McNamara, Others Compare Notes on War
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HANOI — Former Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara and others who waged war in Vietnam came together Friday to examine why the fighting dragged on for so long.
Former warriors, scholars and political analysts met here in the Vietnamese capital to compare notes on why peace initiatives failed and the United States became entangled in a war McNamara has since called unwinnable.
“We each could have achieved our geopolitical objectives without a terrible loss of life,” McNamara told the Associated Press. “That’s the major missed opportunity.”
Despite repeated efforts, the United States and North Vietnam failed to broker an end to the war.
The primary cause for the enduring war was the failure of each side to understand the other, he said.
“They thought we were colonialists, and we thought they were a pawn of the Soviet Union or China,” said McNamara, who led the United States into battle against Communist North Vietnam. In 1995, he called the war a tremendous error.
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