Mcnamara, Robert S. (1916–)

Leading military and strategic policy figure of the U.S. political establishment from 1961 to 1968 and secretary of defense under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Born on June 9, 1916, in San Francisco, Robert McNamara graduated in 1937 from the University of California at Berkeley with a degree in economics and philosophy. He later earned a master's degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration in 1939. After a year working, he returned in 1940 to Harvard to teach in the business school.

In early 1943, after a teaching stint at Harvard, McNamara entered the U.S. Army Air Forces as a captain, and he left active duty three years later with the rank of lieutenant colonel. In 1946, McNamara joined Ford Motor Company as manager of planning and financial analysis. He advanced rapidly through a series of top-level management positions to the presidency of Ford in November 1960. The first company head selected outside the Ford family, McNamara received substantial credit for Ford's expansion and success in the postwar period. Less than five weeks after becoming president at Ford, he accepted an invitation by President John F. Kennedy to join his cabinet as secretary of defense.

Secretary of Defense under Kennedy and Johnson

In the broad arena of national security affairs, McNamara played a principal part under both Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, especially during international crises. Although not especially knowledgeable about defense matters when he started, McNamara immersed himself in the subject, learned quickly, and soon began to apply an active role-management philosophy that would provide aggressive leadership.

The basic policies outlined by President Kennedy in a message to Congress on March 28, 1961, initially guided McNamara in the reorientation of the defense program. A major review of the military challenges confronting the United States initiated by McNamara in 1961 followed, and then came a decision to increase the nation's limited warfare capabilities.

The first crisis faced by the Kennedy administration—the Bay of Pigs—proved to be a disastrous embarrassment for the government. Much later (in 1968), McNamara supposedly told reporters that his principal regret about the Bay of Pigs incident was his recommendation to Kennedy to proceed with the operation, which McNamara should have recognized as an error. More successful was his participation in the Executive Committee, a small group of advisers who counseled President Kennedy to avert the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962.

The escalation of the Vietnam conflict during the administrations of Kennedy and Johnson came to claim most of McNamara's time and energy. During the Kennedy administration, the U.S. military advisory group in South Vietnam steadily increased, with McNamara's concurrence, from just a few hundred to about 17,000. Although he loyally supported administration policy, McNamara gradually became skeptical about whether the war could be won militarily. He traveled to Vietnam many times to study the situation firsthand, and he became increasingly reluctant to [Page 450]approve the large force increments requested by the military commanders.

As McNamara's views grew more controversial after 1966, and his differences with President Johnson and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) over Vietnam policy became the subject of public speculation, frequent rumors surfaced that McNamara would leave office. Yet, there was great surprise when President Johnson announced on November 29, 1967, that McNamara would resign to become president of the World Bank. McNamara left office on February 29, 1968. For his dedicated efforts, President Johnson awarded McNamara both the Medal of Freedom and the Distinguished Service Medal.

...