. >> stephen: in the fog of war, bob mcnamara, secretary of defense robert mcnamara says that kennedykely would have deescalated that involvement in vietnam. but when johnson came in, the recordings of him saying i know that you and the president were saying that you were going to deescalate that war, i think that was the wrong thing to do. johnson does this to himself, right? he loses his funding for his programs by escalating the vietnam war himself. >> not totally deliberately but that's the way it happened >> stephen: he didn't mean to do it to himself. that was just sort of a 50,000 dead people oopsy daisy. >> well, that's a good way of putting it. >> stephen: very few people would say that. thank you. i appreciate it. you're very kind. ( applause ) you're very kind. >> you know what he said? he said this bitch of a war is killing the woman i love, the great society. >> stephen: do you think that the great society, those programs, will last long enough for you to write the next book about them? because they are under fire by the american people. they're failed. the great society

and i've read that article that the robot but as a document was declassified decades later that robert mcnamara the joint chiefs of staff under kennedy actually proposed it it was rejected thankfully by the president but i mean if you think about how it went all the way up in the chain of command all the way the president himself calling to do a false flag operation in the u.s. exactly her vocal cuba or basically to galvanize the public to support a program to relation is normal i would say is one of those things that's that's about. as terrifying as it can be in terms of revealing documents and what's even more terrifying is that we would have never even heard about it we're not like you said for all of one thousand nine hundred one film j.f.k. it kind of galvanized all this uproar for people demanding to see the documents over what really happened in j.f.k. and what they found while they're going through all these documents is the kennedy administration's kind of fixation with toppling the castro regime and what they found was that the cia under operations northwards was planning to not only

if we have that article with the robot but it's a document was declassified decades later that robert mcnamara the joint chiefs of staff under kennedy actually proposed it it was rejected thankfully by the president but i mean if you think about how it went all the way up in the chain of command all the way the president himself calling to do a false flag operation in the u.s. exactly her vocal cuba or basically to galvanize the public to support a normal i would say is one of those things that's that's about as terrifying as it can be in terms of revealing documents and what's even more terrifying is that we would have never even heard about it were not like you said for all of one thousand nine hundred one film j.f.k. it kind of galvanized all this uproar for people demanding to see the documents over what really happened in j.f.k. and what they found while they're going through all these documents is the kennedy administration's kind of fixation with toppling the castro regime and what they found was that the cia under operations northwards was planning to not only hijack planes blow up an

we have that article to throw up but but it's a document was declassified decades later that robert mcnamara the joint chiefs of staff under kennedy actually proposed it it was rejected thankfully by the president but i mean if you think about how it went all the way up in the chain of command all the way the president himself calling to do a false flag operation the u.s. exactly her vocal cuba or basically to galvanize the public to support a normal i would say is one of those things that's that's about as terrifying as it can be in terms of revealing documents and what's even more terrifying is that we would have never even heard about it were not like you said for all of one thousand nine hundred one film j.f.k. it kind of galvanized all this uproar for people demanding to see the documents over what really happened and what they found while they're going through all these documents is the kennedy administration's kind of fixation with toppling the castro regime and what they found was that the cia under operations northwards was planning to not only hijack planes blow up an american ship

c-span: did you read robert mcnamara's book? >> guest: yes. c-span: what did you think of the book and what do you think of him? >> guest: i have very, very mixed emotions about the book. i don't condemn mr. mcnamara, nor do i congratulate him. i think he has added to the body of knowledge that we have of vietnam, but i can't help but think that if he felt that strongly about it at that time and he had such knowledge of it of the failed situation we were in back in '68 or '69, i think he had an obligation to speak up at that time. and he chose not to. he chose to wait a number of years until coming out with his book. c-span: again, go back to the '62 '63 era in vietnam and the story of the journalists. how are press relations different today and the journalists that were there if you read the prochnau book were there trying to stop the war because they thought the government was lying. is there a legacy and do you think they were doing the right thing? >> guest: i have never, in all my years of public life, i have never blamed the press for our

remember reading the discussion surrounding when norman morrison set himself on fire to protest robert mcnamara'sey knew that the policies they were pursuing were not going to work. so i think that there is this idea that you do sometimes have to confront people with -- >> i totally -- >> this is the insight around shame. shaming us. holding accountable our elected leaders or shaming up those with relatively more power in the social hierarchy is a different kind of project politically, intellectually than shaming down. if you are in the powerless category and you point out to those above, you are failing and you should be ashamed of yourself, that's very different than the shaming that goes down, you person who doesn't meet my standard for sexuality or for the choices you're making. i feel like libertarians are worried about shaming down. >> the ridiculous drug testing of welfare recipients which to my mind is not shame. that's punitive action right there. we see a lot more of this in law enforcement too. the use of shame, things like -- if you're arrested for prostitution charge or not even arre

the corvette and the t-bird could have gone head to head but what happened was ford under robert mcnamaraary of defense. he was president of ford at the time. he decided to add a backseat to the t-bird which sales quad resumed but it wasn't a sports carnym. the corvette was the one that owned the american sports car territory, if you will. interestingly enough, that car being introduced in 1953, just think about that year. it was the year -- >> bill: corvette? >> the corvette >> bill: yeah. >> the year that elvis started recording music. it was the year hugh heffner started "playboy," it was the year the korea ended. you get this picture of a generation of americans who had grown up knowing depression and war and then eyebolts it's peacetime. right? people wanted to let loose a little bit. and along comes this car, which was a disaster at first by the way. it was a quality problem a six-cylinder under-powered vehicle and along comes this russian immigrant engineer named zora argesmentof who worked at gm, fell in love with the car. the corporation was about to discontinue the corvette. ple

we have a man named robert mcnamara to thank for that. you had this white house briefings -- pentagon briefing and people like other fine journalists on the ground and that is not going that way. i'm not saying the public was naÏve, but the public was a certain level of honesty. both kennedys and martin luther king was shot people about the nature of our political system. it's vietnam and watergate. look, president nixon's in 1973 makes the statement where he denies lots of things. a year later, evidence comes out, some of which he provides to the court, which contradicts almost completely what he wrote in 1973. so it didn't even take a year. as a citizen come you had to wonder. a slight two about vietnam by johnson and mcnamara and now i've lied to about about our electoral process in our government's commitment to privacy that president nixon. but the democrats and republicans have lie to me. i was at an event a year and half ago with carl bernstein and satellite link. bernstein was exercised about the lifelong after he left the white h

we have a man named robert mcnamara to thank for that. you had this white house briefings -- pentagon briefing and people like other fine journalists on the ground and that is not going that way. i'm not saying the public was naÏve, but the public was a certain level of honesty. both kennedys and martin luther king was shot people about the nature of our political system. it's vietnam and watergate. look, president nixon's in 1973 makes the statement where he denies lots of things. a year later, evidence comes out, some of which he provides to the court, which contradicts almost completely what he wrote in 1973. so it didn't even take a year. as a citizen come you had to wonder. a slight two about vietnam by johnson and mcnamara and now i've lied to about about our electoral process in our government's commitment to privacy that president nixon. but the democrats and republicans have lie to me. i was at an event a year and half ago with carl bernstein and satellite link. bernstein was exercised about the lifelong after he left the white h