the same way

we could reduce the breakage."

We lacked lab facilities,
so we dropped human skulls

in different packages,

down the stairwells
of the dormitories
at Cornell.

Well, that sounds absurd,

but that guy was
absolutely right.

It was packaging which
could make the difference.

In a crash...

the driver was often
impaled on the steering
wheel.

The passenger was often
injured because he'd hit
the windshield

or the header bar,
or the instrument panel.

So in the 1956 model Ford
we introduced steering wheels

that prevented being impaled.
We introduced

padded instrument panels,
and we introduced seat belts.

We estimated if there
would be

100 percent use
of the seat belts

we could save 20-odd thousand
lives a year.

Everybody was opposed to it.

You couldn't get people
to use seat belts.

But those who did
saved their lives.

Now, let me jump ahead.

It's July, 1960.

John Bugas, vice president,
industrial relations,

clearly had his eyes on
becoming president.

I'm the group vice president
in charge of all

of the car divisions.

Henry was a night owl.
He always wanted to go out
on the town.

You know, it's 2 a.m.
or something or other.

He said, "Bob, come on up,
have a nightcap."

I said, "I don't want one,
I'm going to bed."

John says,
"I'll come up, Henry."

Henry said, "I didn't ask you,
John. I asked Bob."

He said, "Bob, come on up."
So I finally went up.

That's when he asked me
to be president.

I was the first president
in the history of the company

that had ever been president

other than a member
of the Ford family.

And after five weeks, I quit.

The telephone rang,

a person comes on and says:
"I'm Robert Kennedy.

My brother, Jack Kennedy,
would like you

to meet our brother-in-law,
Sergeant Shriver."

Four o'clock,
Sarge comes in. Never met him.

And he said, "I've been
authorized by my
brother-in-law

"Jack Kennedy,
to offer you the position

of secretary of the treasury."

I said,
"You're out of your mind.

"I know a little about
finance,

but, I'm not qualified to be
secretary of the treasury."

"Anticipating you might say
that, the president-elect

authorized me to offer you
the secretary of defense."

"Look, I was in World War II
for three years,

"but secretary of defense?
I'm not qualified

to be secretary of defense."

He said, "Anticipating that

would you do him the courtesy
of agreeing to meet with him?"

So I go home. I meet
with Marg.

If I could appoint every
senior official in the
department

and if I could be guaranteed
I wouldn't have to

be part of that damn
Washington social world.

She said, "Well, okay...

"why don't you write a
contract with the president

and if he'll accept those
two conditions, do it."

My total net worth at the time
was on the order of $800,000

but I had huge unfulfilled
stock options worth millions.

And I was one of the
highest-paid executives

in the world.

And the future was,
of course, brilliant.

We had called our
children in.

Their life would
be totally changed.

The salary of a cabinet
secretary then

was $25,000 a year.

So we explained
to the children

they'd be giving up a few--
They could care less.

Marg could care less.

It was snowing.

The Secret Service took me
in the house by the back way.

I can still see it.
There's a loveseat...

two armchairs with
a lamp table in between.

Jack Kennedy is sitting
in one armchair

and Bobby Kennedy's sitting
in the other.

"Mr. President, it's absurd.
I'm not qualified."

"Look, Bob."

He said, "I don't think
there's any school

"for presidents either.

He said "Let's announce
it now. I'll write the
announcement."

So he wrote out
the announcement,

we walk out the front door.

All of these television
cameras and press,

till hell wouldn't have it.

That's how Marg learned
I had accepted.

It was on television, live.

All right, why don't we do
some pictures afterwards.

I've asked Robert McNamara

to assume the responsibilities
of secretary of defense.

And I'm glad and happy to say

that he has accepted
this responsibility.

Mr. McNamara leaves the
presidency of the Ford company

at great personal sacrifice.

That's the way it began.

You know, it was
a traumatic period.

My wife probably
got ulcers from it,

may even ultimately have died
from the stress.

My son got ulcers.

It was very traumatic but,

they were some
of the best years of our life

and all members of my family
benefited from it.

It was terrific.

October 2nd.

I had returned from Vietnam.

At that time, we had 16,000
military advisors.

I recommended
to President Kennedy

and to the Security Council

that we establish a plan
and an objective

of removing all
of them within two years.

Kennedy announced
we were going to pull out

all our military advisors

by the end of '65,

we're going to take 1000 out
at the end of '63, and we did.

