Results tagged “Lyndon Johnson” from Marilyn Sewell

A newborn baby cries.  That's the first instance of his exercising of power.  And that's just the beginning.

Power is exercised by all human beings.  We all leverage our gifts to gain advantage of one kind or another. And there are all kinds of power.  Some people have great intellectual power, others charisma, others good looks, and still others, wealth or charm or talent.  Some hold high office, some are physically strong, others have family ties or reputation.  In and of itself, power is neither good nor evil: it is morally neutral.  It can be used for nefarious ends, or it can be used to heal and to bring justice.  It just depends on the spiritual maturity of the one who wields the power, and the purpose for which it is used.

Two news stories about the use of power, one noble and one ignoble, caught my eye in recent days.

The first was about the death of the revered newsman, Walter Cronkite, at the age of 92.  He was the voice of the people from 1962 to 1981--somehow, listeners expected him to be informed, and honest.  They trusted him.  Cronkite was a modest man, even after he achieved fame.  He was surprised when people came to see him, rather than the people he interviewed.  He was dumbfounded when some suggested that he run for political office. 

Walter Cronkite was there for us at the moon landing (and if you're old enough, you remember where you were, when you heard Neil Armstrong utter those amazing words); he was there for us when Kennedy was assassinated--he broke precedent, took off those dark glasses and shed that necessary tear for all of us; he was there during the national disgrace of Watergate, reporting the facts, and by doing so, showed us the extent of the political and moral damage.

Cronkite never saw himself as an analyst--he was a newsman, and in fact his title at CBS was "managing editor of the evening news."  But on one important occasion, he offered a personal perspective, an interpretation of events.  In 1968 he visited Vietnam, and he was appalled by what he saw there.  He returned, knowing that the war was a lost cause.  He produced a rare special program in which he said that the U.S. could not win the war and advocated a negotiated peace settlement.  It is reported that Lyndon Johnson, the sitting President, snapped off the television and stated, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost middle America."  Of course, Cronkite was not the sole reason for Johnson's decision not to run for another term--but that program was a sign Johnson could not overlook.

Cronkite had considerable power in 1968, and he chose to use it to tell the truth to the American people.  He acted with integrity.  He used power well. 

The second example is one that is just the opposite--it illustrates power misused and misappropriated.  I am speaking of the decision of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to suppress the vast research--their own, in fact--about the dangers of driving under the influence of cell phones.  Consumer advocacy groups have "outed" the research by filing a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

The former head of the agency, Dr. Jeffrey Runge, explained the withholding of the information by saying that he was pressed by members of Congress who told him to stick to reseach and not to meddle with lobbying or policy change. 

A Harvard study done in 2003 estimated that cellphone distractions resulted in 2,600 deaths every year, as well as 330,000 moderate or severe injuries. If this data is for 2003, can you even imagine what the 2008 data will look like, as so many more of us acquire and use all kinds of devices in our automobiles--everything from cellphones or hand-free devices (no safer, according to research) or texting or videos?

So how does Dr. Runge sleep at night these days?  And how are the Congresspeople feeling who pressured the agency?  And what about the companies who readily admit the dangers of these devices, while creating more and more of them to tempt drivers?  All of these people have power.  They have power to protect life, or to invite death and injury.

Last Sept. 3 Christopher Hill, a 20-year-old with a perfect driving record, drove past a Goodwill store, where a dresser caught his eye--a dresser that his friend might want.  He dialed her to tell her about it, and just didn't notice the red light.  He ran into the side of Linda Doyle's small sport utility vehicle going 45 miles per hour.  She was pronounced dead on the scene. 

Christopher pleaded guilty to negligent homicide, a misdemeanor, for causing Linda Doyle's death.  Now when he finds himself a passenger in a car and the driver starts using a cell phone, he becomes nervous, he says.  But he's a polite guy who doesn't want to ruffle feathers.  So he doesn't say anything.

