Porter: McNamara's Vietnam War mindset - seeking dominance - continues today, in both parties
"Paul Jay speaks to Gareth Porter, Investigative Historian and Journalist about Robert McNamara's deception of former President Lyndon B. Johnson. In this second part of the interview, Porter discusses the documents that served a smoking gun for McNamara's deception over the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Porter says it was not just McNamara. Lyndon B. Johnson's national security advisers in general were pushing and "maneuvering" him and "going so far as deprive him of the information that he really needed to make an informed decision about the use of force. They were desperate to get him involved in a war. The relevance of this is that today we have a president who, like Lyndon B. Johnson, is a neophyte in foreign affairs... he was very dependent on his national security advisers. He was reluctant to completely counterman their positions and advice. He was afraid that without their support he would be portrayed as weak and as someone who was not willing to do what was necessary to defend US power and interests.""
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