But there was a coup
in South Vietnam.

Diem was overthrown

and he and his brother
were killed.

I was present
with the president

when together we received
information of that coup.

I've never seen him...

more upset.
He totally blanched.

Kennedy and I had tremendous
problems with Diem,
but my God,

he was the authority.
He was the head of state.

And he was overthrown
by a military coup.

And Kennedy knew and I knew,
that to some degree

the U.S. government was
responsible for that.

I was in my office
in the Pentagon,

when the telephone rang
and it was Bobby.

The President had been shot
in Dallas.

Perhaps 45 minutes later,
Bobby called again

and said the president
was dead.

Jackie would like me
to come out to the hospital.

We took the body
to the White House

about whatever it was,
4 a.m.

and called the superintendent
of Arlington Cemetery.

And he and I

walked over those grounds.

They're hauntingly
beautiful grounds.

White crosses, row and row.

And finally I thought I'd
found the exact spot

the most beautiful spot
in the cemetery.

I called Jackie
at the White House

and asked her to
come out there.
She immediately accepted.

And that's where the president
is buried today.

A park service ranger came up
to me and said that he...

He had...

escorted President Kennedy
on a tour of those grounds

a few weeks before.

And Kennedy said

that was the most
beautiful spot in Washington.

That's where he's buried.

I will do my best.

That is all I can do.

I ask for your help

and God's.

[EXPLOSIONS]

GOLDWATER:
Make no bones of this.

Don't try to sweep
this under the rug.

We are at war in Vietnam.

[CHEERING]

And yet the president

and his secretary of defense
continues to mislead

and misinform
the American people,

and enough of it's gone by.

MCNAMARA:
On August 2nd

the destroyer Maddox
reported it was attacked

by a North Vietnamese
patrol boat.

It was an act
of aggression against us.

We were in
international waters.

I sent officials
from the Defense Department

out and we recovered

pieces of North Vietnamese
shells,

that were clearly identified

as North Vietnamese shells
from the deck of the Maddox.

So there was no question
in my mind that it
had occurred.

But, in any event,
we didn't respond.

And it was very difficult.

It was difficult
for the president.

There were very,
very senior people,

in uniform and out, who said:

"My God, this president is..."

They didn't use the word
"coward," but in effect

"He's not protecting
the national interest."

Two days later the Maddox
and the Turner Joy,
two destroyers

reported they were attacked.

There were sonar soundings.
Torpedoes had been detected.

Other indications of attack
from patrol boats.

We spent about
10 hours that day

trying to find out
what in the hell
had happened.

At one point the commander
of the ship said,

"We're not certain
of the attack."

Another point they said,
"Yes, we're
absolutely positive."

Then finally, late in the
day, Admiral Sharp said:

"Yes, we're certain
it happened."

So I reported this to
Johnson, and as a result...

there were bombing attacks
on targets in North Vietnam.

Johnson said,
"We may have to escalate.

I'm not gonna do it without
Congressional authority."

And he put forward
a resolution,

the language of which

gave complete authority to
the president

to take the nation to war:

The Tonkin Gulf Resolution.

Now, let me go back
to the August 4th attack.

It was just confusion.
And events afterwards showed

that our judgment that we'd
been attacked that day was
wrong.

It didn't happen.

And the judgment that
we'd been attacked on
August 2nd

which we'd made, was right.
We had been.

Although that was disputed
at the time.

So we were right once
and wrong once.

Ultimately, President Johnson
authorized bombing in response

to what he thought
had been the second attack.

It hadn't occurred,

but that's irrelevant
to the point I'm making here.

He authorized the attack on
the assumption it
had occurred.

And his belief that it was
a conscious decision

on the part of the
North Vietnamese political

and military leaders

to escalate the conflict...

and an indication they would
not stop short of winning.

We were wrong.

But we had in our minds a
mindset that led to
that action.

And it carried
such heavy costs.

We see incorrectly,

or we see only half
of the story at times.

MORRIS:
We see what we want
to believe.

MCNAMARA: We see--
You're absolutely right.

Belief and seeing.

They're both often wrong.

We Americans know,

although others appear
to forget,

the risk of spreading
conflict.

We still seek no wider war.

We introduced what was called
"Rolling Thunder"

which, over the years,

became a very,
very heavy bombing program.

