‘I Made Mistakes’: Robert McNamara's Vietnam War Policy, 1960–1968

Speaking to an advisor in 1966 about America's escalation of forces in Vietnam, Secretary of Defence Robert S. McNamara confessed: 'We've made mistakes in Vietnam … I've made mistakes. But the mistakes I made are not the ones they say I made'. In 'I Made Mistakes', Aurélie Basha i Novosejt provides a fresh and controversial examination of Secretary of Defence Robert S. McNamara's decisions during the Vietnam War. Although McNamara is remembered as the architect of the Vietnam War, Novosejt draws on new sources - including the diaries of his advisor and confidant John T. McNaughton - to reveal a man who resisted the war more than most. As Secretary of Defence, he did not want the costs of the war associated with a new international commitment in Vietnam, but he sacrificed these misgivings to instead become the public face of the war out of a sense of loyalty to the President.