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The Fog of War: Past, Present, and Future

Article  in  Theory and Research in Social Education · January 2012

DOI: 10.1080/00933104.2004.10473263

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Morris, Errol (Dir.), (2003). Fog of War: Eleven Lessons From the life of Robert
S. McNamara, The. Sony Pictures Classics, 107 minutes. [motion picture]
Release Date: May 11, 2004 (dvd), List Price $26.96.

Reviewed by Jeremy D. Stoddard, Department of Curriculum and Instruction,

University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706

The Fog of War: Past, Present and Future1

“Conventional wisdom is, don’t make the same mistake twice. Learn from your
mistakes.” – Robert McNamara, Fog of War

The name Robert McNamara often conjures up a variety of unappealing

images: war hawk, technocrat, or the IBM machine with legs. Director Errol

Morris’s Academy Award winning documentary, The Fog of War: Eleven

Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara (2003), does little to dispel the

image of McNamara as a cold, overly rational individual. Some humanity is

revealed, however, as the octogenarian reflects on his role in pivotal events of the

20th century and takes some responsibility for mistakes that he and others made

while in power. Fog of War provides a first person account into events ranging

from World War II through the early portion of the Cold War, ending with

McNamara’s departure from the Johnson Administration in 1967. Three events

are featured most prominently: the firebombing of Japanese cities during World

War II, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Vietnam War.

1
Please cite as: Stoddard, J. (2004). The fog of war: Past, present, and future
[Review of the film The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert
S. McNamara]. Theory and Research in Social Education, 32(3), 416-421.

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 The events in Fog of War are described from the intense and still arrogant

perspective of McNamara, whose interpretations are sometimes unconventional

when compared to traditional historical accounts. For example, McNamara

shared General Curtis Lemay’s view that if the United States had lost WWII, he

and other officers could have been convicted as war criminals because of the

hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties caused by the bombing of Tokyo and

other Japanese cities. In the case of the Cuban Missile crisis, “luck” was the

essential ingredient in averting a nuclear holocaust that, according to McNamara,

was much closer to occurring than many people believe. The Vietnam War, which

was frequently referred to as “McNamara’s War” escalated largely, from

McNamara’s perspective, because of a misunderstanding of purposes: “We saw

Vietnam as an element of the cold war, not what they saw it as…a civil war.”

McNamara’s words are supported with a wealth of primary documents,

audio conversations, images, and historical film clips. These sources include

recently declassified films of White House meetings during the Kennedy

administration and phone conversations recorded by President Lyndon Johnson in

the White House. These artifacts provide context for the audience, add

authenticity to the story being told by McNamara, and also help to illuminate the

relationships McNamara had with key figures, such as Kennedy and Johnson.

While Fog of War is a captivating retelling of many key moments of the

20th Century, this film is far more than a documentation of Cold War events or the

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life of McNamara. The real message of this film is in its plea to the audience to

question what is currently going on in the world and to realize the infallibility of

those in power, especially the people whom we trust to be judicious in making

decisions that involve the life and death of militants and civilians alike, either

domestically or abroad. How well are our current leaders following the

“conventional wisdom” that McNamara alludes to in the opening quote? This is

the question posed by McNamara and underscored by Morris through his editing

and production work, especially in the utilization of various narrative and stylistic

devices.

In order to emphasize these larger historical and contemporary issues,

Morris organizes the film with eleven lessons he identified after analyzing

McNamara’s self-reflections on his life and involvement in politics, world affairs

and war (National Public Radio, 2003):

1) Empathize with your enemy. 2) Rationality will not save us. 3)

There’s something beyond one’s self. 4) Maximize efficiency. 5)
Proportionality should be a guideline in war. 6) Get the data. 7)
Belief and seeing are both often wrong. 8) Be prepared to
reexamine your reasoning. 9) In order to do good, you may have to
engage in evil. 10) Never say never. 11) You can’t change human
nature.

