Title

The living and the dead : Robert McNamara and five lives of a lost war

Description

This brilliant, explosive, and passionate book reveals the Vietnam War as we never before have seen it - through the prism of Robert McNamara's crucial and tangled decision-making. It is a book that examines not only the genesis - in McNamara's life and character - of his wartime decisions, but how they altered forever the fates of four men and a woman who, beyond their own human importance, might be said to stand in for all who were caught in the maelstrom that was Vietnam. In McNamara's looming shadow we are shown, in equally intense detail, five people who were caught up in the wake of his life-and-death decisions: an artist whose long-harbored rage erupts on a Massachusetts ferry as he tries to kill McNamara, by then retired from the Cabinet; a young Marine physically and psychologically scarred by Vietnam battle; a Quaker who immolated himself in protest outside the Pentagon; a nurse desperate to believe her agonies in Vietnam were for a good cause; and a member of a Saigon family enlisted, and then tragically abandoned, by the Americans. More than a decade in the making, The Living and the Dead is meticulously researched, astonishing in its revelations, and often in conflict with McNamara's own version of events.

Identifier

658513

679427619

Creator

Hendrickson, Paul

Source

Brian Lamb Booknotes Collection

Gift of Brian Lamb, 2011.

Catalog record

Language

eng

Date

1996

Program air date: October 27, 1996

Publisher

Alfred A. Knopf

George Mason University. Libraries. Special Collections & Archives

Text

Transcription of Annotations
Notes on front endpaper: James C. Farley p. 121; Anne Morrison p. 187 Nov. 2, 1965, Emily, Tina, Ben. Marlene Kramel p. 243. Tran Tu Thanh (Tang) p 305. An animus under strain. Montreal/Chatham--speeches May 22, 1966. Didn't hear back from Kathy McN. Underlinings/Notes: Underlinings: McNamara's background, career, code, beliefs, details on people who suffered from war and details on their lives/troubles. Notes: Dean Rusk's dining room," "James C. Farley," "end of 1964," "no doubt whatsoever," "43 million lost someone," "JFK/Fonda," "22 pictures in Life," "Bundt," "Ruderman," "Emily 1985 N.Y.U.," "Anne M. Welsh," "I would be raging at God," "45 mins pacing," "the trial," "poem from to Huu," "fire in the garden," "Anne's statement after RSM's book, full page ad in the N.Y.T.," "Montreal speech," "Chatham graduation Kathy," "agitators," "Marlene Kramel in LA, the mud," "tumors, a massive abscess," "she met RSM," "triage," "he wanted to raise taxes," "Defense budget 58 B 1967," "economic lie," "speechwriter," "definite anima," "Gidget goes to Vietnam , no," "Shadyside Morrison Quakers," "liar," Kathy McN.," "not angry," "Harvard Nov. 1966," "tougher and more courteous," "Pentagon Papers came from Harvard dinner," "1995 13 nurses in Texas Hill Country," "Feb 27, 1968," "going mad," "2nd Civil War," "2 prongs," "fall '65, Oct '67," "'67 truth," "Gloria Emerson Justice at last!" "Marg," "Tran Van Tuyen," "3 million dead," "the price you pay," "4 years, 6 months in a box," "16 camps," "McNamara May 19, 1967," "his exoneration to history," "July 19, 1967 McNaughton dies," "Bruce Morton," "Mac 'NO' statement," "Margy bleeding stomach," "John McNaughton," "son, McNton, the lights--green, orange, red, white," "Professor Tran in Hanoi, Giap," "57 targets testimony," "Sec/def 'said and done'," "tax increase," "loyalty/control," "hearings Thurmond not 'no-win'," "myth LBJ meets MAC," "Bui Diem," "numbers," "M. Chase Smith," "Back to Ford?" "RSM cracking," "McN resigns Nov. 29, 1967," "Dean Rusk's dining room," "Harry McPherson," "Mac's speech at State," "the elevator at the Pentagon," "7 years, 39 days," "the Vietnam War stands for it all," "Rosetta Stone of the 60s," "Craig's walnut farm," "arrogant," "2 sentences about his parents, no names," "3 million dead," "Feb 29, last day," "assassination papers Aug 29, 1972," "Halberstam," "Marg's death," "Ina Ginsburg 1983, obvious early on, as early as '63," "Joan Braden," "Craig sensitive," "human things," "1993 letter," "the trial," "at Harvard," "500 int. ," "notebook, no tape recorder.".

Subject

"McNamara, Robert S., 1916-2009."

"Vietnam War, 1961-1975--United States."

Relation

Original Booknotes interview

Rights

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