"If I said it, I'm not sorry, I'm horrified,"McNamara said.

"I've waited 27 years for you to say that," thewoman responded.

The Panelists

The first issue McNamara discussed was why hepublished his book now, 30 years after the fact.

"I want Americans to understand why we made themistakes we did and how we can learn from them,"he said.

The second issue was more difficult: did U.S.actions in Indochina, he asked, contribute to thesecurity of the western world, or were they acostly failure?

"The danger of Communist aggression during thefour decades after World War II was very real andvery substantial," McNamara said. "To have failedto defend ourselves against that very real threatwould have been foolhardy and irresponsible."

He added, however, that he believes 'we couldhave withdrawn on any one of several occasions."

Instead, he said, the U.S. government chose toremain. "We underestimated the power ofnationalism to motivate people to fight and diefor their people," McNamara said.

Tai, who was born in Saigon in 1948 and hadmany relatives who died as a result of the war,focused on a different aspect of the conflict inher comments.

"I do think the book that Secretary McNamarahas written is a very useful book, a good, goodbook, but a very painful book for me to read," shesaid.

She added that at least the United States hasacknowledged its wrongs.

"At least the United States, includingSecretary McNamara, have faced up to the morallegacy, the lessons of Vietnam, in a way that theleaders of Vietnam have not," Tai said. "For thatat least I am glad that, having been born inVietnam, I have become an American Citizen."

May said the book does not entirely succeed inrecreating the atmosphere of the 1960s in whichkey decisions were made. But he said that it wasan "extraordinarily useful and wise book."

McNamara said in response to a question that hehas not decided where to donate the proceeds ofhis book, but that any decision will be private