The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara Page #3

...and we sat down with Kennedy.

And he said, 'Gentlemen, we won.

I don't want you ever to say it,

but you know we won, I know we won.'

And LeMay said,

'Won? Hell, we lost!

We should go in and wipe them out today.'

LeMay believed that ultimately...

...we'd confront these people

with nuclear weapons.

And by God, we better do it

when we have greater superiority...

...than we will have in the future.

At the time, we had a 17-to-1 strategic

advantage in nuclear numbers.

We'd done 10 times as many tests as they had.

We were certain we could

retain that advantage...

...if we limited the tests.

The chiefs were all opposed.

They said, 'The Soviets will cheat.'

Well, I said, ' How will they cheat?'

You won't believe this,

but they said:

'They'll test them behind the moon.'

I said, 'You're out of your mind.'

That's absurd.

It's almost impossible for our people today...

...to put themselves back into that period.

In my seven years as secretary...

...we came within a hairs breadth

of war with the Soviet Union...

...on three different occasions.

Twenty-four hours a day,

...for seven years as secretary

of defense, I lived the Cold War.

During the Kennedy administration,

they designed a 100-megaton bomb.

It was tested in the atmosphere.

I remember this.

Cold War? Hell, it was a hot war.

I think the human race

needs to think more about killing...

...about conflict.

Is that what we want in this 21 st century?

My earliest memory

is of a city exploding with joy.

It was November 11, 1918.

I was 2 years old.

You may not believe

that I have the memory, but I do.

I remember the tops of the streetcars...

...being crowded with human beings...

...cheering and kissing and screaming.

End of World War I. We'd won.

But also celebrating the belief...

...of many Americans,

particularly Woodrow Wilson...

...we'd fought a war to end all wars.

His dream was...

...that the world could avoid

great wars in the future.

Disputes among great nations would be resolved.

I also remember...

...that I wasn't allowed to go outdoors

to play with my friends...

...without wearing a mask.

There was an ungodly flu epidemic.

Large numbers of Americans were dying, 600,000.

And millions across the world.

My class in the first grade was housed

in a shack, a wooden shack.

But we had an absolutely superb teacher.

And this teacher gave a test

to the class every month...

...and she re-seated the class

based on the results of that test.

There were vertical rows, and she put

the person with the highest grade...

...in the first seat on the left-hand row.

And I worked my tail off

to be in that first seat.

Now, the majority of the classmates

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