McNamara: Pros and Cons

(The following letters are a selection from those received by the CRIMSON since Secretary of Defense Robert s. McNamara's visit to Harvard last week.-- Ed.)

Impotent Left

The left has once again demonstrated its ability to render itself impotent. The militant confrontation between opponents of the war in Vietnam and one of the engineers of that conflict, Secretary Robert McNamara, prospectively seemed to be a productive tactic. However, the Secretary's ungratifying offer to answer two questions was only outdone in its vacuousness by the questions asked and the jeers which denied him the opportunity to respond. The left was given a spark and it hurriedly suffocated it with that barrage of rhetoric it so self-righteously castigates the Johnson Administration for spewing. This isn't to blame all those who were in attendance for there were many that were civil.

From my own experience in such movements and from Monday's demonstration, it seems apparent that due to the temperamental orientation of many of the opponents of the war it is impossible to have any meaningful dialogue in a context which involves a non-select audience. Even if Robert Scheer had debated McNamara it is doubtful that such a meeting could have occurred without a disruptive group insisting upon their dogma as the revealed truth. It is true that this is not a time to stress manners; but on the other hand a certain amount of that which we call "courtesy" is essential in order to have that which we call "debate." CHARLES MARTIN 1G

No Apology

The comments of the various spokesmen of the Harvard Administration as reported in the Crimson on Tuesday indicate a disturbing lack of insight into the issues that were involved in Monday's demonstration. In treating the demonstration as akin to a spring Riot, the Administration has effectively diverted attention away from the serious issues to superficial questions of form.

Granted that the demonstration was not well-organized and failed to present its case clearly, nevertheless its logic remains valid. The unexpected confrontation with McNamara and the resulting confusion over a "debate" sidetracked the basic rationale for the demonstration: to confront McNamara as a symbol of a war in which people are killed. The question of "mob" action raised by the Administration and McNamara has little relevance in comparison with the scale of violence that this man represents.

For these reasons we consider any attempts to apologize on our behalf to be spurious. We do not apologize.   BOB WOOD '66-67   JOE PERSKY 1G   ROGER ROSENBLATT '66-67

Pyrrhic Victory

I would like to suggest that one extremely important point was over-looked in the challenge for the Secretary of Defense to debate Mr. Scheer: Mr. McNamara is not a private citizen, but a public official, and a public official of sufficient importance that any public statement he makes is automatically regarded as a significant contribution to national policy. To expect the Secretary of Defense to engage in a public debate where polemic is the order of the day is thus naive.

Moreover, as one who is profoundly opposed to United States Policy in Vietnam, I would suggest that it is in "our" interest as well as Mr. McNamara's that no debate take place, for it surely would be most unfortunate at this juncture of events to force the Secretary of Defense to engage in another ringing affirmation of our policy to the accompaniment of appropriate denunciations of North Vietnam and the National Liberation Front. It might contribute to our own sense of righteousness an outrage, but under no circumstances could the further public commitment of Mr. McNamara to what we regard as an untenable policy aid the bringing of peace to Vietnam. It may thus well be that the failure of the debate to come off has saved the left from a victory of Pyrrhic dimensions.   SANFORD V. LEVINSON

Tutor, Department of Government

No Say

According to its director, the Kennedy Institute made the decision not to have Secretary McNamara debate the issues of the Vietnam war. An insight into the kind of reasoning behind that decision is Professor Neustadt's analogy" It's like saying to me that I should change the curriculum or the subject matter of my courses because students don't think it makes sense." (Crimson, Nov.8) How ridiculous that students have a say in the learning experience! Is this the kind of student-teacher partnership in free inquiry that Prof. Neustadt seeks to experiment with at the Kennedy Institute? If so, it is no new experiment but rather a retrogression into an old and not very creditable educational form.

Similarly, why should Secretary McNamara meet a critic of the Vietnam war in a debate which would be open to all students and which would, through wide publicity, inform large parts of the public on the opposing views of the war in Vietnam? How much more convenient to meet with small groups of Harvard students in off-the-record sessions! Besides, Mr. McNamara is a busy man and may not have the time to argue government policy in a public forum.

But it has been just a series of off-the-record decisions and refusals to answer critical arguments that has contributed to the tragedy that is Vietnam. Is it really such an awful shock that students will react with "unmannerly" and "impolite" demonstrations? Is it the bad manners of students demonstrators that has killed 6000 Americans and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese? Or is it an Executive branch that, with as little open discussion as it can get away with, continues to drag a divided American people and a reluctant and brutalized Asian people into a larger war?  ROBERT GINSBURG 1L

Mc Namara at Harvard

The day of his visit bullets argued ad hominem

Blistering retorts to the villages exceeded the norms of decorum

Lives were rudely interrupted  HUGH DEANE '38

Shoddy Ploys

The editorial from the New York Times of Monday, Nov 7, should explain the necessity for the personal confrontation here at Harvard of Secretary of Defense McNamara. He is the President's principal adviser on the Vietnam war and its principal manager. That this is true is incontrovertible on the evidence of his off-the-record remarks at Eliot and Quincy Houses. These remarks should be made public. The entire country should know.

Further causes determined the particular form of the confrontation. Richard Neustdat, head of the Kennedy Institute, turned down a petition signed by over 1600 students, 93 teaching fellows, and 52 faculty for McNamara to debate Robert Scheer, editor of Ramparts. He stated academic reasons for this decision, including the "difficulty" of attracting national figures to the Institute. That a public debate should "embarrass" or "upset" a cabinet member, can only demonstrate that he has some lapse of rationality in his record, which he would like to hide. This makes the decision not to debate a political one, motivated by a desire to obfuscate American foreign policy.

That this decision was not moti-shown by the informal offer made to a representative of SDS by a close associate of McNamara's: McNamara might meet privately with your organization if you will drop the issue of a public debate. SDS did not fall for this ploy. Barney Frank, the Kennedy Institute's liaison with undergraduate affairs, offered to arrange the personal presentation of the petition to Secretary McNamara as he arrived at Eliot House on Sunday. The SDS representatives were then told that Frank would take the petitions himself. That he did, in spite of our best efforts.

Further ploys, including lying about McNamara's schedule on Monday and the use of decoy cars, failed to frustrate our attempts to confront McNamara in public at Quincy House. They did, however, succeed in turning the planned silent confrontation into a mass of running people angry at the deception characteristic of both the government's Vietnam policy and the Institute's evasion of its responsibility to the public. In spite of this, and of McNamara's "tougher-than-thou" attitude, he suffered nothing worse than considerable, and deserved, embarrassment. Meanwhile rowdy students managed to create the sound and smell of a mob by physical attacks on outlying protestors, including women. This happened after McNamara had agreed to answer two questions.

We are sick of the whole series of shoddy ploys aimed at discrediting the anti-war movement and avoiding public debate, at Harvard and in the country at large. We're tried of being manipulated by so-called liberals.  THOMAS W. HOLZINGER.  EUGENE W. JENNESS  DAVID F. LABAREE  DAVID S. WYLIE  JONATHAN M. HARRIS  GARRICK F. COLE

Veneer

Since the views of Deans are sometimes all too readily dismissed as expressions of pious paternalism, may I express my shame and revulsion on seeing (over national television) the disgraceful treatment accorded Secretary McNamara by some members of the Harvard community. If the purpose of the student gathering was to convey certain views to Secretary McNamara -- and the manner in which the meeting was conducted leaves one with serious doubts about the validity of that premise--one can hardly think of a way less calculated to succeed and more likely to alienate the listener. Understandably Secretary McNamara, who seemed initially as-