ASSOCIATED PRESS / 2003
"There is room in society for dissent. Dissent such as we have against the present governmental policy (in Vietnam). Dissent must be tolerated if we hope to achieve a society of individuals. We can't stop opposing thoughts." --Robert S. McNamara, Secretary of defense during the Vietnam War, speaking to Star-Bulletin reporter Tomi Kaizawa Knaefler in 1967. McNamara is the subject of the Oscar-winning documentary "The Fog of War," playing at the Varsity theater in HonoluluA break in the fog of war
In 1967, Robert S. McNamara was one of the world's most powerful men. As secretary of defense during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, he was the architect of America's failed war strategy in Vietnam.
Today he is back in the news, the focus of filmmaker Errol Morris' "The Fog of War," winner of this year's Academy Award for best documentary feature film.
"We were terribly wrong," he admits today. The film is drawn from McNamara's 1996 memoir, "In Retrospect:The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam," in which he broke a quarter-century of public silence on the war that killed 58,000 Americans and bitterly divided the country.
In the spring of 1967, at the height of public outcry against American involvement in Vietnam, with protesters often gathered by the thousands just outside his office, McNamara sat down for a rare, exclusive interview, with Honolulu Star-Bulletin reporter Tomi Kaizawa Knaefler.
After seeing the film a few days ago, Knaefler said: "Yep, that's the same McNamara I sat face-to-face with 37 years ago. There's the same brilliance, the same intensity and the same quick, easy smile. But now there's a lot more edges of sadness about his face."
She rates the film, now at the Varsity theater, a "must-see."
"It's a must for those of us who lived through the turmoil that fractured this country. And it's a must for the young who weren't around then. They, too, owe it to themselves to learn the lessons of war that McNamara learned."
Here is Knaefler's interview as it appeared in the Star-Bulletin on April 19, 1967.
ASSOCIATED PRESS / 1967
Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara during a news conference in 1967 in Washington, D.C.Robert S. McNamara:
The man behind the mythAs the Vietnam War rages
the defense head shows his
softer side in an interview
WASHINGTON >> A few days before arriving here, I wrote to a friend, Jack Teehan, a former newspaperman now in Washington, and ended my note with: "By the way, Jack, could you arrange an interview for me with Defense Secretary McNamara."
Teehan, now press secretary to Hawaii's U.S. Senator Daniel K. Inouye, first laughed, and then shuddered and finally cussed at my general ignorance: Didn't I know that a personal interview with McNamara is even harder to get than a cashew in a can of Planter's peanuts?
Once I got here, the problem was put to Senator Inouye, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The senator raised his brows a bit and then reached for the telephone.
"How are you, Mr. Secretary," he started.
And then: "I have a reporter here from the Honolulu Star-Bulletin who would like to meet you ... Fifteen minutes ... 5:45? ... Yes, she'll be there."
I couldn't believe what my ears heard. Neither could Jack.
I told the senator I'd only believe it when I actually saw the secretary face to face.
The senator made arrangements for a pass and transportation to the Pentagon, a spin away from the Capitol dome and a yawn across the Potomac River.
Caught in rush-hour traffic
Of course, I missed my arranged ride and the resulting panic ballooned with each passing minute as I discovered the impossibility of getting a cab in the peak going-home traffic.
The only possibility was for Jack to drive me, and even this hope appeared to wane as our car stood at standstills en route.
Jack tried to relieve my jitters by kidding me about writing a story about "the day I stood up Secretary McNamara."
Finally, the granite gray of the Pentagon loomed into sight. Its pencil-slim antennas poked into the tattle-tale gray sky of Washington's dusk.
Jack assured me I still had some seven minutes before the appointed time as we swung in front of the squat but massive structure that is the Pentagon.
As I tumbled onto the flight of stairs, a man in a brown suit came forward to meet me in "burnt orange dress," which was my pre-arranged identification mark.
He led me through two layers of heavy doors and up an escalator. There, to the left at the top, was a black-and-white sign over a doorway: "Secretary of Defense."
My escort conferred with a pretty, young, blonde receptionist wearing the gray-blue uniform of the Air Force. Each sleeve sported a "V" centered by a star.
The waiting room was warmly plain with green leather chairs upon a beige carpet and lighted by several glowing lamps.
Nervous wreck
My palms began to perspire and I confided to the receptionist.