Two to three times
as many bombs as were dropped

on Western Europe during
all of World War II.

MCNAMARA:
This is not primarily
a military problem.

It's a battle
for the hearts and minds

of the people of
South Vietnam.

As a prerequisite to that,
we must be able

to guarantee
their physical security.

ANNOUNCER:
It was announced today

that total American
casualties in Vietnam

now number 4877
including 748 killed.

REASONER:
Secretary of Defense
Robert McNamara,

on each of his seven
inspection trips to Vietnam,

has found some positive aspect
of the course of
the war there.

MCNAMARA:
The most vivid impression
I'm bringing back is

that we've stopped
losing the war.

The North Vietnamese today,
we believe,

have nine regiments
of their army.

ANNOUNCER:
Some of the men had
a little training

in a state park in Kentucky
before coming here.

But it didn't prepare them
for thicket of trees,

spiked vines, thorn bushes

almost perpendicular cliffs,

90-degree temperatures,
insects.

ANNOUNCER 2:
This has changed
from a nasty little war

to a nasty middle-sized war.

The Vietnamese are
still doing

most of the fighting
and most of the dying,

but week after week, American
casualty figures go up.

JOHNSON:
Now, America wins the wars
that she undertakes.

Make no mistake about it.

And we have declared war
on tyranny and aggression.

If this little nation
goes down the drain

and can't
maintain independence

ask yourself what's
gonna happen

to all the other
little nations.

MCNAMARA:
Let me go back one moment.

In the Cuban Missile Crisis,
at the end...

I think we did put ourselves

in the skin of the Soviets.

In the case of Vietnam,

we didn't know
them well enough to
empathize.

And there was total
misunderstanding as a result.

They believed that we had
simply replaced the French

as a colonial power,

and we were seeking to subject
South and North Vietnam

to our colonial interests,
which was absolutely absurd.

And we, we saw Vietnam as
an element of the Cold War.

Not what they saw it as,
a civil war.

There aren't many examples

in which you bring
two former enemies together

at the highest levels,

and discuss
what might have been.

I formed the hypothesis
that each of us could have

achieved our objectives

without the terrible
loss of life.

And I wanted to test that
by going to Vietnam.

The former foreign minister
of Vietnam

a wonderful man named Thach
said, "You're totally wrong.

"We were fighting
for our independence.

You were fighting
to enslave us."

We almost came to blows.
That was noon on the
first day.

"Do you mean to say it was
not a tragedy for you

"when you lost 3,400,000
Vietnamese killed

"which on our population base

"is the equivalent of
27 million Americans?

"What did you accomplish?

"You didn't get any more
than we were willing

"to give you at
the beginning of the war.

"You could've had
the whole damn thing:

"independence, unification."

"Mr. McNamara, you must never
have read a history book.

"If you had,
you'd know we weren't pawns

"of the Chinese
or the Russians.

"McNamara,
Didn't you know that?

"Don't you understand that
we've been fighting

"the Chinese for 1000 years?

"We were fighting for our
independence,

"and we'd fight
to the last man.

"And we were determined
to do so.

"And no amount of bombing,
no amount of U.S. pressure

would've ever stopped us."

What makes us omniscient?

Have we a record
of omniscience?

We are the strongest nation
in the world today.

I do not believe we should
ever

apply that economic,
political or military power
unilaterally.

If we had followed
that rule in Vietnam,

we wouldn't have been there.

None of our allies
supported us.

Not Japan, not Germany,
not Britain or France.

If we can't persuade nations
with comparable values

of the merit of our cause,

we'd better reexamine
our reasoning.

Americans suffered
the heaviest casualties

of the war in Vietnam last
week.

543 killed in action.

Another 1247 were
wounded and hospitalized.

The deaths raise the
U.S. total in the war so far
to 18,239.

South Vietnamese put their
losses for the week

at 522 killed.

Communist losses
were not reported.

Contributing to those
record casualties

has been the steady
Communist bombardment

of the Marine outpost
at Khe Sanh.

There, the North Vietnamese

have been tightening their
ring around around

the two-square mile division.

The military expects
a full-scale assault.

MORRIS:
To what extent
did you feel

that you were the
author of stuff

or that you were
an instrument

of things outside
of your control?

Well, I don't think I felt
either.

I just felt that I was serving
at the request of a president

who'd been elected
by the American people.

