robert mcnamara was involved as a major participant. we all know that. but what's remarkable is that mr. mcnamara knew the details, he knew the specifics of what was going on. in an interview once, i asked him how he could keep all of this turmoil straight in his mind. he looked at me as if i were mildly deranged, and he said, well, it's -- actually, it's quite simple. you just compartmentalize things and then just deal with them individually. i wonder now if dealing with these multitudinous crises individually affected his view of the interrelationship to the whole of u.s. policy. i don't know the answer, but i just wonder about it these days. both secretary brown and professor herring alluded to clark clifford. clifford saw his major role as convincing president johnson to get out of vietnam. clifford was convinced that the american adventure was draining the economy, and threatening to reduce the united states to a second-class economic power. he was very, very concerned that that was the true strength of the united states, not its military might. in o

i'll begin with my very brief remarks with a quote from robert mcnamara from 1964. i don't object to vietnam being called mcnamara's war. i think it is a very important war and i am pleased to be identified with it and do whatever i can to win it it was very important war. he was not able to win the war but his reputation has become tied over the years. very closely to the u.s. failure in that conflict. it is part of the ongoing secretary of defense historical series put out by our office. it focus owes the roles of the secretaries and office of the secretary of defense in developing and executing national defense policy. it is a sequel to mcnamara 1961 to 1965. we have the next four books in the series under way. various stages of progress. neil will take us through weinberger's tenure in the early 1980s. our goal has been to produce well-researched, balanced, objectives will stand the test of time. it will serve hopefully as useful information for current policy makers and finally inform the american public. we believe that ed's book is a great addition to this ser

time and chance happened to robert mcnamara too. thank you very much. >> you put your own book in context. the english man of letters sent with johnson once wrote the business of the scholar is to think in solitude and speak in public. i believe we have been fortunate today to have three scholars what they felt in solitude in a public way that is on this stage. we owe them a lot and join me in thanking them. we are at a point where you can be on the question and answer session. we have mikes set up on each side. we would like you to be at the mike and collect your question to whoever you wish. sir? >> thank you. any person on the panel can handle this. one of the world's leadingest authors on vietnam was a man named bernard who lived a 20-minute drive from the pentagon. why did mcnamara and his colleagues never bother to talk to him other than they never said what they wanted to hear? >> that story, there is a story about that. one time when they -- i think it was in 63 or maybe 64. they were agonizing over vietnam and i think mcnam

. >>> robert mcnamara served under presidents kennedy and johnson. next, a discussion of his leadership and the vietnam war. >> for millions of americans the vietnam war was the defining moment of their lives. today it serves as a watershed period in our history, the same way world war ii did for previous generations. this -- panel discussion this afternoon is of particular interest to me. i was stationed with the first marine division for six months and then on the "u.s.s. sanctuary". so it is my pleasure now to turn the program over to john hoffman, deputy chief historian to the secretary of defense. he's on active duty and infantry office in field historian for 17 years. in his civilian career he served as deputy director of the museum division, chief of the army center for military history's contemporary studies branch and became deputy chief historian of the osd historical office in 2010. please welcome john hoffman. >>> thank you for hosting. i said, well, i will jump on that green aid for you. you don't have to do that. you can go to the natio

secretary of defense robert mcnamara came to personify the united states commitment in vietnam, and indeed, in many ways the ethos of the 1960s. he was the can-do man in the can-do society in the can-do era in david halverstam's phrase. in the early kennedy and johnson years, he managed the american commitment in vietnam almost as a desk officer, whether slogging through vietnam in army fatigues, spewing out statistics, or presiding at a press conference, and he came to embody what was known as secretary brown suggested as mcnamara's war. whatever the difficulties of the moment, he exuded a certainty that promised eventual success. in fact, we now know his public confidence far outlasted the emergence of profound private doubts about both the winnability of the war and indeed ultimately its purposes. and his departure from the pentagon in 1968, as much i think as lbj's march 31st speech of that year marked the glorious end of an era once bright with promise. as the war provoked increasingly nasty divisions in the united states, mcnamara became a target for critics from both left and right.

