| | |  Editorials | Issues | July 2009 
McNamara's Mindset Pt2
 The Real News Network
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July 14, 2009
Paul Jay speaks to Gareth Porter, Investigative Historian and Journalist about Robert McNamara's deception of former President Lyndon B. Johnson. In this second part of the interview, Porter discusses the documents that served a smoking gun for McNamara's deception over the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Porter says it was not just McNamara.
Lyndon B. Johnson's national security advisers in general were pushing and "maneuvering" him and "going so far as deprive him of the information that he really needed to make an informed decision about the use of force. They were desperate to get him involved in a war."
The relevance of this is that today we have a president who, like Lyndon B. Johnson, is a neophyte in foreign affairs... he was very dependent on his national security advisers. He was reluctant to completely counterman their positions and advice. He was afraid that without their support he would be portrayed as weak and as someone who was not willing to do what was necessary to defend US power and interests.
Bio: Gareth Porter is a historian and investigative journalist on US foreign and military policy analyst. He writes regularly for Inter Press Service on US policy towards Iraq and Iran. Author of four books, the latest of which is Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam. |
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