"Here it is, my big moment, and I'm ready to cry. My black bra is peeping out from the low-back cut of my dress and my stocking just sprouted a bumper crop of runs. I'm really nervous."
"Don't be," she smiled. "He's very nice. Really, very nice."
I asked her what it was like working with the secretary, whom a McNamara gadfly had once accused of having a "chrome-plated heart."
She said: "This is a wonderful place to work. He's very nice."
"Is he a perfectionist?" I asked and she replied: "Yes and no. We have standard procedures and we follow them. I've been here only six months."
She said the secretary was "very hard working." He arrives at the office between 6 and 7 a.m., six days a week, and begins the day with a working breakfast. The office day ends between 6 and 7 each night.
Just then, a youthful-looking man in a navy blue suit appeared and introduced himself as Phil Goulding, assistant secretary of defense for public affairs.
"I'm terribly nervous," I said.
He laughed. "He won't bite you. You'll enjoy him."
Script approval
Goulding asked whether I planned to write a non-attribution story or whether I planned to quote the secretary directly. I told him I wanted to quote the secretary, as I sought to do a personal rather than an issue-oriented story.
In that event, he explained, the secretary would want to review the quotations before the story is printed.
He further explained the secretary would be "more relaxed" and less on guard in a non-attribution interview.
I said, no, I still preferred to quote the secretary, and I agreed to the prescribed pre-publication review.
With the agreement, Goulding led me through an inner secretary's office, which opened immediately onto a spacious rectangular room. A sweeping first glance picked up a blur of flags, desk, chairs, telephones, paintings, warmly lit lamps and beige carpeting.
My eyes zeroed onto a huge portrait in oil on one wall. Almost in the same instant, I spotted him: Robert McNamara, one of the most powerful and controversial figures in the world today, was leaning at a 50- degree angle over his large walnut desk piled with papers.
This is the man who sits in a position of vast, far-reaching power.
This is the man who wins the highest praise from the president.
This is the man who moved from a middle-class, California public school background to a Phi Beta Kappa college sophomore, to a "whiz kid" president of Ford Motor Company and 42 days later was named the nation's eighth secretary of defense.
As soon as we entered the room, the study of the man etched in serious thought sprang alive.
ASSOCIATED PRESS / 1967
Vietnam War protesters jammed Washington, D.C.'s Memorial Bridge on Oct. 21, 1967, as they marched toward the Pentagon.A smile and handshake
McNamara walked briskly forward with a sunburst of a smile and a swift offer of a firm, comforting handshake.
"Sit down. Sit down." He motioned toward a green leather chair flanking his desk. I sat there while Goulding adjourned to a seat near the window.
"Honolulu ..." the secretary spoke, the welcome smile still lingering on his slightly tanned face. "I'd like to be there right now."
When told that could be arranged, he laughed heartily. "I wish I could."
McNamara has been in Honolulu many times for strategy conferences or en route to such conferences.
I told him I wanted to bypass the world-shaping issues for now and, instead, wanted to know what he was like.
Again he laughed, crossed his shirt-sleeved arms together and said: "I guess you'll need to observe me for that."
What I observed was a trim, tall, well-proportioned figure -- the type that probably doesn't show a bulge on a diet of layered chocolate cake.
It was easy to imagine him as the skier, mountain climber and avid tennis player that he is.
It was easy, too, to believe that he loves literature, philosophy, music, as well as the challenge of cost-efficiency gobble-de-gook, which he does.
Penetrating eyes
The bookish look -- it was all there: the severely combed hair from the square forehead to the back of the neck and the penetrating eyes behind old-fashioned silver-rimmed glasses.
The eyes were declared 4-F, but that didn't stop him from becoming a statistics expert for the Air Force during World War II.
The McNamara eyes penetrate brightly even as they crinkle in a ready laugh or an easy smile.
There is a quality about his eyes -- at once warm, and yet, with a hint of potential glint that could shred a mountain into a hill.
His eyes have been described variously as blue, dull gray and hazel. I didn't notice the color. I was much too absorbed by other facets within them.
I observed, too, a tiny blotch of white on his red-black-gray striped tie, perhaps a dripping from a creamed soup he may have had for lunch.
The tie, held by a small clasp, complemented charcoal and white-flecked trousers, finished off with black socks and shoes.
'Quite an exaggeration'
The composite appearance matched that of a Y.M.C.A. executive or a friendly drug salesman.