Christopher, let me just say this: you have power now.  Use your power.  Speak, for you have a story that maybe people should hear.

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Robert S. McNamara is dead at the age of 93.  He was the whiz kid who saved Ford Motor Company and subsequently became the most influential Secretary of Defense of all time, serving both John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.  McNamara was the brilliant strategist who steered Kennedy and the hawkish Chiefs of Staff out of a nuclear confrontation in Cuba, and we should be forever grateful for that.  But he is also the man whose rationality fell short, when he predicted how quickly the U.S. could bring N. Vietnam to its knees.  They just wouldn't give up.    

McNamara spent all of his years after 1966 in despair and regret about his role as the chief architect of the Vietnam War.  That's the year he came to understand the nature of the conflict--after he read a book-length C.I.A. study called "The Vietnamese Communists' Will to Persist," which concluded that the U.S. was fighting a futile war.  Then he talked with George Allen, a C.I.A. analyst who had studied Vietnam for 17 years and asked his advice.  Allen told him that he should stop the bombing and negotiate a cease-fire with Hanoi. 

At that time, McNamara told his aides to start compiling a top-secret history of the war--a report which would later be known as the Pentagon Papers.  And he sought to influence Lyndon Johnson, who had become President after Kennedy's assassination in 1965, suggesting in a Sept. phone call to Johnson that the President establish a ceiling on the number of troops in Vietnam and plan to stop the bombing.  Johnson only grunted in response.  

On May 19, 1967, McNamara sent a lengthy and carefully considered paper to President Johnson urging him to negotiate with Hanoi rather than escalate the war.  McNamara wrote, "Most Americans are convinced that somehow we should not have gotten this deeply in.  All want the war ended and expect their president to end it.  Successfully.  Or else."  Johnson responded this time by relieving of his job and making him President of the World Bank.

At his going-away luncheon, McNamara actually broke down and wept as he spoke of the futile destruction of Vietnam.  Many of those present were shocked by the depth of his sadness and guilt, and appalled that he would condemn the bombing. 

McNamara went on to dedicate himself to the reduction of "absolute poverty" in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, but these efforts were often undermined by the ignoring of ecological concerns and by corruption in third world countries. 

It was only in 1995 that he finally publicly denounced the Vietnam War and the part he played in it, when he published a memoir entitled "In Retrospect: the Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam."  And then in 2003 came Errol Morris's moving documentary on McNamara, "The Fog of War."  I will never forget this haunted, tragic figure as he looked into the camera and said that the greatest lesson that he had learned from Vietnam was the need to know one's enemy, and to empathize with him.  "We must try to put ourselves inside their skin and look at us through their eyes," he said.

For his efforts at apology, McNamara was subjected to severe criticism. People wanted to know why he didn't speak out against the war when he could have influenced policy.  Why did he wait?  I ask myself that question, as well.  Was it out of loyalty to the President?  After all, this was an appointed office, and he served at the will of the President.  Was it because he wanted a cushy job at the World Bank, instead of being ousted from the Washington power structure?  Did he think (probably rightly so) that he would have been labeled a traitor?  Did he perhaps wonder if he would be blamed for not "supporting our boys" when we lost the war, as he knew was inevitable?  I don't know.  Only he would know.  But I will say this: it would take extraordinary courage to speak out against the war, against the President, against his colleagues, against the Pentagon, against the majority of the American people, who at that time believed that we were justified in being in Vietnam.  Should he have done it?  Yes.  Sixteen thousand American lives had been lost when he resigned as Secretary of Defense--42,000 more were to die before the war was over--and countless Vietnamese soldiers and civilians.  Would that he could have found that extraordinary courage.

Had he done so, would the war have been ended sooner?  No doubt, his words would have had a powerful impact on decision-makers, would have given tremendous leverage to the protest movement.  And he would not have had to drag through his latter years, an object of pity, his too-large clothing hanging round his form, bent and broken, wondering how a good man, a compassionate man, one of the best and the brightest, could have gone so wrong.

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