Kerry's Secretary of State Rewrites History

In today’s Washington Post, Richard Holbrooke decided to revise U.S. history. His action is perhaps not surprising. Holbrooke would have been Secretary of State if Kerry had won, and probably if Gore had won as well. He doesn’t have much use for Bush’s foreign policy. It’s unfortunate he has to be dishonest about history as well, however.

Holbrooke wrote:

The major reason the nation needs a new defense secretary is . . .the failed strategies in Iraq and Afghanistan cannot be fixed as long as Rumsfeld remains at the epicenter of the chain of command. Rumsfeld's famous "long screwdriver," with which he sometimes micromanages policy, now thwarts the top-to-bottom reexamination of strategy that is absolutely essential in both war zones. Lyndon Johnson understood this in 1968 when he eased another micromanaging secretary of defense, McNamara, out of the Pentagon and replaced him with Clark M. Clifford.

Cute, the little thing about a "failed" strategy in Afghanistan, but let's not digress.

Johnson “eased. . .McNamara out of the Pentagon” not to change policy, but because he feared McNamara was about to resign because of his opposition to Johnson's Vietnam strategy, a strategy Holbrooke supported. McNamara was tortured to the point of distraction by the agony of Vietnam and his role in it. Johnson didn't want McNamara resigning during the President's campaign for re-election. When McNamara left, he in fact did contribute to the very political crisis Johnson sought to avoid--McNamara's departure helped push Robert F. Kennedy to run for president, and Kennedy's action lead Johnson to give up on his failed presidency. Clifford's appointment, however Holbrooke chooses to spin it, ended up as a footnote to Johnson's "cut and run" exit from Washington.

McNamara, true to his deeply-held concept of loyalty, left without giving a reason, but not a soul in what Holbrooke calls “Washington” (an arrogant, elitist word for Holbrooke's own Washington establishment) had any doubt that McNamara had simply had enough. He was a tortured, spent man.

Most important, Holbrooke flips the fact that McNamara, not Clifford, commissioned the "Pentagon Papers," the complete and thorough "top-to-bottom reexamination of strategy" regarding Vietnam, the failed Vietnam strategy Johnson and Holbrooke supported, the way Rumsfeld supports the flawed Iraq strategy.

Thank goodness Holbrooke isn’t Secretary of State, and thank goodness the Secretary we have treats history with more respect.