The Big Picture and the Closeup

Stockdale should know about holding the bag: the next year he would be shot down and spend seven and a half years as a North Vietnamese prisoner of war subject to routine torture. He would be kept in solitary confinement for four years. He would be held in leg irons for two years. He had to go through that and more because in the end McNamara’s men did not really care whether there had been any boats or not, and McNamara’s boss LBJ did not care about telling Congress what he was asking for.