Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara 

Directed by Errol Morris

Starring Robert S. McNamara

Rated PG-13 for images and thematic issues of war and destruction.

95 minutes runtime

Many of you out there in movie-land don’t think much of documentaries, but a documentary like this  is too important to miss.  And talk about straight from the horse’s mouth!  The entire film is nothing more, or less, than Robert McNamara describing his part in the most traumatic wars in American history, coupled with some of the most fascinating and accurately described newsreel clips you will ever see.  McNamera was a military advisor during World War II and went on to become Secretary of Defense during the devastating war in Viet Nam.

The big question is whether or not McNamera trying to rewrite history with this movie.  Has he gotten to the point in his life (he is over 85) when he is beginning to feel guilt for having been in charge during some of the biggest massacres ever engineered by America?  He certainly speaks freely about General Curtis LeMay and LeMay’s tendency to towards bigger violence to end bigger conflicts.  But he is decidedly passive about his own role in planning these actions.  He’s critical of the violence now, but what did he actually do and say at the time?  He alludes to a more moderate stance, but he doesn’t present much proof.

That point aside, the movie makes for fascinating history.  He was there through it all: the depression, World War II, the atomic bomb, the hydrogen bomb, the cold war, Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), Kennedy’s election and assassination, the Viet Nam war, the anti-war protests, the head of the World Bank and even a stint as president of Ford, of all things.  This guy was a whiz-kid, no matter what anybody says, and he has survived to tell about it.  That, alone, is remarkable.

McNamara is very self-depreciating in his describing his role in history, especially his role in the fire-bombing of dozens of Japanese cities during WW II.  Although he is deadly serious, and deadly accurate, in describing the results of those actions: over 100,000 Japanese civilians killed in the fire-bombing of Tokyo alone, and a complete absence of military targets.  And you thought London was the only city subject to terrorist bombing in WW II.  If he said what he did to stop the bombings, I must have missed it, but he certainly knows the details.  Nor does he describe anything he did to avoid the subsequent atomic bombing of Japan.  He tells it like LeMay ordered it and it happened.  It’s the lack of emotion in his voice as he describes the bombings that betrays his lack of action.

The overall movie is told as a group of 11 “lessons” gleaned from his experiences.  Maybe it’s his lesson that you sometimes “have to do evil to do good” that makes it hard to locate the man’s soul.  He goes on to explain that when doing evil to promote good, the evil should be proportional to the good.  In other words you shouldn’t kill a lot more people than you have to in order to accomplish a desired goal.  If McNamara’s goal in making this movie is to convince the world that what he did was right, the movie may be the biggest failure of his career.

Since McNamera defined the “lessons” of the movie, he dictated the subjects.  Some of the biggest questions never get asked, such as the details surrounding John F. Kennedy’s assassination.  He was talking to JFK and his brother Robert almost daily at that time, he must have some theories (or more) on the assassination.  He describes in detail how he walked Arlington cemetery with Kennedy before the killing, and revisited it to choose the place of Kennedy’s burial after the killing.  But not a mention of a theory.  This guy knows when to when to stay quiet.

His stories about his brief stint as president of Ford include the development of seat belts.  He was well paid for it, having millions in the bank and stock options after only about a year with Ford when he left to join the JFK administration as Secretary of Defense.  Certainly a better exit from Ford than Lee Iacocca, who was fired in spite of having developed the Mustang.  It makes one wonder what McNamera did for Ford after he was part of the Washington “inner circle”.  We do, after all, fight wars for oil that is used mainly to fuel cars.  Maybe he was closer to Ford during his Vietnam years than we know. 

McNamera has re-entered the limelight recently as a result of his comments condemning the war in Vietnam.  He more-or-less admitted the war was a mistake.  Probably the most severe criticism of the war to date by a highly placed official, but no surprise to many.  What he doesn’t talk about are the students at Kent State and elsewhere who were killed demonstrating against the war.  Is he taking responsibility for that?  Is he going to put those people up for the citizen’s award of valor that he received from Johnson?  These things aren’t mentioned in his lessons, nor is it mentioned that the FBI violated the constitution in harassing, investigating and using its power to punish those who spoke out against the war.  Where was he at the time, installing seat belts for Ford?  He is honest enough to point out that if the US had lost WW II that he and LeMay would probably have been tried as war criminals for the Japanese fire bombings.  It is implied that the use of Agent Orange in Viet Nam might have gotten him to the same place as well.  All-in-all, I’m not about to forgive and forget based on this movie.  But it is still a rare first hand account of some of most important events in American history.  The original score by Phillip Glass is great and perfectly synchronized with the powerful events that unfold in the archival film footage.  The footage, alone, is worth the price of admission.