MCNAMARA, A LATE 20TH CENTURY MAN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP70B00338R000300100088-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 12, 2006
• Sequence Number: 88
• Publication Date: September 20, 1967
• Content Type: NSPR

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Approved For Release 2006/01/3 , :?d QR7eBO88ib8 20OG 100088-8
McNamara, A Late
20th Century Man;.
By Marquis Childs
United Feature Syndicate
WHATEVER. THE END of the race
between reason and suicide, the speech:
that Secretary of Defense Robert Mc-
Namara delivered in San Francisco to
the United Press International editors'
will be a bench mark of sanity. What,
he is undertaking may be impossible.
That Is to construct a limited antibal-
listic missile system against the threat
of China in the '70s while preventing
the headlong rush of the military, the
munitions makers, the snipers and the
criers of doom in Congress, the politi-
cians looking for an emotional issue,
into a new and perhaps final round of
the nuclear arms race.
In a telling phrase he speaks of the
"mad momentum" intrinsic in all
nuclear weaponry. It is just this mad
momentum that with the full backing
of the President, McNamara is oppos
ing. He puts the cost of a limited AB1V
system at $5 billion. The cost of an
expanded system is for a starter $40
billion. And that would be only a start)
since pressures would follow for deer
shelters and the whole apparatus of
a beleaguered, garrison state. 1
In spite of his limitations on the side
of political understanding - perhap-
even because of those limitations -
McNamara is a man of the late 20tY!
Century. He knows that in the nucleai-
age there is no absolute security. At
expanded ABM system would merely
cause the Soviet Union to put greaten
effort into a nuclear offensive. That
offensive, McNamara is saying, could
never under any circumstances be suf-
ficient to destroy America's capacity
the same way America's offensive ca
1 -4-
built up for an ABM system known as.
Nike-Zeus. The principal prophet and
propagandizer for Nike-Zeus was Lt.
Gen. Arthur G. Trudeau, chief of devel
opment and research for the Army be
ginning in 1958 until his retirement in'
1962. Trudeau's view very nearly pre-
vailed. Today the Nike-Zeus system is;
considered obsolete, having been re=
placed by Nike-X. If the United States
had started the Zeus system the billions:
going into it would probably today bel
written off. That is the tragic history'
of so many defense billions-the early'.
warning line is a noteworthy example;
-in an age of incredibly swift tech
nological change.
But the Soviets, judging by intel-
ligence reports, are installing an equiv-
alent of the Zeus system. Why-should
they, with the ever-mounting demand
of the Soviet people for a share of the
good things of life, be spending billions'
on an obsolete system that will not in
any event be an effective defense? The!
answer from those with the_ greatest!
knowledge is simply: "Their General;
Trudeau won."
THROUGHOUT McNAMA.RA'S care-
fully reasoned analysis of the nuclear
dilemma is the pervading sense of its
fantastic complexity and of the dif-
ficulty of conveying the real meaning
of this complexity in terms of the total
death of a society and a people to the
average individual. With the absolutes
of secrecy in a totalitarian state, the
citizen must be a fatalist who learns:
early to ask no questions. In our own:
country the overwhelming horror of the
threat is hardly conceivable and this,
with its complexity induces a kind of
apathy and indifference. That, in turn,
breeds a response to emotional political
appeals, "Well, let's let 'em. have it and
get it over with."
In the end, says Secretary McNamara,
the root of man's security does not lie
in his weaponry. In the end the root,
of man's security lies in his mind. What:
the world requires in the 22d year of
the atomic age is a new. race toward
reasonableness.
HERE IN ROBERT OPPENHEIMER'S' tury. Whether- he can convince. men
phrase are the two scorpions in a bottle with then piind made up out of the
--two blind giants locked in combat on last century is the undetermined X of
the vast. stage of mankind's future.' the years ahead.
Therefore, the heart of McNam+ara's
speech is an appeal to the Soviet Union.
for talks that would at first limit and',
later reduce both offensive ` and de-!
fensive strategic nuclear forces.
The most persuasive argument of ?
those who would rush into a heavy ABM
system is that the Soviets have for,
several years been assembling such a
system apparently intended to protect x
Moscow and possibly also Leningrad.
But the background of this development,
put alongside an earlier controversy
here at home over the ABM, is reveal-
ing, and McNamara might well have
gone into it if his carefully reasoned"
speech had not without it run longer;
than he liked.
Approved For Release 2006/01/30 : CIA-RDP70B00338R000300100088-8