I was compelled to preface my next remark with: "I may be wrong, but ... the image I have of you is that of a tremendously efficient, tremendously unyielding computer."
McNamara's smile was still around, but the edges were showing a bit now.
Warmly, but firmly, he said: "That's quite an exaggeration.
"I do deal with money and men and pieces (the hardware) and because I do, I need to work in the most efficient way possible. They require a measure, a standard of measure."
Not inhuman
I later recalled what he had told a New York Times reporter once: "I just work hard. I do what I can do to intelligently direct the activities for which I have responsibility. I have to have high standards, and I aim to fulfill my oath of office. I must deal in specifics, not generalities."
The secretary stared at his desk for a moment and said:
"It's perfectly absurd. It always annoys me to be compared with a computer."
I felt somewhat sorry for bringing up the subject and I thought of Senator Inouye's evaluation of the secretary:
"He's brilliant and he's also a very warm person. People may not realize it, but even with all the important problems that he has to tackle, the secretary does get involved in the problems of the private first-class."
I asked McNamara what, then, is his vision of man, his vision of society?
Room for dissent
Without a moment's hesitation, he responded:
"Man is a creature of god -- god with a small g, almost.
"Man has the capacity for rational behavior and, most of all, the capacity for nonrational behavior. Emotions. Faith. Higher than by reason alone.
"For this reason alone, I object to the thought that one can run life by computers alone. We can't now and we can't ever. That will never be.
"My vision of society is that society exists for the advancement of man -- men as individuals. And because of that, there is room in society for dissent. Dissent such as we have against the present governmental policy (in Vietnam).
"Dissent must be tolerated if we hope to achieve a society of individuals. We can't stop opposing thoughts."
I re-read previous statements he had made to the Associated Press that he and his staff were willing to listen to all points of view before reaching a conclusion, but once a decision is made, then, "By God, I expect everyone to fall in line. You can't run a military organization with divided authority -- or any other kind of organization."
I asked the secretary for a further vision -- how much longer must we endure this seemingly endless arms race that is so much a part of life today? How many more centuries will men have to live this way?
The secretary began at an easy pace:
"The arms race has gone on for thousands of years. It can be dampened down, but it cannot be stopped in our lifetime."
And then, his words picked up speed, considerable speed -- if he'll pardon the expression -- like a computer afire.
It became impossible for me to follow the pregnant flow.
'Calm and analytical'
That, I guess, is a minor example of the documentary mastery that has both dazzled and irritated Congress during the past seven years.
That, I guess, offers a glimpse into the McNamara mind, which has been described as a "beautiful instrument, free from leanings and adhesions, calm and analytical."
He spoke of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the proposed non-proliferation treaty for all nations and the hoped-for negotiations with Russia regarding an agreement on anti-ballistic missile system projections to combat the offensive offense of intercontinental ballistic missile shots.
Those treaties and negotiations, he said, "help dampen down the arms race.
"We can't achieve everything significantly in the next few years. But, through such efforts, we can make substantial progress in reducing the rate of advance in the arms race."
He pointed out such agreements involve "taking risks to avoid risks ... and we must look at both sides of the equation. There are net advantages to both sides and both sides have risks."
Jungle of Pentagon talk
As his crisp mind moved swiftly through a barrage of thoughts, I commented that when he spills over into this jungle of Defense Department talk, I can no longer follow him.
This, I said, may perhaps be a major reason why people like me feel we've abdicated our control to him; to the technocrats who can no longer be understood.
McNamara appeared sad-eyed.
He said, still warmly and still patiently: "We've made tremendous efforts to increase the public's understanding of our national defense program."
He swiveled his chair a few inches and reached for a thick document on a table behind him, weighted with an assortment of reading material.
"This," he said, patting the document, "is the sort of thing we've published to increase the public's understanding. It was never done before. We've made tremendous efforts in this area so that the public can understand what is and what is not in the public interest."
For the national interest
Again, I felt sorry for brushing upon a sore point.
I asked: "You feel, then, that this feeling of abdication is quite unjustified?"
"I think so, yes," he said solemnly.
He continued: "I think when special interests are hurt in favor of the national interest, it then looks as though we operate arbitrarily.
"For instance, when we closed the military bases, that hurt special interests.
"We deluge the public with material to clarify the fact that our actions are in the national interest."
I thought sadly that this gap in communications will probably get worse instead of better as technology spirals ever upward.
