you're talking about robert mcnamara. >> guest: robert mcnamara. c-span: what--what got you in the i--interested in writing about robert mcnamara? >> guest: mcnamara's book, wh--in which he essentially apologized for vietnam and admitted that it was a terrible mistake, had just come out. and what interested me was the reaction. there were an extraordinary number of people who sort of refused to accept mcnamara's apology. and i am of the vietnam generation. it was a war i opposed very strongly. i think it was one of the most horrible events in the entire history of this nation. 'mistake' is a word that barely covers that tragedy. but it seemed to me impossible not to accept and recognize mcnamara's, finally, painfully having come to the realization of--of not only having been wrong ,but the terrible cost of having been that wrong. c-span: what do you think of him? >> guest: robert strange mcnamara. that middle name was always telling, i thought. i thought it was brave of him and right of him to have written that book and that he deserves to be comme

mcnamara. i think we can go to public comment. perhaps if folks from development want to speak at that time that would be great. public comment is now open. seeing none, we will close public comment. motion to approve with recommendation? okay. we will take that without objection. next item, please. >> item three, resolution authorizing additional allowances up to $10 rentable square foot for improvements by landlords over seven years at 88% to be paid in additional rent in amount of $3,809.27 per month for property located at 1455 market street. >> we have the director of the department of environment here, melanie. >> good morning, supervisors. as you know, the board of supervisors adopted resolution june 5th, 2012 authorizing the lease agreement between the city and county of san francisco and hudson properties for $24,400 square feet at 1455 market to be occupied by the san francisco department of environment. when i was last at the committee we only had estimates for tenant improvement costs. it was suggested we return in the

the with kids are mcnamara's advisers when he takes over the pentagon codify and defense policies. they're coming out of think tanks and they are young and strategists and mathematicians. the wise men where an informal group of advisers called in by lbj. kennan was never part of that group. kennan came out publicly against the war in vietnam. in 1966 before the senate foreign relations committee -- lbj would not have invited kennan to the white house as one of the wires men. as far as i can tell kennan went to the white house once in the johnson administration and that was the ill-fated arts and humanities festival that lbj tried to organize in spring of 1965 as the war was escalating. it was so disastrous that lbj him upstairs through most of the proceedings. kennan is often regarded as one of the wise men and the walter isaacson book uses the title for a collective biography and kennan is one of the six but the actual term is from a group that was informing johnson and kennan was not part of that. >> host: last call from professor gaddis from lou in springfield, missouri. >> call

robert mcnamara is one of the most vocal and he says we have to get these out even if they are not a military threat in the clinical sense. to the american public these are not going to be allowed to stay because we can't live with the american public will let them stay there. george bundy also argues for getting funding and kennedy is eventually persuaded that okay even if you are not looking at clinical sort of military assessments of what is and isn't a threat, we have to get rid of this. then you look at some of the other weapons systems because it wasn't just about the bombers and long-range missiles there was other equipment in cuba and the troops are the issue here. the americans thought there was something around seven or eight troops. the assessment varied through the crisis and started about 8,000 but the top realized it was about 17,000 troops so they never really understood how many. but on the 23rd of october, so the day after kennedy's speech, they started sending over low level surveillance plans and they started getting a much more detail about what was on the ground

along with la mancha, fellow officers bill fisher and mike mcnamara pump up an inflatable life raft,ckly get their cold weather survival suits on, and race to the ice. what the officers see and hear as they approach the kids only increases the urgency. >> screaming their heads off for help. help me, help me, i can't hold on. i can't hold on. >> i said, hold on to the ice. a piece would come off and they'd grab another piece. >> knowing the ice is unstable, the officers inch out cautiously. >> we didn't know how bad they were. i mean, it had to be ten minutes? that's a long time to be sitting in ice water. >> the children are losing their strength. the water lowering their body temperatures so much, they can barely move. hypothermia is setting in. >> anything less than 100% rescue for five children is a tragedy. it's a complete tragedy. if you don't do your job to the best that you were trained with no hesitation, a child will die. >> as fisher, la mancha, and mcnamara approach for the rescue, they lay on their stomachs to distribute their weight. >> at that point, the children were e

