. >> robert mcnamara. served in the air force during world war ii. robert mcnamara reflects on war and morality and his own complicity as a human being and as a u.s. policymaker, and the film is both moving and in a way cathartic. >> we all make mistakes. we know we make mistakes. i don't know any military commander who is honest who would say he has not made a mistake. there's a wonderful phrase, "the fog of war." what the fog of war means is war is so complex, it's beyond the ability of the human mind to comprehend all the variables. our judgment, our understanding, are not adequate. and we kill people unnecessarily. >> it's from "the fog of war." the man who made that oscar winning film, errol morris has a new film out called "the unknown known." he subjects donald rumsfeld to the same scrutiny as robert mcnamara from "the fog of war" but this film donald rumsfeld has no interests in scrutinizing himself. >> osama gets away and a confusion sets in. people began to think that saddam was connected with al qaeda and with 9/11. >> i don't think so. it

. >> robert mcnamara. served in the air force during world war ii. robert mcnamara reflects on war

. >> we're talking--in the case of extreme poverty when the concept was first introduced by robert mcnamaran the 1970s it was $1 a day. now it's increased to $1.25 a day. he described that condition as a state of depreviousty that almost goes beyond human imagination, and it still almost goes beyond human imagination. i've worked with many people living on less than that. it's a condition that we should not tolerate any more on this earth. and so in setting that target what we mean we want to lift everyone out of that condition of living on less than $125 a daaday bring that less to 30% of the population. there are always going to be disasters, and people going in and out of poverty. we don't think we can get it lower than 3%. but right now the levels are 17.7% is the last number we have globally. to get there we're going to have to lift almost 50 million peop people a year out of extreme poverty. >> you mean now. >> between now and 2030. a million a week. that's what we're going to have to do. if the global growth happens in the same way that it happened in the briefs 20, 30 years we're no

he listens to his advisors and generals and robert mcnamara and pushed forward. i think, my theory is that it was his political hubris that did that. >> political hubris. bethat he did not want to known as the first president to lose a war. >> he said that. --he did not want to be a vulnerable to attacks by barry goldwater during the campaign of 1964 that he was weak, soft on military. scared, have the red scare come in and be a factor in that election. >> he was an interesting guy. a lot of people think he was the most interesting president after roosevelt. probably the most interesting guy to have that the office. just the largest of the personality. unbelievable. >> i think it was bill moyers who said lyndon b. johnson is 11 of the most interesting people i have ever met. he is the full spectrum of emotion. to cannot assign anyone lyndon johnson, you have to use all of them. he is mercurial and passionate and interesting and wallowing in self-pity. brazen and funny and embracing and threatening. what partnever know of lyndon johnson you were going to receive w

the escalation was certainly on his shoulders and he listened to his advisers and generals, and robert mcnamarad pushed forward. i think my theory is i think it was his political hubris that did that. >> charlie: political hubris? yes, that he did not want to be known as the first president to lose a war. >> charlie: he said that. yeah. he did not want to be vulnerable to attacks by barry goldwater during the campaign of '64 that he was weak, soft on military, you know, and scared, have the red scare come in and be a factor in that election. >> charlie: he's an interesting guy. i know a lot of people think he's the most interesting president of the last -- you know, after roosevelt, probably the most interesting guy to inhabit the office. >> i think so. >> charlie: just the largeness of the personality. >> unbelievable. i think bill moyer said lyndon johnson is the most interesting of the 11 people i've ever met. he is the full spectrum of emotion. you cannot assign any one adjective to lyndon johnson. you have to use all of them, he is mecurial and impassioned and wallowing in self pity and fu