Then, I wondered aloud whether there was any place for emotions in the secretary's decision-making that could conceivably dictate the life or death of American society and possibly other societies in the illogical logic of today's nuclear world.
Not devoid of emotion
McNamara leaned over his desk:
"I try to step out of it. One can't keep emotions out completely. But I do try to disassociate my personal emotions in making a national decision. But you can't keep emotions out entirely."
While I paused to look over my notes, the secretary eased into his chair and allowed the memory of a pleasant past emotion to play on his face.
He recalled an occasion 30 years ago, after graduating from the University of California with an undergraduate degree in philosophy and economics and before working toward his master's degree in business administration at Harvard and marrying his former college classmate.
Sunrise in Honolulu
"I was a sailor in Hawaii," he grinned. "I was 20. I worked aboard the Dollar Lines and then a Matson freighter.
"I recall vividly how beautiful the dawn was as we came in to Honolulu at 4 or 5 a.m.
"A friend and I wanted to go to the Dole Pineapple Company.
"I remember getting pineapple juice instead of water from the tap.
"I thought that was sheer heaven on Earth.
"My uncle (Raymond West) was then a vice-president of Dole. So you see, I have close ties with Hawaii."
As he spoke of the memory many dreams ago, I couldn't resist asking:
"What are your dreams made of? Do you dream of missiles or aircraft or mushroom clouds?"
The secretary squeezed his arms together.
He grinned from one side to another.
His penetrating eyes de-penetrated. They twinkled instead.
Unspoken dreams
He burst into an oven-warm laugh and he teased:
"I'm not going to tell you. No, I'm not going to tell you."
Abruptly, he stood up and extended his hand-shaking hand with his characteristic eyeball-to-eyeball look.
I worried about having wasted his time and wondered what the 20 or so minutes invested in the interview was worth in dollars. Probably thousands.
"It was so nice of you to come to see us," he said, as cordially as a host at home.
He praised Senator Inouye richly as a "wonderful senator. I respect his integrity and ability. And he is a wise man."
As I turned to leave, McNamara was already visibly in gear to return to his work on the desk that once belonged to Gen. John J. Pershing.
I read the inscription under the dominating portrait. It identified James Forrestal, the nation's first secretary of defense, who fell to his death from a hospital tower building.
'The yawning grave'
It was Forrestal who left behind a memo with these lines copied from Sophocles:
"Worn by the waste of time -- comfortless, nameless, hopeless save in the dark prospect of the yawning grave."
I chilled at the thought.
I preferred to remember what one writer had said of McNamara -- that despite the grueling task, the nightmare responsibilities and the blistering criticism, this leader of the defense band is actually having a ball, relishing the very challenge of challenges.
I walked out of the Pentagon into the growing darkness of Washington with a feeling of having met a remarkable, responsive human being.
Remarkable for his tenacious grip of the classic tradition of reason.
Responsive as occurs in cuddling or caring or loving of life in the classic human tradition that can never be duplicated by a computer. Never. No, never.
And so I cast a womanly intuition: There is hope in the first portion of the following expression voiced by a publisher about the "Men of the Pentagon:"
"At its very best, the Defense Department can be a powerful, compassionate answer to an international plea for protection.
"At its worst, it is a sort of low-grade, gold-plated zoo."As the Vietnam War rages the defense head shows his softer side in an interview
By Tomi Kaizawa Knaefler
Star-Bulletin
WASHINGTON >> A few days before arriving here, I wrote to a friend, Jack Teehan, a former newspaperman now in Washington, and ended my note with: "By the way, Jack, could you arrange an interview for me with Defense Secretary McNamara."
Teehan, now press secretary to Hawaii's U.S. Senator Daniel K. Inouye, first laughed, and then shuddered and finally cussed at my general ignorance: Didn't I know that a personal interview with McNamara is even harder to get than a cashew in a can of Planter's peanuts?
Once I got here, the problem was put to Senator Inouye, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The senator raised his brows a bit and then reached for the telephone.
"How are you, Mr. Secretary," he started.
And then: "I have a reporter here from the Honolulu Star-Bulletin who would like to meet you ... Fifteen minutes ... 5:45? ... Yes, she'll be there."
I couldn't believe what my ears heard. Neither could Jack.
I told the senator I'd only believe it when I actually saw the secretary face to face.
The senator made arrangements for a pass and transportation to the Pentagon, a spin away from the Capitol dome and a yawn across the Potomac River.
