Robert McNamara's Saigon monuments

It was the only way the Vietnamese people could get on with the business of recovery and rebuilding. It doesn't mean the war is forgotten. Nor does it mean that its heavy economic, political, cultural and environmental impacts have been mitigated. Vietnam still pays for McNamara's war, but the national mindset is to look forward, not back.  

McNamara's impact on this country was massive. He was the defense secretary that presided over the huge escalation of the war. He was in the chair for most of its major milestones - the assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem in a US sanctioned coup in 1963,  the deployment of US combat troops in 1965, B52 bombing raids of Hanoi, the Tet Offensive in 1968. The use of napalm, agent orange, the massive bombing of South Vietnam - the virtual destruction of a country and its people - all happened under McNamara's watch and to his plan. And even today, forty one years after his resignation, Vietnam feels the pain and political consequences of his decisions as do those American families who lost loved ones in the conflict.

McNamara may be gone but this city still has a few unflattering monuments that remember him.

In May 1964, Saigonese teenager Nguyen Van Troi attempted to assassinate McNamara as he travelled into the city along the main airport road. Troi was executed for his efforts and became one of the Viet Cong's most celebrated martyrs. Wikipedia writes that before his execution, Troi, by then seventeen years of age said, -

"you are journalists and so you must be well informed about what is happening. it is the Americans who have committed aggression on our country, it is they who have been killing our people with planes and bombs.... I have never acted against the will of my people. It is against the Americans that I have taken action." When a priest offered him absolution, he refused, saying: "I have committed no sin. It is the Americans who have sinned." He refused to have his eyes covered before volleys hit him saying "Let me look at our beloved land" and as the first shots were fired, he called out, "Long live Vietnam!"

After 1975, the main airport road on which the assassination attempt occurred was renamed Nguyen Van Troi St and the bridge that was the site of the attack became Nguyen Van Troi bridge. A nearby market became Nguyen Van Troi market and a small memorial was erected in honour of Troi. Many cities in Vietnam have streets named after Nguyen Van Troi as they have schools and markets.

When McNamara returned to Saigon in the mid nineties, it must have been a peculiar sensation travelling along the airport road, Nguyen Van Troi St, named after his young would be assassin.

McNamara may have acknowledged his Vietnam War errors but he always did so with the detachment of a technocrat. He was never able to give voice to the human catastrophe he engineered. Nguyen Van Troi, who would even now only be in his early sixties, has been waiting a long time to meet McNamara. He's not alone of course.