and to what extent are they concerned robert -- robert mcnamara captured? is a domestic political problem. so what is it contributing to jfk can -- decision-making? the way you frame did to today influence policy? absolutely. i would form a distinction about partisan political consideration that this tries to help his reelection and attack republicans. you do not get to be president without considerations of everything you do. this is to you are how this is perceived in the american public. he is constantly thinking about that. how will this play out in the public? i would call that the political awareness. but carefully eight draw the partisan politics i do not believe in that we like to talk about that is a political decision. we mean that superficially. but in a much deeper way he was aware of the political ramifications. he was careful to brief the white eisenhower. he called him up on the telephone sending the cia director who was very tight his briefing congressional leaders. and to give them privileged information. they are very careful to be biparti

in los angeles to defend james and john mcnamara, to union terrorists who planted a bomb in the los angeles times 1910 killing 20 innocent printers a newspaperman in the explosion. notable victories defending laborers and woodworkers. he had faced down the robber barons and gunman. he had no illusions in the fall of 1911 that the forces of industry of los angeles would place where. bribing a jury to save a man's life is misters wrote, he would not hesitate. but he survived it came out a better man and of more fine lawyer and had been on the ropes he knew what it was to suffer. the great muckrakers said the senate is humbled. the man at last season is frightened. faces accusers squarely in los angeles making elegant please in his own defense that he won a not guilty verdict in the first trial and a hung jury in the next. from the ashes of his ordeal darrow force the grandest of american legal careers at a champion of personal liberty in defender of the underdog. he became the attorneys for the damned. broken disgraced returned to chicago took the cases of others . there was isaac bottom of b

mcnamara in -- what was it called in the video? "the shadow of war" -- "the fog of war," he says, we came that close to nuclear holocaust. and any other highly id oe sin accuratic leader like castro could make the world a very dangerous place. >> there are countries that will bluf they have more nuclear weapons or mruf they have more than they actually have in order to keep you away. if you react on the bluff, you can actually militarize a situation that doesn't require a military approach but a diplomatic one. look at saddam hussein. saddam hussein pretended to have nuclear weapons because he was afraid of us and he was afraid of other people in the middle east. he was doing the same thing that nikita khrushchev pretended to be. you're fearful of american power. our very existence is a powerful, successful country is threatening to other countries. whether we like it or not, we can be ourselves. that's one lesson which is, be careful of how you act on bluff. the second is, presidents should be allowed to koch myself on minor point

nymex trader mike mcfarland of mcnamara options has put his hand signals aside and helping bailed outn river in manhattan. mike mcfarland's story next. you don't want to miss it. -- mike mcpartland's story next. you don't want to miss it. are we there yet? are we there yet? are we there yet? [ male announcer ] it's the question we ask ourselves every day. is it the safest, the most efficient? the kind of vehicle movove not just people... but an industry forward? are we there yet? are we really? [ male announcer ] are we there yet? we are, for now. introducing the all-new seven passenger gl. motor trend's 2013 sport utility of the year. mercedes-benz. the best or nothing. liz: the u.s. stock market is set to open for normal trading tomorrow. new york stock exchange chief duncan niederauer telling fox business the two-day closure of the stock market will prompt some soul searching among regulators and market executives about how to prevent a trading halt in the future. charlie gasparino, was it really needed? >> the closure? i mean, listen, listen to -- i think we should listen first to

it was giventom defense secretary robert mcnamara after the cuban missile crisis by jfk and marks thee, october 1962. >>> now, if you read only one thing this morning, regular viewers of this program have probably figured out by now i'm slightly obsessed with food. today, my must read is about peanut butter and what the new pairing is to replace jelly. it's not peanut butter and jelly anymore. the article's a lot more interesting than i might make it sound up on our facebook page at facebook/jansing co. is a compln designed for women's health concerns as we age. it has more of 7 antioxidants to support cell health. one a day 50+. sven's home security gets the most rewards of any small business credit card! how does this thing work? oh, i like it! [ garth ] sven's small business earns 2% cash back on every purchase, every day! woo-hoo!!! so that's ten security gators, right? put them on my spark card! why settle for less? testing hot tar... great businesses deserve the most rewards! [ male announcer ] the spark business card from capital one. choose unlimited rewards with 2% cash back