Caught in rush-hour traffic
Of course, I missed my arranged ride and the resulting panic ballooned with each passing minute as I discovered the impossibility of getting a cab in the peak going-home traffic.
The only possibility was for Jack to drive me, and even this hope appeared to wane as our car stood at standstills en route.
Jack tried to relieve my jitters by kidding me about writing a story about "the day I stood up Secretary McNamara."
Finally, the granite gray of the Pentagon loomed into sight. Its pencil-slim antennas poked into the tattle-tale gray sky of Washington's dusk.
Jack assured me I still had some seven minutes before the appointed time as we swung in front of the squat but massive structure that is the Pentagon.
As I tumbled onto the flight of stairs, a man in a brown suit came forward to meet me in "burnt orange dress," which was my pre-arranged identification mark.
He led me through two layers of heavy doors and up an escalator. There, to the left at the top, was a black-and-white sign over a doorway: "Secretary of Defense."
My escort conferred with a pretty, young, blonde receptionist wearing the gray-blue uniform of the Air Force. Each sleeve sported a "V" centered by a star.
The waiting room was warmly plain with green leather chairs upon a beige carpet and lighted by several glowing lamps.
Nervous wreck
My palms began to perspire and I confided to the receptionist.
"Here it is, my big moment, and I'm ready to cry. My black bra is peeping out from the low-back cut of my dress and my stocking just sprouted a bumper crop of runs. I'm really nervous."
"Don't be," she smiled. "He's very nice. Really, very nice."
I asked her what it was like working with the secretary, whom a McNamara gadfly had once accused of having a "chrome-plated heart."
She said: "This is a wonderful place to work. He's very nice."
"Is he a perfectionist?" I asked and she replied: "Yes and no. We have standard procedures and we follow them. I've been here only six months."
She said the secretary was "very hard working." He arrives at the office between 6 and 7 a.m., six days a week, and begins the day with a working breakfast. The office day ends between 6 and 7 each night.
Just then, a youthful-looking man in a navy blue suit appeared and introduced himself as Phil Goulding, assistant secretary of defense for public affairs.
"I'm terribly nervous," I said.
He laughed. "He won't bite you. You'll enjoy him."
Script approval
Goulding asked whether I planned to write a non-attribution story or whether I planned to quote the secretary directly. I told him I wanted to quote the secretary, as I sought to do a personal rather than an issue-oriented story.
In that event, he explained, the secretary would want to review the quotations before the story is printed.
He further explained the secretary would be "more relaxed" and less on guard in a non-attribution interview.
I said, no, I still preferred to quote the secretary, and I agreed to the prescribed pre-publication review.
With the agreement, Goulding led me through an inner secretary's office, which opened immediately onto a spacious rectangular room. A sweeping first glance picked up a blur of flags, desk, chairs, telephones, paintings, warmly lit lamps and beige carpeting.
My eyes zeroed onto a huge portrait in oil on one wall. Almost in the same instant, I spotted him: Robert McNamara, one of the most powerful and controversial figures in the world today, was leaning at a 50- degree angle over his large walnut desk piled with papers.
This is the man who sits in a position of vast, far-reaching power.
This is the man who wins the highest praise from the president.
This is the man who moved from a middle-class, California public school background to a Phi Beta Kappa college sophomore, to a "whiz kid" president of Ford Motor Company and 42 days later was named the nation's eighth secretary of defense.
As soon as we entered the room, the study of the man etched in serious thought sprang alive.
A smile and handshake
McNamara walked briskly forward with a sunburst of a smile and a swift offer of a firm, comforting handshake.
"Sit down. Sit down." He motioned toward a green leather chair flanking his desk. I sat there while Goulding adjourned to a seat near the window.
"Honolulu ..." the secretary spoke, the welcome smile still lingering on his slightly tanned face. "I'd like to be there right now."
When told that could be arranged, he laughed heartily. "I wish I could."
McNamara has been in Honolulu many times for strategy conferences or en route to such conferences.
I told him I wanted to bypass the world-shaping issues for now and, instead, wanted to know what he was like.
Again he laughed, crossed his shirt-sleeved arms together and said: "I guess you'll need to observe me for that."
What I observed was a trim, tall, well-proportioned figure -- the type that probably doesn't show a bulge on a diet of layered chocolate cake.
It was easy to imagine him as the skier, mountain climber and avid tennis player that he is.