And it was my responsibility
to try to help him, uh...

to carry out the office
as he believed

was in the interest
of our people.

[VOICE MUTED]

MCNAMARA:
What is morally appropriate
in a wartime environment?

Let me give you
an illustration.

While I was secretary

we used what's called
"Agent Orange" in Vietnam.

A chemical that strips
leaves off of trees.

After the war, it is claimed
that that was a
toxic chemical,

and it killed many
individuals,

soldiers and civilians
exposed to it.

Were those who issued
the approval...

to use Agent Orange,
criminals?

Were they committing a crime
against humanity?

Let's look at the law.

Now, what kind of law
do we have that says

these chemicals are acceptable
for use in war

and these chemicals are not.

We don't have clear
definitions of that kind.

I never in the world
would have authorized an
illegal action.

I'm not really sure I
authorized Agent Orange,

I don't remember it.

But it certainly occurred,

the use of it occurred
while I was secretary.

Norman Morrison was a Quaker.

He was opposed to war,

the violence of war,
the killing.

He came to the Pentagon,

doused himself with gasoline.

Burned himself to death
below my office.

He held a child in his arms,
his daughter.

Passersby shouted,
"Save the child!"

He threw the child
out of his arms,

and the child lived
and is alive today.

His wife issued
a very moving statement:

"Human beings must stop
killing other human beings."

And that's a belief
that I shared.

I shared it then and I believe
it even more strongly today.

How much evil must we do
in order to do good?

We have certain ideals,
certain responsibilities.

Recognize that at times you
will have to engage in evil,

but minimize it.

I remember reading that
General Sherman,

in the Civil War,

the mayor of Atlanta pleaded
with him to save the city.

And Sherman essentially
said to the mayor

just before he torched it
and burned it down:

"War is cruel.
War is cruelty."

That was the way LeMay felt.

He was trying to save
the country.

He was trying
to save our nation.

And in the process,

he was prepared to do
whatever killing was
necessary.

It's a very,
very difficult position

for sensitive human beings
to be in.

Morrison was one of those.
I think I was.

50,000 people came
to Washington

to demonstrate against
the war.

About 20,000 of them marched
on the Pentagon.

The Pentagon is a very, very
difficult building to defend.

We placed troops carrying
rifles around it.

U.S. marshals in front
of the soldiers.

But I told the president,
not a rifle would be loaded

without my
personal permission.

And I wasn't gonna grant it.

[CROWD JEERING]

MORRIS:
What effect did all of this
dissent have on your thinking?

I mean, Norman Morrison
is '65. This is '67.

Well, it was a very
tense period.

Very tense period for my
family, which I don't want
to discuss.

MORRIS:
How was your thinking changing
during this period?

I don't think my thinking
was changing.

We were in the Cold War.
And this was a Cold War...

activity.

Some commentators here
have said that the war

is turning into
a kind of stalemate.

No, no.
I think on the contrary

as General Westmoreland
has pointed out...

in recent weeks in Saigon,
the military operations

the large-unit military
operations continue to...

show very
substantial progress.

MCNAMARA:
One of the lessons I learned
early on: never say never.

Never, never, never.

Never say never.

And secondly...

never answer the question
that is asked of you.

Answer the question that you
wish had been asked of you.

And quite frankly,
I follow that rule.

It's a very good rule.

MORRIS:
When you talk about
the responsibility

for something like
the Vietnam War...

whose responsibility
is it?

It's the president's
responsibility.

I don't want
to fail to recognize

the tremendous contribution
I think Johnson

made to the country.

I don't want
to put the responsibility

for Vietnam on
his shoulders alone,

but I do--
I am inclined to believe

that if Kennedy had lived

he would've made a difference.

I don't think we would've
have had 500,000 men there.

Two very telling photographs.

One of them has Johnson
like this:

You can just see him
thinking,

"My God, I'm in a hell
of a mess.

"And this guy is trying
to tell me to do something

"that I know is wrong
and I'm not gonna do.

But how the hell
am I gonna get out of this?"

The other photograph,
you can just see me saying:

"Jesus Christ. I love
this man, I respect him,

"but he's totally wrong.

What am I gonna do?"

Johnson couldn't persuade me,
and I couldn't persuade him.

I had this enormous respect
and affection, loyalty

to both Kennedy and Johnson.