The lessons act to both frame the issues and events described in the film as well as

to make connections to contemporary world affairs. For example, in the section

entitled “Empathize with your enemy,” McNamara argues that the Kennedy

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administration was able to broker a deal with Kruschev to withdraw missiles from

Cuba partially because they knew the Soviet leader so well and therefore could

empathize with his position. The ability to empathize with those of other cultures

is even more important in today’s era of rapid globalization.

The fact that Morris allowed McNamara to tell his stories candidly caused

many reviewers to criticize the film. They argued that Morris should have been

more aggressive in forcing McNamara not only to acknowledge, but also

apologize for, his complicity in events like the Vietnam War, during which three

million Vietnamese died. One writer stated that Fog of War “reminded me of

films of Albert Speer, Hitler’s architect and then head of war production,”

(Cockburn, 2004, p. 9) because McNamara admits overall guilt without taking

responsibility. While many may feel that the condemnation of McNamara is

warranted, these critics are selling Morris and his film short.

Morris protested against the Vietnam War while at the University of

Wisconsin-Madison (The Fog of War Press Kit, 2003) and still regards the

conflict as immoral and unjust. He developed a newfound respect for and interest

in McNamara as a result of reading In Retrospect (1996), McNamara’s personal

account of his role in the Vietnam Conflict, and Wilson’s Ghost (2001), which

McNamara co-authored with James Blight. This respect is evident as Morris

allows McNamara to deliver his own perspective in Fog of War, and thus paint a

more amiable portrait of himself. Instead of allowing the film to be merely a

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cinematic version of McNamara’s autobiography, however, Morris constructs a

narrative that encourages the audience to critically scrutinize McNamara’s

accounts and his feeble admittance of guilt without apology. Without the

relationship developed by Morris, McNamara probably would not have

participated in the interview sessions and would not have been open to such a

broad public critique.

Morris, the director of a number of highly acclaimed documentaries,

including The Thin Blue Line (1988) and A Brief History of Time (1991), has

described his own work as “non-fiction film noir” (Dalton, March 25, 2004,¶ 9).

This genre classification also seems to fit Fog of War; the subject of the film is

dark and somewhat cynical, McNamara is a fitting anti-hero in the noir tradition,

and Morris effectively uses a soundtrack by Philip Glass, providing a feeling of

“existential dread,” (The Fog of War Press Kit, 2003). In addition to the

soundtrack, a device called the Interrotron was utilized to create tension

throughout the film.

The Interrotron (The Fog of War Press Kit, 2003), a contraption devised

by Morris, places McNamara in a direct line of sight with the audience. It is an

adapted teleprompter that reflects an image of the interviewer over the lens of the

camera, allowing the interviewee to address the camera, and subsequently the

audience, directly (The Fog of War Press Kit). The ability to place the audience

in a one-on-one conversation with McNamara breaks from traditional interview

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settings, where the subject is usually filmed at an angle while seated opposite the

interviewer. The mode of address afforded by the Interrotron is especially

effective and powerful with McNamara, whose determination, intense gestures,

and steely eyes add drama to an already captivating story.

Morris integrates this interview footage and primary sources with

specially engineered visual affects to construct a dramatic and engaging narrative.

This onscreen mosaic is especially evident in one of the examples mentioned

previously, McNamara’s description of the firebombing of Tokyo. In this scene,

numbers are added in place of the bombs falling from a B-29 bomb bay in order

to illustrate McNamara’s role as a strategic bombing planner and to show how he,

and other military planners, reduced the victims of the attacks to raw numbers. It

is through the use of these stylistic and editing decisions that Morris is able to let

McNamara give his perspective while also urging the audience to critically

evaluate what is being said.

It is understandable that many people who view the firebombing of Japan

or the U.S. role in Vietnam as unjust would have an aversion to McNamara’s

perspective on any event because of his association with the conflicts. In the case

of Fog of War, however, it shouldn’t distract from the larger questions that are

raised about human nature, rationality in decision-making, and the violence and

death associated with war. These themes, which hold greater implications than

6
McNamara and his inability to take responsibility, are especially pertinent in our

current state of nuclear proliferation, terrorism, and renewed unilateralism.