It was easy, too, to believe that he loves literature, philosophy, music, as well as the challenge of cost-efficiency gobble-de-gook, which he does.
Penetrating eyes
The bookish look -- it was all there: the severely combed hair from the square forehead to the back of the neck and the penetrating eyes behind old-fashioned silver-rimmed glasses.
The eyes were declared 4-F, but that didn't stop him from becoming a statistics expert for the Air Force during World War II.
The McNamara eyes penetrate brightly even as they crinkle in a ready laugh or an easy smile.
There is a quality about his eyes -- at once warm, and yet, with a hint of potential glint that could shred a mountain into a hill.
His eyes have been described variously as blue, dull gray and hazel. I didn't notice the color. I was much too absorbed by other facets within them.
I observed, too, a tiny blotch of white on his red-black-gray striped tie, perhaps a dripping from a creamed soup he may have had for lunch.
The tie, held by a small clasp, complemented charcoal and white-flecked trousers, finished off with black socks and shoes.
'Quite an exaggeration'
The composite appearance matched that of a Y.M.C.A. executive or a friendly drug salesman.
I was compelled to preface my next remark with: "I may be wrong, but ... the image I have of you is that of a tremendously efficient, tremendously unyielding computer."
McNamara's smile was still around, but the edges were showing a bit now.
Warmly, but firmly, he said: "That's quite an exaggeration.
"I do deal with money and men and pieces (the hardware) and because I do, I need to work in the most efficient way possible. They require a measure, a standard of measure."
Not inhuman
I later recalled what he had told a New York Times reporter once: "I just work hard. I do what I can do to intelligently direct the activities for which I have responsibility. I have to have high standards, and I aim to fulfill my oath of office. I must deal in specifics, not generalities."
The secretary stared at his desk for a moment and said:
"It's perfectly absurd. It always annoys me to be compared with a computer."
I felt somewhat sorry for bringing up the subject and I thought of Senator Inouye's evaluation of the secretary:
"He's brilliant and he's also a very warm person. People may not realize it, but even with all the important problems that he has to tackle, the secretary does get involved in the problems of the private first-class."
I asked McNamara what, then, is his vision of man, his vision of society?
Room for dissent
Without a moment's hesitation, he responded:
"Man is a creature of god -- god with a small g, almost.
"Man has the capacity for rational behavior and, most of all, the capacity for nonrational behavior. Emotions. Faith. Higher than by reason alone.
"For this reason alone, I object to the thought that one can run life by computers alone. We can't now and we can't ever. That will never be.
"My vision of society is that society exists for the advancement of man -- men as individuals. And because of that, there is room in society for dissent. Dissent such as we have against the present governmental policy (in Vietnam).
"Dissent must be tolerated if we hope to achieve a society of individuals. We can't stop opposing thoughts."
I re-read previous statements he had made to the Associated Press that he and his staff were willing to listen to all points of view before reaching a conclusion, but once a decision is made, then, "By God, I expect everyone to fall in line. You can't run a military organization with divided authority -- or any other kind of organization."
I asked the secretary for a further vision -- how much longer must we endure this seemingly endless arms race that is so much a part of life today? How many more centuries will men have to live this way?
The secretary began at an easy pace:
"The arms race has gone on for thousands of years. It can be dampened down, but it cannot be stopped in our lifetime."
And then, his words picked up speed, considerable speed -- if he'll pardon the expression -- like a computer afire.
It became impossible for me to follow the pregnant flow.
'Calm and analytical'
That, I guess, is a minor example of the documentary mastery that has both dazzled and irritated Congress during the past seven years.
That, I guess, offers a glimpse into the McNamara mind, which has been described as a "beautiful instrument, free from leanings and adhesions, calm and analytical."
He spoke of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the proposed non-proliferation treaty for all nations and the hoped-for negotiations with Russia regarding an agreement on anti-ballistic missile system projections to combat the offensive offense of intercontinental ballistic missile shots.
Those treaties and negotiations, he said, "help dampen down the arms race.
"We can't achieve everything significantly in the next few years. But, through such efforts, we can make substantial progress in reducing the rate of advance in the arms race."
He pointed out such agreements involve "taking risks to avoid risks ... and we must look at both sides of the equation. There are net advantages to both sides and both sides have risks."
Jungle of Pentagon talk
As his crisp mind moved swiftly through a barrage of thoughts, I commented that when he spills over into this jungle of Defense Department talk, I can no longer follow him.
