Commentary: Galloway on McNamara: Reading an obit with great pleasure

[IndianaGreen]

Commentary: Galloway on McNamara: Reading an obit with great pleasure

By Joseph L. Galloway | McClatchy Newspapers

"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." —Clarence Darrow (1857–1938)

Well, the aptly named Robert Strange McNamara has finally shuffled off to join LBJ and Dick Nixon in the 7th level of Hell.

McNamara was the original bean-counter — a man who knew the cost of everything but the worth of nothing.

Back in 1990 I had a series of strange phone conversations with McMamara while doing research for my book We Were Soldiers Once And Young. McNamara prefaced every conversation with this: "I do not want to comment on the record for fear that I might distort history in the process." Then he would proceed to talk for an hour, doing precisely that with answers that were disingenuous in the extreme — when they were not bald-faced lies.

Upon hanging up I would call Neil Sheehan and David Halberstam and run McNamara's comments past them for deconstruction and the addition of the truth.

The only disagreement i ever had with Dave Halberstam was over the question of which of us hated him the most. In retrospect, it was Halberstam.

When McNamara published his first book — filled with those distortions of history — Halberstam, at his own expense, set out on a journey following McNamara on his book tour around America as a one-man truth squad.

McNamara abandoned the tour.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/71328.html

[DURHAM D]

1. I miss David.

I wish McNamara had never been born.

[yurbud]

2. I loved the story about the artist that threw him off the ferry and almost succeeded in prying his

fingers off as he was holding on for dear life.

McNamara must have realized what a scumbag he was by then because he didn't file charges.