But at the end, Johnson and I
found ourselves poles apart.

And I said to a very close and
dear friend of mine,

Kay Graham former publisher
of The Washington Post:

"Even to this day, Kay,

I don't know whether
I quit or was fired."

She said, "You're out
of your mind.

Of course, you were fired."

November 1, 1967.

I presented a memo
to Johnson that said:

"The course we're on
is totally wrong.

"We've gotta change it.

"Cut back at what we're
doing in Vietnam.

We gotta reduce
the casualties," and so on.

It was an extraordinarily
controversial memo.

And I took it to him.
I delivered it myself.

"Mr. President,
nobody has seen this.

Not Dean Rusk, not the
chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
Nobody."

"I know that it may contain
recommendations and statements

that you do not agree
with and do not support."

I never heard from him.

Something had to give.

There was a rumor I was
facing a mental breakdown

I was under such
pressure and stress.

I don't think that
was the case at all.

But it was a really
traumatic departure.

That's the way it ended.

Except for one thing.

He awarded me
the Medal of Freedom

in a very beautiful ceremony
at the White House.

And he was very, very
warm in his comments.

And I became so emotional,
I could not...

respond.

[APPLAUSE]

MCNAMARA:
Mr. President

I cannot find words

to express what lies
in my heart today.

And I think I'd better respond
on another occasion.

And had I responded,
I would have said:

"I know what many of you
are thinking.

"You're thinking this man
is duplicitous.

"You're thinking that he has
held things close to
his chest.

"You're thinking that...

"he did not respond fully

"to the desires and wishes
of the American people.

And I wanna tell you
you're wrong."

Of course he had
personal idiosyncrasies.

No question about that.

He didn't accept all
the advice he was given.

On several occasions,

his associates advised him
to be more forthcoming.

He wasn't.

People did not
understand at that time

there were
recommendations and pressures

that would carry the risk of
war with China

and carry the risk
of nuclear war.

And he was determined
to prevent it.

I'm arguing that
he had a reason

in his mind for doing
what he did.

And, of course,
shortly after I left

Johnson concluded
that he couldn't continue.

MORRIS:
And at this point,

how many Americans
had been killed in Vietnam?

About 25,000.
Less than half

of the number
ultimately killed, 58,000.

Historians don't really like
to deal with counterfactuals,

with what might have been.

They want to talk
about history.

"How the hell do you know,
McNamara, what might
have been?

Who knows?"

Well, I know certain things.

What I'm doing is thinking
it through with hindsight.

But you don't have hindsight
available at the time.

I'm very proud
of my accomplishments.

And I'm very sorry that in
the process of
accomplishing things,

I've made errors.

We all make mistakes.

We know we make mistakes.

I don't know any military
commander, who is honest,

who would say he has not
made a mistake.

There's a wonderful phrase:

"The fog of war."

What "the fog of war"
means is:

War is so complex it's beyond
the ability of the human mind

to comprehend
all the variables.

Our judgment,
our understanding,

are not adequate.

And we kill people
unnecessarily.

Wilson said, "We won the
war to end all wars."

[CHEERING]

I'm not so naive
or simplistic

to believe we
can eliminate war.

We're not gonna change
human nature any time soon.

It isn't that we aren't
rational. We are rational.

But reason has limits.

There's a quote from
T.S. Eliot that I just love:

"We shall not cease
from exploring

"and at the end of
our exploration,

"we will return
to where we started

and know the place
for the first time."

Now that's, in a sense,
where I'm beginning to be.

MORRIS [ON PHONE]:
After you left
the Johnson administration

why didn't you speak out
against the Vietnam War?

MCNAMARA:
I'm not going to say any more
than I have.

These are the kinds
of questions

that get me in trouble.

You don't know what I know
about how inflammatory

my words can appear.

A lot of people
misunderstand the war,

misunderstand me.

A lot of people think
I'm a son of a bitch.

MORRIS:
Do you feel in any way
responsible for the war?

Do you feel guilty?

MCNAMARA:
I don't want to go into
further discussion.

It just opens up
more controversy.

I don't wanna add anything
to Vietnam.

It is so complex that
anything I say

will require additions
and qualifications.

MORRIS:
Is it the feeling that
you're damned if you do

and if you don't,
no matter what--?

MCNAMARA:
Yeah, that's right.

And I would rather
be damned if I don't.

[**]