This, I said, may perhaps be a major reason why people like me feel we've abdicated our control to him; to the technocrats who can no longer be understood.
McNamara appeared sad-eyed.
He said, still warmly and still patiently: "We've made tremendous efforts to increase the public's understanding of our national defense program."
He swiveled his chair a few inches and reached for a thick document on a table behind him, weighted with an assortment of reading material.
"This," he said, patting the document, "is the sort of thing we've published to increase the public's understanding. It was never done before. We've made tremendous efforts in this area so that the public can understand what is and what is not in the public interest."
For the national interest
Again, I felt sorry for brushing upon a sore point.
I asked: "You feel, then, that this feeling of abdication is quite unjustified?"
"I think so, yes," he said solemnly.
He continued: "I think when special interests are hurt in favor of the national interest, it then looks as though we operate arbitrarily.
"For instance, when we closed the military bases, that hurt special interests.
"We deluge the public with material to clarify the fact that our actions are in the national interest."
I thought sadly that this gap in communications will probably get worse instead of better as technology spirals ever upward.
Then, I wondered aloud whether there was any place for emotions in the secretary's decision-making that could conceivably dictate the life or death of American society and possibly other societies in the illogical logic of today's nuclear world.
Not devoid of emotion
McNamara leaned over his desk:
"I try to step out of it. One can't keep emotions out completely. But I do try to disassociate my personal emotions in making a national decision. But you can't keep emotions out entirely."
While I paused to look over my notes, the secretary eased into his chair and allowed the memory of a pleasant past emotion to play on his face.
He recalled an occasion 30 years ago, after graduating from the University of California with an undergraduate degree in philosophy and economics and before working toward his master's degree in business administration at Harvard and marrying his former college classmate.
Sunrise in Honolulu
"I was a sailor in Hawaii," he grinned. "I was 20. I worked aboard the Dollar Lines and then a Matson freighter.
"I recall vividly how beautiful the dawn was as we came in to Honolulu at 4 or 5 a.m.
"A friend and I wanted to go to the Dole Pineapple Company.
"I remember getting pineapple juice instead of water from the tap.
"I thought that was sheer heaven on Earth.
"My uncle (Raymond West) was then a vice-president of Dole. So you see, I have close ties with Hawaii."
As he spoke of the memory many dreams ago, I couldn't resist asking:
"What are your dreams made of? Do you dream of missiles or aircraft or mushroom clouds?"
The secretary squeezed his arms together.
He grinned from one side to another.
His penetrating eyes de-penetrated. They twinkled instead.
Unspoken dreams
He burst into an oven-warm laugh and he teased:
"I'm not going to tell you. No, I'm not going to tell you."
Abruptly, he stood up and extended his hand-shaking hand with his characteristic eyeball-to-eyeball look.
I worried about having wasted his time and wondered what the 20 or so minutes invested in the interview was worth in dollars. Probably thousands.
"It was so nice of you to come to see us," he said, as cordially as a host at home.
He praised Senator Inouye richly as a "wonderful senator. I respect his integrity and ability. And he is a wise man."
As I turned to leave, McNamara was already visibly in gear to return to his work on the desk that once belonged to Gen. John J. Pershing.
I read the inscription under the dominating portrait. It identified James Forrestal, the nation's first secretary of defense, who fell to his death from a hospital tower building.
'The yawning grave'
It was Forrestal who left behind a memo with these lines copied from Sophocles:
"Worn by the waste of time -- comfortless, nameless, hopeless save in the dark prospect of the yawning grave."
I chilled at the thought.
I preferred to remember what one writer had said of McNamara -- that despite the grueling task, the nightmare responsibilities and the blistering criticism, this leader of the defense band is actually having a ball, relishing the very challenge of challenges.
I walked out of the Pentagon into the growing darkness of Washington with a feeling of having met a remarkable, responsive human being.
Remarkable for his tenacious grip of the classic tradition of reason.
Responsive as occurs in cuddling or caring or loving of life in the classic human tradition that can never be duplicated by a computer. Never. No, never.
And so I cast a womanly intuition: There is hope in the first portion of the following expression voiced by a publisher about the "Men of the Pentagon:"
"At its very best, the Defense Department can be a powerful, compassionate answer to an international plea for protection.
"At its worst, it is a sort of low-grade, gold-plated zoo."
