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<\/a><\/p>\nMy first brush with greatness came in the mid-1960s on a Utah ski vacation that overlapped with Robert McNamara and his family.\u00a0 As a preteen, I was only vaguely aware of the man.\u00a0 My parents, who still had complete confidence in the government, never talked politics and rarely watched the evening news, and yet the snippets drifting through the ethos must have seeped into my psyche.\u00a0 I could easily recognize him standing in front of a crude map of Vietnam, or pointing at a graph with rising zig zagging lines.\u00a0 But his appearance made the most distinct impression \u2013 that slicked back hair oozing with grease, ramrod straight part and rimless glasses.\u00a0 He looked like the epitome of steely-eyed control.\u00a0 He scared me, but I wasn\u2019t sure why.<\/p>\n
At the ski area my unease deepened as I witnessed McNamara first hand.\u00a0 This was a man you stepped aside for.\u00a0 I remember standing in line for the chairlift watching McNamara and his family cut directly in front of us to the head of the line.\u00a0 There was a strong undercurrent throughout the slopes, a frisson of excitement and awe. We were in the presence of greatness, breathing the same air, and sitting on the same chairlifts. It was here that I learned that he was the Secretary of Defense, in charge of stopping the spread of Communism, routinely making life and death decisions both for our country and individual families.<\/p>\n
One day our ski school instructor whisked us off to the side of the slope so that McNamara could pass by unobstructed. I heard the flutter of his baggy ski pants and was surprised that he was not wearing the skin-tight stretch pants that were the style at the time.\u00a0 I did not hear the expert clatter of tightly aligned skis, a trademark of the expert skier.\u00a0 In fact, he was not a particularly good skier.\u00a0 Average, serviceable perhaps, he skied with his skis wide apart. I was probably a better skier than he was.\u00a0 Somehow I had expected that the person who held the fate of our world in his hands would be accomplished in every aspect of life.\u00a0 As he approached our group, McNamara looked like an average Dad enjoying a vacation with his kids.<\/p>\n
Then he skied right by me, hatless, and I again noticed his slicked back hair, motionless in the wind.\u00a0 He was so close I could see the congruent grooves of the tines of his comb across his scalp.\u00a0 I could not imagine that any follicle on his head would have the nerve to rise up and curl.\u00a0 How could I reconcile these two disparate images, a control freak vs. a happy Dad?\u00a0 I only had my father for comparison, a hardworking salesman for a printing company, who commuted long hours to and from Chicago.\u00a0 I once asked him, \u201cDad, what do you think about in your car day after day?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think about my job on my way into work, and my family on the way out,\u201d he replied.<\/p>\n
Was that McNamara\u2019s schedule?\u00a0 How could he have time for his family \u2013 roughhousing on the lawn, helping with homework, reading stories \u2013 when he was sending young men off to war? \u00a0In fact, how could he have time for a ski vacation?\u00a0 Shouldn\u2019t he remain on high alert in Washington making important decisions?<\/p>\n
What was he like at home, was he a punitive disciplinarian?\u00a0 Could a control freak like McNamara give warm hugs?\u00a0 Maybe his kids could solve my obsession with his hair.\u00a0 What would happen if they accidentally mussed up his perfect part? \u00a0For that matter what did their Dad look like after a dip in the pool or when he got up in the morning?\u00a0 Did he spend hours grooming?\u00a0 All my Dad required was two quick scrapes of the comb across his dry brown hair.<\/p>\n
One day the entire ski school gathered in the cafeteria for a snack.\u00a0 \u00a0I happened to sit at the same table with McNamara\u2019s young daughters.\u00a0 I knew who they were.\u00a0 I had seen them cutting into the ski line with their father.\u00a0 Besides, McNamara\u2019s aura had extended to his children; both ski instructors and cafeteria staff exuded caution and deference.<\/p>\n
I think their special treatment made me irritable.\u00a0 We had ridden the uncomfortable sit-up train from Chicago to Salt Lake City, and I imagined that they had been whisked here by jet, accompanied by secret serviceman and handlers who probably carried their skis for them.\u00a0 \u00a0At the same time I had been harboring a monumental secret, something my parents made me promise never to tell my younger siblings, who appeared to be the same age as McNamara\u2019s youngest daughter.\u00a0 But secrets burn holes, set up moral quandaries.\u00a0 Some must be told, and one strategy is to divulge a secret to a peripheral person with no consequence, just to relieve the pressure.<\/p>\n
A bright shining lie was corroding my tender preteen soul, and I succumbed to the impulse to blab, a brief moment when I ignored social norms of courtesy and minding my own business.\u00a0 I wanted to protect these children from the lies perpetuated by authority figures, to provide them with my wisdom, let them know that they should question everything, that blind loyalty to authority should always be tempered with skepticism.<\/p>\n
Okay, I\u2019ll admit it.\u00a0 In retrospect, I am certainly ennobling my motivations.\u00a0 I probably wanted to pop their secure and safe balloon of privilege and power.\u00a0 My role as a whistleblower was tinged with a vindictive agenda.<\/p>\n
I turned to the children and blurted out, \u201cYou know, there is no such thing as Santa Claus.\u201d<\/p>\n
There it was done.\u00a0 I had relieved the pressure of an institutionalized hoax.\u00a0 Their sad eyes looked at me in bereaved astonishment, the youngest daughter\u2019s mouth gaped and a pendulous drop of milk hung from her lip. I shuddered to realize that they could tell their father.\u00a0 These were not peripheral people with no consequence.\u00a0 I feared the retribution of the mighty McNamara.<\/p>\n
I could imagine his eyes burning fiercely behind those rimless glasses, a small smile signaling punishment rather than forgiveness.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t his index finger wagging at me that I envisioned, it was a clenched and pumping fist.\u00a0 \u201cHow could you have done this?\u00a0 You\u2019ve stolen their childhood, ruined their lives, they\u2019ll never be the same!\u00a0 How could you have made such a casually destructive decision?\u00a0 I don\u2019t think that I can ever forgive you.\u201d<\/p>\n
I truly feared for my life.\u00a0 An apology seemed totally inadequate. \u00a0There was no way I could atone for a ruined childhood.\u00a0 The stakes seemed too high.\u00a0 I should have just perpetuated the lie, but now it was too late.\u00a0 The only alternative was to scuttle away and hide.\u00a0 For the rest of the vacation, I carefully skied along the edges of the slopes and sought a far-off table in the cafeteria.\u00a0 I never saw the children or their father again.<\/p>\n
It’s been over fifty years now.\u00a0 I still feel some guilt mixed with a little pride in challenging authority.\u00a0 I wonder if the McNamara children have any recollection of the twelve-year-old who was briefly bold enough to speak truth to power.<\/p>\n
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