Reason Has Limits - The Fog of War at 20
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In 1968, a military analyst named Daniel Ellsberg met with Henry Kissinger, the incoming National Security Advisor. Ellsberg warned how access to classified materials can warp the mind and twist one’s decision-making. First comes the astonishment about how much you didn’t know about things you thought you were an expert on. Then, after a while "you will forget there ever was a time when you didn’t have it, and you’ll be aware only of the fact that you have it now and most others don’t….and that all those other people are fools."
This advice went notoriously unheeded.
Disillusioned with the Vietnam war, Ellsberg became the world’s most famous whistleblower when he leaked the so-called "Pentagon Papers" to The New York Times. The documents revealed how entrenched the U.S. was in Vietnam, and how much the American people had been deceived by their government about the war. While Kissinger orchestrated the widespread bombing of Cambodia, he placed the blame on Ellsberg’s leak for the failure of "diplomacy" in the region.
The late Kissinger spent decades dining out on the supposed gravitas that sprung from his experience with classified material. There’s more to be gleaned about the relationship between secrecy and deception from Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. McNamara, who commissioned the Pentagon Papers, wrestles with this thoroughly (if not entirely frankly) in The Fog of War, Errol Morris’ documentary about McNamara, released twenty years ago. Morris’ film has a particular value because, as much as it is a revealing portrait of one man, it grasps at the mindset of easy contempt in which they powerful hold the public that they view as a bunch of dummies.
Fog of War is not a straightforward documentary as such. Instead, it is organized around eleven "lessons" McNamara has learned throughout his career, first in the military during World War II, then at the Ford automobile company (where he pushed for more safety belts), and then in government. In many ways, these lessons are compelling, especially when the amiable and straightforward McNamara feels on solid ground. His narration of the events of the Cuban Missile Crisis captures the truly terrifying way that countries and basically rational actors can hurtle toward mutual destruction. McNamara’s recollections and incisive analysis (lesson: "rationality will not save you") makes him come across as a pragmatic plain-dealing, who knows that human fallibility and lack of vision make every war worse than it should be.
This all falls apart when Morris turns to Vietnam. In recorded audio conversations, Johnson says to McNamara "nobody really understands what is out there." One of McNamara’s defense is the familiar "just following orders" line. But his tentative answers about Vietnam do tend towards national security brain: "A lot of people misunderstand the war," "It’s so complex that anything I say will require additions and qualifications," etc.
A question that weighs on the mind of every documentarian (as well it should) is how directly to go at a controversial or slippery subject. There are two schools of thought on this: one is to keep poking until you push them into significant admissions. The second is to say as little as possible, giving the subject plenty of rope to hang themselves. Morris often leans more toward the latter. Given that he has innovated the art of documentary interviews, and basically got someone to confess to a murder in The Thin Blue Line, he merits a good faith engagement with his choices. He pokes at McNamara, who bobs and weaves. The subject’s inability to fully engage with questions about Vietnam is telling and significant—there’s more than a bit of Ellsberg’s premonition that access to secrets forges a sense of superiority that makes him above interrogation. Like his subsequent film Standard Operating Procedure, Morris is expert at painting a fine picture of the conditions and mindsets that lead into catastrophic political blunders. But ultimately, McNamara gets to duck too much of his great responsibility for Vietnam. He personally was caught in several lies in the Pentagon Papers, and that’s where Morris is too generous.
Fog of War won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature in 2003, Morris’ first. On one hand, this is a piece of the Academy’s tendency to honor filmmakers for an overall career that has not been sufficiently acclaimed. This is certainly true for Morris—his groundbreaking and formally experimental films changed the paradigm for "prestige" documentaries. But the award certainly reflected the national mood, where anxiety and anger about America’s "war on terror" mounted as the conflict escalated senselessly. As is ever the case, looking back on the politics of 20 years ago can only produce shock at the enshitification of politics and public life. McNamara, whatever his faults, has a conscience and a fundamental capability for self-reflection. Today who knows what kind of venal, trigger-happy rodeo clown could fill his place in the cabinet.
"The Fog of War" is streaming on Tubi and available for digital rental or purchase. It is also available on Blu-ray.
https://crookedmarquee.com/reason-has-limits-the-fog-of-war-at-20/