In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam
- Sep 15, 2016
- 2 min read
Updated: Jun 7
★★★★★
I should preface this review with two things. First, if Robert McNamara is one thing, it's intelligent. A graduate of U.C. Berkeley and Harvard's Graduate School of Business Administration, he cut his teeth both as an instructor for the U.S. Army Air Corps' statistical control program during World War II, earning the Air Corps' Legion of Merit and leaving service with the rank of lieutenant colonel in 1946, and at Ford Motor Company, where, by 1960, he was serving as its President. Second, I am not a Vietnam historian; have never read another book on the subject; have no idea what the response was to the publication of In Retrospect in 1995, either from academics, politicians or veterans; nor do I have any idea what new insights, if any, have come to light about the war and our involvement in the intervening years. That said then, this book is a double time capsule (if such a thing can exist): it is a look back at a period 30 years before its publication (1961–1968), and was read more than 20 years after its publication.
In Retrospect serves to take a critical look at the Kennedy and Johnson administrations' approach to Vietnam (during McNamara's tenure as Secretary of Defense), what they got right (little), what they got wrong (much), why this imbalance was so, McNamara's role in these successes and failures, and what lessons can be taken and applied now and in the future when it comes to international diplomacy and the prospect of waging war. I found McNamara to be completely forthright in all regards, drawing not just from his own notes and recollections, but from a wide array of source material (much of it only recently declassified at the time of the book's writing), even if—and perhaps especially if—it differed from his perspective.
This neutral, journalistic, approach to the subject, and McNamara's frank, matter-of-fact approach to the text, makes In Retrospect academic by nature, but that's not to say the book is in any way dry. On the contrary, I found it to be an easy and enjoyable overview of the Vietnam War, and one without the histrionics and hyperbolizing that frequently accompany the subject, and make exploring it, especially to this reader, so unappealing. While I may never pick up another book on the Vietnam War, I would be surprised if I never picked up another book by Robert McNamara.
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