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I grew up in the Depression, and I went to the University of California, which was a very, very liberal school, Berkeley, and I was there 1933 to '37, and it's hard for people to believe this today, but 25% of the adult males in the country were unemployed at the time. Parents of my classmates were committing suicide because they couldn't provide food for their families. Now I grew up in that environment, of a very liberal university, a very liberal environment, and I absorbed the values and the social objectives of many of my classmates and professors and others at the time, and I've held them ever since. It's something to feel passionate about, and I do.
Q. At the time you left government, the U.S. was in the midst of one of the greatest bombing campaigns in the history of warfare, and today the U.S. has launched one even greater. You thought the bombing would work at the time?
A. No, I didn't think it would work at the time.
Q. Why undertake it then?
A. Because we had to try to prove it wouldn't work, number one, and other people thought it would work.
Q. What other people?
A. A majority of the senior military commanders, the Senate Armed Services Committee, the President.
Q. Were you opposed to it from the beginning?
A. It wasn't that I was opposed to it; I didn't think it would work from the beginning.
Q. During Vietnam, did you become inured to the protests -- "McNamara's ^ War."
A. Well, it was difficult. But among other things, there's a constructive aspect of it. It causes you to continually reexamine your decisions and what you're doing.
Q. Does it also make you defensive?
A. Sure it does.
Q. And play with the facts?
A. No, not play with the facts. I don't think I ever played with the facts. You know, one point, I wasn't an indentured servant, I wasn't a bonded servant. I could leave. And I didn't. So it was a personal decision.
Q. Who is McNamara? The real McNamara. Who is McNamara emotionally?
A. Very few people know.
Q. Who knows?
A. Well, Marg knew, my wife knew.
Q. Who else? Johnson?
A. No, I don't think so. No, people don't know. People don't know.
Q. Your kids?
A. People don't know, and probably not my kids. And let me tell you that's a weakness. If you're not known emotionally to people, it means you haven't really communicated fully to people. I know it's a weakness of mine. But I'm not about to change now.
Q. What did the war do to Bob McNamara's dreams? Seriously.
A. No. I'm not getting involved in that. I really don't think Vietnam is going to shape this nation's role in the future, or constrain this nation from its developing or contributing to the new world order. Vietnam has been very constraining; there's no question about that. But I think you will find that partially because of the gulf, partially because of the Soviet action that has ended the cold war, we will be less constrained by Vietnam in the future.
I know that might sound like I'm insensitive to Vietnam, and I'm not at all. Coming from me, people would jump all over -- "That son of a bitch; he's got blood on his hands."
Q. Do you feel you have blood on your hands?