about robert mcnamara, and has come out with this book about rumsfeld. he has investigated very thoroughly and thinks there are a lot of unanswered questions. the quote i use is basically the truth is out there and in principle we can find it. that was my driving force. the truth is out there. and in principle we can find it. i did the best i could. but i do not know if we are ever going to get to the bottom of this unless some people who really know what happened to our not completely discredited, i do not think they are discredited, but everybody thinks crystal is discredited. just now a convicted murderer in jail for murdering her boyfriend. anything mike nifong -- and they think mike nifong is the antichrist. >> where is he now? >> he lives in durham and lives on a pension. he has health problems. he had cancer. he got over that. he has since had a heart attack. he lives a very quiet, solitary life. but he did spend the time to talk to me and get a chance to tell his story that has never been told. >> you mentioned crystal magnum. let's take a look a

you criticized robert mcnamara for turning his back on the troops in vietnam. the full context of what mr. mcnamara did? >> guest: the full context is that mr. mcnamara lost his sense of purpose in the lord. he started to question, what are we doing there in the first and then he began to look for a way of negotiating with the other side. and he used his power because he had more power than the secretary of defense to get into areas where he shouldn't have been gone, but he was looking for a way of having a negotiated peace when he was secretary of defense. and his relationship with the military generals became very antagonistic. the opposite of secretary of defense/injured -- schlesinger. he stood shoulder to shoulder with his generals and they greatly appreciated it. secretary mcnamara went the other way. >> host: april 1975 where are you when saigon fell? they remember that day? >> guest: i was in the pentagon. i do remember it. >> host: what was it like? >> the day saigon fell, i was the assistant to secretary schlesinger, our ambassador in saigon at the tim

you criticized robert mcnamara for turning his back on the troops in vietnam. the full context of what mr. mcnamara did? >> guest: the full context is that mr. mcnamara lost his sense of purpose in the lord. he started to question, what are we doing there in the first place? and then he began to look for a way of associating with the others died. and he used his power because he had more power and the secretary of defense, secretary of state rusk to get into areas where he shouldn't have gone, but he was looking for would have had the sense or to negotiated peace when he's the secretary of defense. .. >> guest: our ambassador in saigon at the time, ambassador martin, didn't want to leave. he wanted to be the last man out if he had to get out, and what we were trying, what schlesinger was trying to do was get everybody out of there. and so it was more a focus on the tactics of not leaving anybody behind, especially your ambassador -- [laughter] rather than the larger picture. the larger picture didn't set in until several months later. >> host: isn't that the amb

you can look back to robert mcnm mcnamara, who was a wiz kid and bean counting and cutting back on qualityhat has plagued the auto industry. mary barra is trying to say, we are the new g.m. it is going to take time, regardless. >> things are looking pretty grim for general motors. millions of cars can be recalled, which could cost the company more than $1 billion to handle. just left government ownership. could this whole scandal break the company? >> if you look back at history, companies do a lot of recalls. what happens is, you need to do them all at once and you need to get out in front of it. if you let things go in drips and drabs and do recalls over the course of a year or two as toyota did, that's when you start to lose and see a more severe impact longer term for the company. one thing that's interesting, after mary barra testified on the hill, the stock price went up. the markets are confident in here. how confident they will be in g.m. after all the facts come out remains to be seen. >> they are going to swear the witne witnesses and make their opening statements. ran na far rue

robert, said, no, basically to their hardliners. dearly.ost both men the generals were furious with kennedy. lemay was raging at the meeting that was described by mcnamara and others. lost.said, we we lost. this was our moment. and khrushchev was criticized by his own people, but the soviets were inferior in strength. but they built up after that crisis. they built up significantly, so by the late 1970's, they were almost achieving parity. in other words, kennedy and khrushchev saved -- what were saying is kennedy and khrushchev saved the world at a very key moment. we owe him a lot. beginnings also the of the cuban embargo that exists to this day. to this day. the explain how that happened? >> the united states policy was the castroverthrow government, to do everything it could to sabotage, undermine, overthrow the castro government. the fear was that you are going to have similar kinds of revolutionary movements throughout latin america, that they would stand as an example. the united states policy since that time has not been only to isolate the cuban government, but to attempt to prevent similar kind of left-wing uprisings from occurring elsewhere.