The Fog of Silence

Former Defense Sec’y Robert McNamara (who referred to himself as former Secretary of State) appeared with anti-nuclear activist Dr. Helen Caldicott (who said she’s not an anti-nuclear activist but a pediatrician and specialist in global preventive medicine). Strange bedfellows? Maybe, but they’re talking about the remaining threat from cold war nuclear weapons as few others are, as in their joint op-ed in the LA Times. But McNamara, who famously did not go public with his opposition to LBJ’s Vietnam escalation, says he feels it would be inappropriate for someone in his position to comment on a current administration’s war. We had hoped he would have learned the cost of silence.