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Robert McNamara

  • SOURCE: The Nation
    10-27-17

    The Cuban Missile Crisis at 55

    by James G. Blight and Janet M. Lang

    “The bullshitter…does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.” —Harry G. Frankfurt, "On Bullshit"

  • The Trollope Ploy Myth Lives On: Robert McNamara and the Cuban Missile Crisis

    by Sheldon M. Stern

    The death of Robert S. McNamara severs one of the last profoundly personal links to some of the most contentious events of the 1960s. McNamara, of course, is principally remembered for his role in the escalation of the American phase of the war in Vietnam. Not surprisingly, most people who viewed Errol Morris’s Academy Award winning (2003) documentary film, “The Fog of War,” have been principally interested in McNamara’s agonizing memories about Vietnam. However, McNamara’s account of his role in the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, an event which was far more likely than Vietnam to lead to an all-out nuclear war, has received far less attention.