TPPM Watts: (15) Basically a white Scene

[Paul Nightingale]

"It is basically a white Scene, and illusion is everywhere in it, from
the giant aerospace firms that flourish or retrench at the whims of
Robert McNamara, to the 'action' everybody mills along the Strip on
weekends looking for, unaware that they and their search which will end,
usually, unfulfilled, are the only are the only action in town."

The local economy is thereby connected to foreign policy. Robert
McNamara was Johnson's Defense Secretary.

See: Frank E. Vandiver, Shadows of Vietnam: Lyndon Johnson's Wars (1997)

"If he ever tried to quit, LBJ threatened to send police to bring him
back. McNamara had been one of the so-called Whiz Kids, had been at Ford
Motor company when Kennedy charmed him into government. He brought new
ideas of organization and management to the Byzantine Defense
Department. Johnson thought McNamara 'carried more information around in
his head than the average encyclopedia.' Respect tinged with a dash of
inferiority led the president to a nickname trick remindful of Huey
Long: he branded McNamara the man with the 'Stay-Comb' hair." (7)

"McNamara shrewdly deployed his 'number crunchers' in middle-management
levels of the Defense Department -- and hence dominated policy and
procedure making. By his energy and the energy of his henchmen, McNamara
put his personal stamp on the government's largest business structure.
At last it seemed that civilian management knew all about defense
planning and spending, could balance the two, and could assure rational
war decisions." (53)

See also: Jeffrey Helsing, Johnson's War/Johnson's Great Society: The
Guns and Butter Trap (2000)

"President Johnson was not misled by his advisers about the military
goals in Vietnam, the costs of escalation, or how long it would take.
The president and his foreign policy advisers did not go into Vietnam
blind; they were constantly warned about the odds they were facing. But
as McNamara has pointed out with respect to the bombing campaign against
North Vietnam: 'Data and analysis showed that air attacks would not
work, but there was such determination to do something, anything, to
stop the Communists that discouraging reports were often ignored.' The
policy objective was to create a military stalemate that would convince
the communists they could not succeed in South Vietnam. McNamara used
the term 'stalemate' to describe the U.S. military objective to the full
cabinet on June 18, 1965. That was never stated publicly, however. There
is no evidence that Johnson did not believe his advisers, but it is
clear that he downplayed and obfuscated the nature and costs of the
military escalation." (5-6)


"... the Strip ..." is Sunset Strip, of course, which some of us
associate with a television show of the time:

http://www.nostalgiacentral.com/tv/cops/77sunset.htm

A good example of "unreal" LA, perhaps.