Other Titles • Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara, • The Fog of War • The McNamara Project • The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons of Robert S. McNamara
Quotes from Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara, (2003)
1
Robert McNamara: I think the human race needs to think about killing. How much evil must we do in order to do good.
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2
Robert McNamara: If we can't persuade nations with comparable values of the merits of our cause, we'd better reexamine our reasoning.
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3
Robert McNamara: I'd rather be damned-if-I-don't.
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4
Robert McNamara: Lesson #2: The indefinite combination of human fallibility and nuclear weapons will lead to the destruction of nations.
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5
Robert McNamara: In the end, it was luck. We were *this* close to nuclear war, and luck prevented it.
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6
Robert McNamara: Any military commander who is honest with himself, or with those he is 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 judgement. A hundred, or a thousand, or ten thousand, maybe even a hundred thousand. But he hasn't destroyed nations. Robert McNamara: And the conventional wisdom is: don't make the same mistake twice. Learn from your mistakes. And we all do. Maybe we make the mistake three times, but hopefully not four or five. Robert McNamara: They'll be no learning period with nuclear weapons. Make one mistake and you're going to destroy nations.
7
Robert McNamara: I was on the island of Guam in his [General Curtis LeMays'] Robert McNamara: command in March 1945. In that single night, we burned to death one hundred thousand Japanese civilians in Tokyo. Men, women and children. Interviewer: Were you aware this was going to happen? Robert McNamara: Well, I was part of a mechanism that, in a sense, recommended it.
8
Robert McNamara: LeMay said, "If we lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals". And I think he's right. Robert McNamara: He, and I'd say I, were behaving as war criminals. Robert McNamara: LeMay recognised 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?
9
[from October 27, 1962, regarding the Soviet missiles in Cuba] John F. Kennedy: We're not going to get these missiles out of Cuba, probably, anyway... by negotiation. Tommy Thompson: I don't agree, Mr. President. I think there's still a chance... John F. Kennedy: That he'll back down?
10
[recounting the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis] Robert McNamara: My deputy and I brought the Five Chiefs [joint Chiefs of Staff] Robert McNamara: over and we sat down with Kennedy. Robert McNamara: And he said, "Gentlemen, we won. I don't want you ever to say it, but you know we won, I know we won." Robert McNamara: [General Curtis] LeMay said, "Won hell... we lost... we should go in and... wipe 'em out today." [McNamara laughs]
11
[from the Epilogue] Interviewer: After you left the Johnson administration, why didn't you speak out against the Vietnam War? Robert McNamara: I'm not going to say any more than I have. These are the kinds of questions that get me into 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.
12
Robert McNamara: [quoting a message from Khrushchev to Kennedy concerning the Cuban Missile Crisis] "We and you ought not pull on the ends of a rope in 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."
13
Robert McNamara: I'm not so naive or simplistic to believe we can eliminate war. We're not going to 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.
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