Amazon.com: The Fog of War, the movie that finally won Errol Morris the best documentary Oscar, is a spellbinder. Morris interviews Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and finds a uniquely unsettling viewpoint on much of 20th-century American history. Employing a ton of archival material, including LBJ's fascinating taped conversations from the Oval Office, Morris probes the reasons behind the U.S. commitment to the Vietnam War--and finds a depressingly inconsistent policy. McNamara himself emerges as--well, not exactly apologetic, but clearly haunted by the what-ifs of Vietnam. He also mulls the bombing of Japan in World War II and the Cuban Missile Crisis, raising more questions than he answers. The Fog of War has the usual inexorable Morris momentum, aided by an uneasy Philip Glass score. This movie provides a glimpse inside government. It also encourages skepticism about same. --Robert Horton
The Fog Of War Gets Foggier In the normal course of events former high level bureaucrats in American presidential administrations usually save their attempts at self-justification for high ticket published memoirs or congenial `softball' speaking tours and conferences. In short, they prefer to preach to the choir at retail prices. Apparently, former Kennedy and Johnson Administration Cold Warrior extraordinaire Secretary of War Robert Strange McNamara felt that such efforts were not enough and hence he had to go before the cameras in order to whitewash his role in the history of his times. Despite an apparent agreement with his interviewer not to cover certain subjects and be allowed to present his story his way it is always good to catch a view of how the other side operates. It ain't pretty.
After a lifetime of relative public silence, at the age of 85, McNamara decided to give his take on events in which he was a central figure like dealing with the fact of American imperial military superiority in the post- World War II period, dealing with the Russians and the fight for American nuclear superiority during the Cold War, the illi-conceived Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, the later Cuban Missile crisis and above all his role in the escalation of the wars in Southeast Asia, primarily Vietnam.
Very little here focuses on his time at the World Bank, a not unimportant omission that would highlight my point that he might have changed his clothing in the course of his career but not his mindset. While those of us interested in learning the lessons of history have long understood that to know the political enemy is the beginning of wisdom one will not find much here that was not infinitely better covered by the late journalist David Halberstam in his classic The Best and The Brightest.
McNamara has chosen to present his story in the form of parables, or rather, little vignettes about the `lessons' to be drawn from experiences. Thus, we are asked to sit, embarrassingly, through McNamara's Freshman course in revisionist history as he attempts to take himself from the cold-hearted Cold Warrior and legitimate `war criminal' to the teddy-bearish old man who has learned something in his life- after a lifetime of treachery.
In the end, if one took his story at face value, one could only conclude that he was just trying to serve his bosses the best way he could and if things went wrong it was their fault. Nothing new there, though. Henry Kissinger has turned that little devise into an art form. Teary-eyed at the end McNamara might be as he acknowledges his role in the mass killings of his time, but beware of a wolf in sheep's clothing. Yet, you need to watch this film if you want to understand how these guys (and gals) defend their state.
A war criminal remembers ... The old boy is a war criminal, remember that! The fog was in his head, when he helped to lie the USA into attacking a country that posed no threat to the USA or anyone else. (Sound familiar?)
Must see..... Gotta watch McNamara discuss his role in the quagmire we called the Vietnam War. There is a message in this film and it isn't in the interview itself. Excellent for thinking people.
Excellent teaching tool My husband watched this movie during one of his Administration in Education classes, he decided to buy it and use it at the high school. He was very impressed with the "lessons" in the movie, it is worth the watch.
Comment Found this an informative movie from Robert S. MacNamara's perspective.It is good to hear what people whose decisions affect many have to say. The lessons the former Sec. of Def. presents reflect his ability to draw lessons from history. And to share them.
Though Mr. MacNamara served in the military earlier in his life his tenure as Secretary of Defense does not appear to reflect an adequate understanding of war or of strategy.
This movie shows that what he may have once thought was a straight forward and apparently clear path to victory in SE Asia, turned out to be an extremely difficult, messy and costly affair. Management in the automobile industry is I think quite different to managing a war, due to the very nature of war.
At the end of the movie I was left wondering if Mr. MacNamara having shared his lessons with us was himself out of the fog. With the less than favourable situation we presently find ourselves in in the world today, perhaps we are all still wandering about in the fog.The title of this movie is therefore quite fitting for both the MacNamara years and today as well.
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