When I first saw the Fog of War, where Robert McNamara admitted his errors during the Vietnam War, I got angry at him all over again. My first thought was "what took you so long to admit you were wrong!" Now, I look at him a bit differently.
Accounts of recent history seem to go through a predictable life cycle. With any big historical event, such as the Vietnam War, it seems this life cycle is at least 40 years long, and encompasses several stages in which the story can change. The first stage is usually up to the press who make the numerous daily news reports. These stories, usually concerned with reporting the events of the day, avoid making any analysis or long-term conclusions. They do however reflect the public opinion of the times. Because the politicians who make the principle decisions are still alive and may still be in office, very few people get involved in any serious analysis or criticism. It's just too controversial to touch yet.
Roughly 15-30 years later, as the central players retire or die off, their memoirs or biographies appear. Usually, these second-wave versions of history applaud the acts that of those politicians, attack any critics, and sometimes indulge in what is called "revisionist history". This type of history, written by the principle actors or their defenders, usually does not stand up well to the test of time.
After about 40-50 years, when most of the principle actors (and their political offspring) are gone from the scene, younger historians start examining the past events. Often they are young enough to have no direct connection to past controversies. They also have access to many documents that may have been recently declassified and were not previously available. These writers will produce the first real objective analysis of these past events. For the Vietnam War, this is still going on now.
Robert McNamara is a rare exception to this general pattern. He was certainly one of the principle architects of the disastrous Vietnam War. But he never wrote any so-called revisionist history or memoirs defending what he did. In fact, late in his long life, he surprised his critics by admitting just how wrong he was. He said the USA should never have gotten involved in a Vietnamese civil war.
I can't think of any other major actor in recent history who has done that. Imagine Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon or Henry Kissinger admitting their errors. Image anyone one of the neocons who advocated invading Iraq admiting it was a bad idea. So McNamara does indeed shoulder major responsibility for the mistakes of the Vietnam War, but he also gets credit coming forward to admit it.
