The Fog of War DVD

In the Oscar-nominated documentary, The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara, Errol Morris (The Thin Blue Line, Dr. Death) interviews the now 86-year-old Defense Secretary in an effort to come to terms with what led to the quagmire of Vietnam, and reveals a more complex, even strangely sympathetic man. The interview, interspersed with archival footage, news broadcasts, and tape-recorded conversations from the period, documents McNamara's personal account of his involvement with American policy from WW II to the 1960s. The Secretary does not apologize for the war, saying he was only trying to serve an elected President, but is willing to admit his mistakes. He says that he now realizes the Vietnam conflict was considered by the North Vietnamese to be a civil war and that they were fighting for the independence of their country from colonialism.

Morris never undercuts McNamara's dignity or pushes him into a corner, yet also does not slide troubling questions under the rug, and there are some questions McNamara does not want to discuss. In talking about Cuba, he reveals how close the world came to nuclear annihilation, saved only by the offhand suggestion of an underling. McNamara repeats over and over again, demonstrating with his fingers, how close we all came to nuclear war. Though the Secretary does not apologize for the war, saying he was only trying to serve an elected President, to his credit he has looked at the corrosiveness of war and what it does to the human soul, and we are left with the sense of a man who has come a long way.

"We are the strongest nation in the world today," he says, "and I do not believe we should ever apply that economic, political or military power unilaterally. If we'd followed that rule in Vietnam, we wouldn't have been there. None of our allies supported us. If we can't persuade nations with comparable values of the merit of our cause, we'd better re-examine our reasoning." A valuable lesson indeed.

on 6th July 2004
Author of 112 reviews