Editing Robert McNamara (section)

====March on the Pentagon====
On 21 October 1967, McNamara saw the [[March on the Pentagon]] anti-war protest from his office in the Pentagon. He witnessed hippie girls placing flowers in the guns of the [[District of Columbia National Guard|D.C National Guardsmen]] standing in front of the Pentagon.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=460}} McNamara described the scene as "hellish" as the hippie girls bared their breasts to tempt the Guardsmen to "make love, not war" while other hippies spat in the faces of the Guardsmen.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=460}} However, despite seeing the March on the Pentagon demonstrators as a sign of social decay, his characteristic competitive spirit came to the fore as he argued that if he had been leading the March on the Pentagon, he would have taken over the Pentagon and shut it down, saying hippies lacked the necessary discipline and intelligence.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=460}} On 31 October 1967, McNamara wrote Johnson a memo which he sent the next day saying that the war could not be continued as it "would be dangerous, costly in lives and unsatisfactory to the American people".{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=461}} Johnson wrote on the margins on the memo remarks such as "How do we get this conclusion?" and "Why believe this?"{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=461}}