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July 25th 2004: Watched Fog of War, a movie about the secretary of state or defense under Kennedy and then Johnson. It was really good. I liked one of the extras where he talked about his book about Woodrow Wilson. Woodrow Wilson knew their would be a 2nd world war, because the league of nations failed and the world was taking the wrong stance with Germany. It really makes me wish that we were better at resolving conflicts. Something that he said was that we need to understand our enemy. That makes me think of Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game. Apparently (not to ruin the movie for you) they were fighting a civil war, in viatnam, and they did not see the war in the same way that we saw it, in context of the cold war, or a struggle between communism and freedom. In the extras the McNamara says mentions the palace by Rudyard Kipling. It says:
When I was a King and a Mason-a master proven and skilled- I cleared me ground for a Palace such as a King should build. I decreed and cut down to my levels, and presently, under the silt, I came on the wreck of a Palace such as a King had built.
There was no worth in the fashion-there was no wit in the plan- Hither and thither, aimless, the ruined footings ran- Masonry, brute, mishandled; but carven on every stone: "After me cometh a Builder. Tell him I, too, have known."
Swift to my use in my trenches, where my well-planned ground-works grew, I tumbled his quoins and ashlars, and cut and reset them anew. Lime I milled of his marbles ; burned it, slacked it and spread; Taking and leaving at pleasure the gifts of the humble dead.
Yet I despised not nor gloried; yet as we wrenched them apart, I read in the razed foundations the heart of that builder's heart. As though he had risen and pleaded, so did I understand The form of the dream he had followed in the face of the thing he had planned.
When I was King and a Mason-in the open noon of my pride, They sent me a Word from the Darkness-They whispered and called me aside. They said-"The end is forbidden." They said-"Thy use is fulfilled, "And thy Palace shall stand as that other's-the spoil of a King who shall build. "
I called my men from my trenches, my quarries, my wharves and my sheers. All I had wrought I abandoned to the faith of the faithless years. Only I cut on the timber-only I carved on the stone: "After me cometh a Builder. Tell him I, too, have known."
The secretary of defense said that he had made mistakes but that he was trying to build something beautiful. He had not built it, but that others would have to.
McNamara says:
Kipling is talking about a king who is nearing the end of his life. He is saying that he tried to build a palace and now he looks around and all he sees is ruin. My objectives where clear my performance was less than perfect, but I pass on to my successor the dream I tried to build.
I think this is really touching movie. I think of parents who want their kids to grow up and be so strong, and good, and pure, but they grow up week, mean, petty, defiled, and in chains. I think that at the end of all of our lives, that will be all that we can say. I tried to do a good job. Those of you who look at my life, will have to look at the dream that I had not this ruin that I created. Again I think of Orson Scott card and speakers for the dead.
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