Robert McNamara

In a Friday New York Times op-ed, Neal Gabler, merely described as "writing a biography of Edward Kennedy" to feign neutrality, expressed alarm that "the despicable Kennedy" seen in Chappaquiddick "will eradicate the honorable if flawed real one." Anyone who knows the history, dramatically retold in the movie I saw, can only hope that the actually despicable Massachusetts senator accurately…

"The highest patriotism is not a blind acceptance of official policy, but a love of one's country deep enough to call her to a higher plain." -- Sen. George McGovern (D-SD) Filmmakers Ken Burns and Lynn Novick have performed a vital public service in making their documentary "The Vietnam War" for PBS. Given the division that war caused in America, it is a pretty fair chronicling of the way things…

On a rainy September night in 1972, a man on a ferry bound for Martha's Vineyard tried to throw another passenger overboard. The target of the assailant's attack -- former defense secretary Robert McNamara, then president of the World Bank.The assault received considerable attention at the time though was largely forgotten in the decades that followed. After McNamara's death earlier this month at…