The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons From the Life of Robert S. McNamara (****)
Fog of War is a thought provoking tour de force that raises more questions than it answers. But this is not a criticism—raising a question is often more important than answering another one. Also, if Robert McNamara cannot provide clear answers about the Vietnam War, who can? If you have any interest in the lessons of history, you should see this movie (though it might be worth waiting for the extended DVD).
The movie comprises excerpts from a 20-hour interview of McNamara (JFK and Johnson’s Secretary of Defense) focusing on his role in World War II, the Cuban Missile Crisis and Vietnam. In addition to the interview with McNamara, we are shown images of what is being described and we also often hear tape recorded exchanges between McNamara and Kennedy or Johnson. The contemporary exchanges alone make the movie worth seeing.
McNamara’s recollections, insights and conclusions are fascinating and the filmmakers do an excellent job of blending themes. One example is the discussion of proportionality in war, a doctrine McNamara loosely endorses. During World War II McNamara analyzed the efficiency of bombing raids in Germany and Japan and helping to develop America’s crushing air superiority. He discusses the devastating pre-Hiroshima fire bombing of Japan led by General Curtis LeMay (which was far more extensive than I had ever realized) and admits that the architects of the bombing raids, himself included, probably would have been tried as war criminals if we had lost the war. He asks the question, without answering it, whether the killing of hundreds of thousands (if not more) Japanese civilians was justified in order to save American troops. The filmmakers subtly compare this approach, with the U.S.’s approach in Vietnam, where the debate continues today as to whether we put in too many or too few troops. (McNamara maintains that he wanted to scale back the conflict and refers to a memorandum he wrote to Johnson just before he “resigned”/was fired where he advocated scaling back operations; however, other statements by McNamara don’t seem entirely consistent with that position and McNamara’s comments on Vietnam were not as straightforward as his comments on WWII or the Cuban Missile Crisis.) Neither the movie, nor McNamara attempt to give a definitive answer, but the contrasts in approach and tactics are though provoking.
Many other aspects of the movie that could be commented on, such as an insider’s chilling recollections, aided by hindsight and additional information, of how close we came to nuclear devastation in the Cuban missile crisis, but a full discussion could fill a book. Go see this movie or, perhaps better yet, catch it on DVD. An extended edition version is due out soon and if it is like the extra material on the 2 disk Capturing the Friedmans DVD, waiting for (or seeing it again on) the DVD will be well worth it. While there are some excellent visuals in the movie, you won’t lose much viewing it on DVD as long as you can watch it in letterbox. Also, it is an excellent movie to stop and discuss at times as a lot of ground covered in less than two hours.
Fog of War was directed by Errol Morris, who also did The Thin Blue Line and A Brief History of Time, both of which I highly recommend.
The website for Fog of War is quite interesting and has excerpts from the film.
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