Fog of War is visually compelling and includes a unique perspective on

important events from the latter half of the 20th century, making it a great

resource for use in social studies education. In order to help teachers use this film

more effectively in their classrooms and delve into the rich and complex issues it

contains, Brown University’s Choices Program and Critical Oral History Project

(2003) teamed up to create a companion curriculum. This curriculum includes

eight activities which help students to: 1) dig deeper into the events included in

Fog of War and leadership decisions made during those periods, 2) evaluate

McNamara’s perspective of the events, and 3) examine how the structure of the

film and the use of stylistic devices may influence their understandings of what

was portrayed.

For most of the activities, the film serves as a gateway to deeper inquiry

into one of the historic events or larger historical concept or issue. For example,

Activity 2 asks students to investigate the letters between Kruschev and Kennedy

in order to better understand the decision-making that occurred. Activity 3

includes both an examination of an event, in this case the Gulf of Tonkin incident

and subsequent Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, and other parallel incidents that have

been used as justification for the use of military force (e.g. battleship Maine and

weapons of mass destruction in Iraq).

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 In addition to using the film as a basis for historical inquiry or concept

development, the final two activities ask students to examine the power of the

film in affecting an audiences understanding of what is shown through analyzing

the construction of the film (Activity 7) and to examine and take a position on

contemporary issues of military conflict and globalization (Activity 8). The latter

activity could also be used to further engage students in examining concepts of

democratic citizenship, specifically understanding the role of the U.S. and its

leaders in world issues. On the whole, this curriculum provides a catalyst for

analyzing and discussing the role of the U.S. in the Cold War as well as its

involvement in the world today and the power of media in shaping our

understandings of the past and present.

In addition to the activities included in the curriculum, teachers may also

want to have students juxtapose Fog of War with other documentaries or feature

films made during different periods or containing altering points of view. For

example, students could compare the account of the Cuban Missile Crisis in Fog

of War with other documentaries on the event, especially those that include

previous interviews with McNamara, to see how the accounts differ. They could

also look at the film Thirteen Days (2000) to examine how Hollywood adapts a

historical account when making a feature film and possible effects on how an

audience understands that event. By having students analyze and compare

various media sources, they can better understand how public perception of the

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events included in Fog of War have evolved over time as well as the power that

the media and Hollywood have in influencing people’s understanding of the past.

Overall, this film should be used to help students think about how they, as citizens

of the United States, can help to make sure that the mistakes of the past identified

in Fog of War are not forgotten and hopefully not repeated in the present and

future.

Fog of War will probably not change the demonic image of McNamara

that many of his critics hold, but it does provide insight into how McNamara, as a

rare public figure who admits his role in past atrocities, wrestles with the lessons

that are identified. More importantly, in using McNamara and the past as a

vehicle, Fog of War implores the audience, young and old, to question the acts of

government officials during times when their thinking and decision making may

be clouded in a “fog of war”.

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 References

Choices Program, The, & Critical Oral History Project, The. (2003) Official
teacher’s guide for the fog of war: An Errol Morris film. Watson Institute
for International studies, Brown University. Retrieved from
http://www.sonyclassics.com/fogofwar/_media/pdf/lessonPlanFOG.pdf

Cockburn, A. (2004). The fog of cop-out. The Nation. New York: Feb 9, 2004.
278 (5), p. 9.

Dalton, S. (2004). Errol Morris – now with even sharper teeth [Review of the film
Fog of war: Eleven lessons from the life of Robert S. McNamara]. Times
Online. Retrieved April 5, 2004 from www.timesonline.co.uk/.

The fog of war (press kit). Retrieved March 3, 2004 from

http://www.sonyclassics.com/fogofwar/_media/pdf/pressReleaseFOG.pdf

Weekend All Things Considered. (December 20, 2003). Interview: Errol Morris
on his documentary about Robert S. McNamara. National Public Radio.
Retrieved March 30, 2004 from Proquest Database.

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