Promise and Power: The Life and Times of Robert McNamara.

• Author: Saul, John Ralston

The arrival of the first comprehensive biography of Robert McNamara might have been expected to create a storm. Instead, there have been serious, almost specialist, reviews and public indifference. It is as if his name were part of a distasteful past.

But the effects of McNamara's actions and his methods are far from past. They are central to the crises which the Clinton administration and other Western countries are struggling to deal with today. It could be said, only half in jest, that McNamara is responsible for four of the six major post-war catastrophes--the nuclear arms race, the addiction of the civil economy to a gigantic conventional arms market, the dragged out Vietnam debacle, and the Third World debt crisis. The two remaining disasters--monetary disorder and the oil crisis-can probably be assigned to Nixon and Kissinger.

Deborah Shapley hasn't addressed her subject on that level. Perhaps this is because she let herself get caught in the classic conundrum of the biographer dealing with a living person. She came to know her subject personally. He granted a long series of on and off the record interviews and revealed himself more than he has ever done before. The point is not that she was seduced by his point of view; she wasn't. But she has confused his actions in power with his tendency to cry, his love for his Wife, and his distant relationship with his son. Biography is a very flawed medium for examining public policy. Great biographers drive their stories with the social or political themes of the day, thus avoiding People magazine pitfalls. The structure of most biographies, however, combines the romance novel with a boy's adventure story. In this case, we see the history of the post-World War II period through the tragic adventures of "Bob."

Perhaps this explains why so much of the book is devoted to the Vietnam story--a war can easily be described in a linear storybook manner. But while Vietnam was McNamara's most dramatic failure, it has also had far fewer long term implications than his other initiatives.

Shapley does give a reasonable account of the World Bank period, even though she tiptoes around the implications of the debt crisis. What was needed was a strong narrative drive based on the conflict between Third World realities and McNamara's abstract idea of what the Third World could become with his help. His approach was central to creating the atmosphere inside the commercial banks, as well as in the World Bank...