McNamara to Communist Vietnamese Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach at meeting in 1997

What did you accomplish? You didn't get any more than we were willing to give you at the beginning of the war. You could have had the whole damn thing: independence, unification."

I never in the world would have authorized an illegal action. I'm not really sure I authorized Agent Orange ? I don't remember it ? but it certainly occurred, the use of it occurred while I was Secretary.


Historians don't really like to deal with counterfactuals, with what might have been. They want to talk about history. "And how the hell do you know, McNamara, what might have been? Who knows?" Well, I know certain things.