only the name jane fonda is likely to provoke more anger than that of robert mcnamara. the publication of his memoire in 1995 and his admission that in his word, we were wrong, terribly wrong ignited the war over the war yet again. for both sides, raising the issue of how the secretary of defense could have stuck with the war, he could have come to see as futile, if not indeed wrong. the book i am privileged to discuss focuses on one of the most controversial men and one of the most controversial events of an e.r.a. is ripe with controversy. the title of the book is chosen as that mara, cliffords and the burtens. burtens are an appropriate word to describe the trevails at the defense department 1965 to 1969. the burdens of the floor were each of the 547 pages of the book. they have packed ever issue discussed. they destroyed that mara's dreams of bringing the pentagon and the budget under some rational control. they tarnished his reputation in ways from which he would never recover. they took a huge toll on him personally as is evidenced from comparing photos say a 1963

secretary general of the -- of the world bank then was robert mcnamara. he embraced this program. and there emerged something called the consultative group on international agricultural research. my expectation, climate works' expectation for the conference in rio, is to create a consultative group on low emissions development. if that is done, climate works will commit to substantial matching funding of the initial outlays made by the world bank and international aid and development organizations. that is a very specific commitment, sense of expectation, and i think a very practical and necessary one that could be of enormous assistance in meeting the secretary general's important goals of energy access to all, significantly more efficiency, and significantly more renewables. i close with a remark that i think i remember more or less accurately from senator moynihan when he said, if i have learned one thing in my career, it is that success of a culture, of a society, is about culture, not policy, but policy can transform culture can, change it for the better. and the two together

. >> i remember when robert mcnamara was here years ago i asked him whether or not he'd ever read the pentagon papers and first of all i said they were in his garage and he said he never read the papers. >> i'm not sure that's true. >> because? >> because i think his conscience may have drawn him to reading parts. he knew we were going to publish it. >> and you've admitted who leaked you those papers? let me go back to this narrative for this book, it's a long complicated story but dan elsburg copied the paper. >> you wrote that they were preceded to the white house much earlier. the staff car pulls up to the guard cubicle inside the northwest gate to the white house off of pennsylvania avenue at precisely 7:30 a.m. as i'm reading this i'm saying to myself, how did he get this stuff. who told you this stuff? >> now, this another important thing. vince ford had put together a memoir. vince ford was a colonel who worked first for schreiver and then for gardner as his assistant. and ford had been using schreiver's paper. >> never published? >> never published. it's sitting in the eisenho

was that his own idea, was that his advisers, what did robert mcnamara say about that? >> he had a lot of expertise, but it was in the question of number crunching analysis, not political. mcnamara is probably still as a political a person who has ever held a large portion of power and washington. >> know, these were his own instincts. she knew he had been the senate majority leader and a ferociously effective one after all. and he knew the allies in the party who were from a much more military mind than his own she didn't have much respect for the joint chiefs. he had seen them squabbling among themselves, but he knew that his allies, and of course especially his opponents in congress, would seize on any weakness about vietnam. if he had tried to say he probably could have gotten away with it with the american public with the goodwill he generated. if only in 65 he had said given the breakdown of the administration and south vietnam, we have done our best, we always said that it was up to those boys to fight their own of war and they can't do it and we are writing off,

secretary-general of the bank was robert mcnamara. he embraced this program and they're emerged something called the consultative group on the international agricultural research. my expectation, the climate works expectation for the conference in rio is to create a consultative group on low emissions development. climate works to substantial matching funding of the initial outlays made by the world bank and international aid and development organizations. that is a very specific commitment in the expectation of, and i think a very practical and necessary one that could be of enormous assistance in meeting the secretary-general's important goal of energy access to all significantly more efficiency, significantly more renewables. i will close with a remark i think i remember more or less accurately from senator moynihan. when he said if i learned one thing in my career, it is that success of a culture is of a society is a culture, not policy. the policy can transform culture and change it for the better. and the two together have worke

c-span: and you had robert mcnamara.ere they are sitting around, and i remember from the film that bobby kennedy was against it. >> guest: bobby kennedy was against a botched crew. he did not want a crew that happened to unravel. for them to be taken out and die. he airily said that it is not like in south america or a rock where we can control. he thought the whole thing would go south. when you hear that, you think that they would reconsider the two. i think lodge, as he said, having been the existential running mate of nixon, he was complementary in his own right. he set things right the way he wanted to do it. c-span: how long had he been there when the coup took place? >> just a few weeks. jfk ruefully noted that once as a reporter on a trip. c-span: whose idea was it to make him ambassador of vietnam from the united states? >> guest: it was john f. kennedy's idea to have him be the ambassador to reply on 10. c-span: would john f. kennedy have gotten out of vietnam and he had been reelected? >> strangely enough, my

secretary general of the world bank back then was robert mcnamara. he embraced this program. there emerged something called the continental group on an approach to research. my idea is to create constitutive group on low emissions development. if that is done, climate works to substantial funding made by the world bank and international aid and development organizations. that is a very specific amendment -- commitment and expectation, and i think, a practical and necessary one that could be of enormous assistance in meeting the secretary- general's important goals of energy access for all, and significantly more efficiency and renewables. i will close with a remark from senator moynihan. he said, if i have learned one thing in my career is that success of a culture, of a society -- but a society is about culture, not policy. but policy can transform culture, can change it for the better. and the two together have worked historic way to improve life vary considerably for all of us. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, bill and carlos, for those great remarks. we now have 15 or