Editing Robert McNamara (section)

====Failures====
Because the effects of Operation Rolling Thunder were more easily measured than with the ground war, McNamara was especially troubled by the revelation that the bombing offensive had not caused the collapse of North Vietnam's economy as predicted.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|pp=499–500}} In June 1967, American bombers hit North Vietnam's hydroelectric plants and reduced North Vietnam capacity to generate electricity by 85%, according to McNamara's calculations.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=457}} At the same time, he also calculated that the annual amount of electricity generated in North Vietnam was equal only to a fifth of the electricity generated every year at the [[Potomac Electric Power Company]]'s plant in [[Alexandria, Virginia]], making the destruction of North Vietnamese power plants meaningless to the outcome of the war as the amount of electricity generated was so small.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=457}} He also calculated in 1967 that over the last two years, American bombers had inflicted damage on North Vietnam equal to about $300 million while at the same time, Rolling Thunder had cost the U.S. Air Force about 700 aircraft shot down over North Vietnam whose total value was about $900 million, making the bombing campaign uneconomical.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=457}} 

McNamara's doubts were encouraged by his civilian aides such as [[Leslie H. Gelb]] and [[John McNaughton (government official)|John McNaughton]], who complained that their wives and teenage children were chiding them as "war criminals" when they came home from work.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=506}} McNamara's own teenage son, [[Robert Craig McNamara]], was opposed to the war and denounced his father when he came from work every day.{{sfn|Milne|2009|p=248}} McNamara was shocked to discover that the American flag was hanging upside down in his son's bedroom as the younger McNamara told him that he was ashamed of America because of him.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=431}} McNaughton told McNamara that after having talked to some of the young people that "a feeling is widely and strongly held...that 'the Establishment' is out of its mind" and the dominant opinion was "that we are trying to impose some U.S. image on distant peoples we cannot understand and that we carrying the thing to absurd lengths."{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=506}}

In a memo of 19 May 1967 to the president, McNamara stated the military side of the war was going well with the Americans killing thousands of the enemy every month, but the political side was not, as South Vietnam remained as dysfunctional as ever. He wrote: "Corruption is widespread. Real government control is confined to enclaves. There is rot in the fabric".{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=446}} McNamara wrote that the idea that the American forces would temporarily stabilize the situation so the South Vietnamese could take over the war themselves was flawed as the dysfunctional South Vietnamese state would never be able to win the war, thus meaning the Americans would have to stay in Vietnam for decades to come. He advised Johnson not to accept Westmoreland's call for an additional 200,000 soldiers as that would mean calling up the Reserves, which in turn would require a wartime economy.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=446}} The economic sacrifices that ending the peacetime economy would entail would make it almost politically impossible to negotiate peace, and in effect would mean placing the hawks in charge, which was why those of a hawkish inclination kept pressing for the Reserves to be called up.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=446}} The economic sacrifices could only be justified to the American people by saying the war would be brought to a victorious conclusion. McNamara rejected the advice of the hawks, warning that steps such as bombing North Vietnam's dikes and locks to flood the farmland with the aim of causing a famine; mining the coast of North Vietnam to sink Soviet ships bringing in arms; invading Laos and Cambodia; and finally in the last resort using nuclear weapons if the other measures failed were likely to alienate world opinion and increase domestic opposition.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=446}} McNamara wrote: "The picture of the world's greatest superpower killing or seriously injuring 1,000 noncombatants a week, while trying to pound a tiny backward nation into submission on an issue whose merits are hotly disputed, is not a pretty one".{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=446}} 

Finally, McNamara dismissed the Domino Theory as irrelevant since General [[Suharto]] had seized power in Indonesia in 1965 and proceeded to wipe out the Indonesian Communist Party, the third-largest in the world, [[Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66|killing hundreds of thousands of Indonesian Communists]].{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=446}} He argued that with Suharto in power in Indonesia, "the trend in Asia was now running in America's favor, which reduced the importance of South Vietnam".{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=446}} To the Americans, Indonesia was the most important of all the "dominoes" in Southeast Asia, and McNamara argued that even if the South Vietnamese "domino" were to fall, the Indonesian "domino" would still stand.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=446}}&nbsp;