[Peace-discuss] "Trampling out the Vineyard, where the grapes of wrath are stored..."

[C. G. Estabrook]

[Once on Martha's Vineyard the artist in question was pointed out to me as a 
local celebrity.  --CGE]


	Posted on Monday, July 6, 2009
	Commentary: Galloway on McNamara: Reading an obit with great pleasure
	By Joseph L. Galloway	 | McClatchy Newspapers

	"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries
	with great pleasure." —Clarence Darrow (1857–1938)

Well, the aptly named Robert Strange McNamara has finally shuffled off to join 
LBJ and Dick Nixon in the 7th level of Hell.

McNamara was the original bean-counter — a man who knew the cost of everything 
but the worth of nothing.

Back in 1990 I had a series of strange phone conversations with McMamara while 
doing research for my book We Were Soldiers Once And Young. McNamara prefaced 
every conversation with this: "I do not want to comment on the record for fear 
that I might distort history in the process." Then he would proceed to talk for 
an hour, doing precisely that with answers that were disingenuous in the extreme 
— when they were not bald-faced lies.

Upon hanging up I would call Neil Sheehan and David Halberstam and run 
McNamara's comments past them for deconstruction and the addition of the truth.

The only disagreement I ever had with Dave Halberstam was over the question of 
which of us hated him the most. In retrospect, it was Halberstam.

When McNamara published his first book — filled with those distortions of 
history — Halberstam, at his own expense, set out on a journey following 
McNamara on his book tour around America as a one-man truth squad.

McNamara abandoned the tour.

The most bizarre incident involving McNamara occurred when he was president of 
the World Bank and, off on his summer holiday, he caught the Martha's Vineyard 
ferry. It was a night crossing in bad weather. McNamara was in the salon, drink 
in hand, schmoozing with fellow passengers. On the deck outside a vineyard 
local, a hippie artist, glanced through the window and did a double-take. The 
artist was outraged to see McNamara, whom he viewed as a war criminal, so 
enjoying himself.

He immediately opened the door and told McNamara there was a radiophone call for 
him on the bridge. McNamara set down his drink and stepped outside. The artist 
immediately grabbed him, wrestled him to the railing and pushed him over the 
side. McNamara managed to get his fingers through the holes in the metal plate 
that ran from the top of the railing to the scuppers.

McNamara was screaming bloody murder; the artist was prying his fingers loose 
one at a time. Someone heard the racket and raced out and pulled the artist off.

By the time the ferry docked in the Vineyard McNamara had decided against filing 
charges against the artist, and he was freed and walked away.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/71328.html