>> i wrote about robert, n mcnamara. a very resident name in the city.architecof an architect in vietnam as well, that book was published in 1996. i wrote a book called sons of mississippi, which is the book previous to this. the study of the south and the integration of the south and i like to pick out topics that have a lot of residents werephy. cultural history. .. critic circle award finalist. thank you for joining us o [applause] >> all right. what i'm going to do is, um, read you various excerpts from different points in her life. the first explanation i probably need to give you is that the woman who became mata hari, the stage name under which she danced and lived in the later part of her life, was not born mata hari. she was born margaretha zelle. so as i go through readings, i'm going to stop and signal you when you're hearing a name that is not the one you're used to. and i want to start with the prologue of the book to kind of set the stage for the story about her life i'm going to tell you. the most importan

mcnamara at one stage says, wait a minute.t is the difference between having missiles in cuba that could attack us and missiles in the soviet union that could attack us, which we have been living with for a dozen years? in one case, a war head explodes from the soviet union. in the other case, a war head explodes from cuba. the same thing with the submarines. that is a big issue and question. are you going to risk war up to and including nuclear war over something that similar to something you have already been living with? that is one thing they struggled with the hardest. kennedy's analysis was ultimately correct as we learn more about it. his analysis was khrushchev intended to try to resolve the earlier disputes left over from world war ii in november. khrushchev communicated to him in a letter that in november after the election, we will resolve the berlin issue. berlin was this enclave in the middle of soviet occupied east germany. the soviets could close off. win at any point. they would have to fight their way in using

. >> secretary mcnamara, general >> it's the 50th anniversary of the cuban missile crisis, this weekend on american history tv. the historian, scholars, film makers and journalists, flight sunday from the jfk presidential library and museum on c-span3. >> you're watching booktv on c-span2. here's our primetime lineup for tonight. >> the year was 1981, or 1982, and i was living in hong kong where i was working for the asian "wall street journal." i was the op-ed editor, and one day a submission crossed my desk. it was written by an italian journalist who was living in what we then called peking. he had secured a very rare visa to go to pyongyang and had written an article for his publication about it and sent a translation to me hoping the asian "wall street journal" would publish it. of course, we did. and i was, i was really blown away by. it was completely eye-opening to me, especially his description of the mass public worship of kim il-sung who was then the leader of north korea. it was like reading a chapter from 1984 your george orwell's vision had come to life at a few years earl

if you look at the charts and industrial materials, take a look at deer and freeport mcnamara. good even on those laggers. if we look across the broad spectrum of the market looks pretty good. >> if you don't time the mark a three month basis or a five year basis because you invest on a 50 year basis you have absolutely got no return in to in the meantime how many -- [talking over each other] >> you got to trade the market to the front and this market has been going up for three years. whether that is cyclical not ask me in two years. >> everyone was telling us to sell when the dow was 6000. i didn't sell. i didn't lose. i am back up 90%. why not hold on to your stocks? why did it in and out like a freight at? >> we are talking not even the overall picture. depending which sector and which time frame you are talking about, even when short-term, not as bullish on the market but an overall basis i do agree that long marked for the past three years has been up. we have had 12 downward corrections averaging about 7.5%. we are not talking 1% or 2%. >> last question. which happens fi

but he goes in there and he sees mcnamara and dean on the ground, looking at a map of vietnam talk aboutthe war. larry said, well, if they can do it, i can do it, too. [laughter] and there is in that image a certain crudity. but lbj just did not have any downtime. it was not meant to be demeaning, but he just never shut it off. [laughter] >> the story to which i was referring, talk about crossing the aisle. richard nixon had been called into a conference in lbj's bedroom. lbj was in bed in his pajamas. halfway through the conference, ladybird comes walking and in her dressing gown, greets nixon and they continue the conference from there. >> it had been particularly uncomfortable for tricky dick. >> and then there are the many late-night phone calls from lbj to various people of his staffers my favorite being the one where he calls in and says, are you asleep? >> yes, there is a congressman who said, you know, he would call people at all hours. >> 3330 in the morning. these lawmakers went out and there was one lawmaker called at 230 in the morning and he said, i'm sorry, did i wake you?

mcnamara in -- what was it called in the video? "the shadow of war" -- "the fog of war," he says, we came that close to nuclear holocaust. and any other highly id oe sin accuratic leader like castro could make the world a very dangerous place. >> there are countries that will bluf they have more nuclear weapons or mruf they have more than they actually have in order to keep you away. if you react on the bluff, you can actually militarize a situation that doesn't require a military approach but a diplomatic one. look at saddam hussein. saddam hussein pretended to have nuclear weapons because he was afraid of us and he was afraid of other people in the middle east. he was doing the same thing that nikita khrushchev pretended to be. you're fearful of american power. our very existence is a powerful, successful country is threatening to other countries. whether we like it or not, we can be ourselves. that's one lesson which is, be careful of how you act on bluff. the second is, presidents should be allowed to koch myself on minor point