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[regarding his and Colonel Curtis LeMay's involvement in the bombing of Japan during World War II]
Robert McNamara: LeMay said if we lost the war that we would have all been prosecuted as war criminals. And I think he's right. He... and I'd say I... were behaving as war criminals.
Robert McNamara: LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side has lost.
Robert McNamara: But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?
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[from October 27, 1962, regarding the Soviet missiles in Cuba]
John F. Kennedy: We're not going to get these missiles out of Cuba, probably, anyway... by negotiation.
Tommy Thompson: I don't agree, Mr. President. I think there's still a chance...
John F. Kennedy: That he'll back down?
Tommy Thompson: The important thing for Khrushchev, it seems to me, is to be able to say, "I saved Cuba, I stopped an invasion".
Errol Morris
Extended Reading
