Robert Strange McNamara was born in San Francisco on June 8, 1916. He attended public schools in Piedmont. He graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1937 with a degree in economics and philosophy. McNamara then received his Master's Degree from the Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration in 1939.
After working for an accounting firm for a year at Price Waterhouse, McNamara became a teacher at Harvard from 1940 to 1943. In 1943, he received a captain's commission in the U.S. Army Air Corps. After winning the Legion of Merit he was discharged as a lieutenant colonel in 1946. Afterwards, McNamara joined the Ford Motor Company as a statistical control expert. During his years working at Ford, he rose rapidly amongst others. He was named controller of the company, assistant general manager of the Ford division, vice resident and general manager, group vice president in charge of the car and truck divisions and was finally appointment as president of the company in 1960.
In 1961, McNamara took control over Pentagon. He had told President Kennedy that after discussed the job with his predecessor, Thomas S. Gates, Jr. From 1961 to 1968, McNamara was an American business executive and United States secretary of defense. McNamara served as the secretary of defense under John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Originally, he had supported U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and encouraged the escalation of American troops in 1964.
During the Vietnam War, McNamara encouraged escalation and called for an enormous amount of troops. Peaking at 3,550,000 in 1965, McNamara relentlessly called for more troops to expand the regular armed forces. Requests from him and U.S. military commanders in Vietnam led to the commitment of 485,000 troops in Vietnam by the end of 1967 and reaching 535,000 at 1968. He created an immense increase in the amount of money spent for the buildup of nuclear weapons and delivery system due to the Cold War. The fiscal year TOA had increased from $48.4 billion in 1962 to $49.5 billion in 1965 to $74.9 billion in 1968, which was his final year in office.
McNamara gradually became skeptical about whether deploying more troops into South Vietnam and escalating the bombing of North Vietnam could have won the Vietnam War. He traveled to Vietnam to witness the situation and soon became declined to send more troops to Vietnam following the Tet Offensive. McNamara found out that to finish the war would be extensive.
Disillusioned by the war, McNamara submitted his resignation as the secretary of defense to become the president of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, otherwise known as the World Bank. For his efforts in America's war against communism, the president awarded him both the Medal of Freedom and the Distinguished Service Medal. McNamara remained at World Bank until his retirement in 1981.
In 1995 McNamara published a memoir called, "In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam," in which he conveyed that U.S. military involvement in the war was "terribly wrong." He wrote that he was full of regret and guilt for his actions during the war. He attributed the failure of the war to eleven major causes, including poor organization, lack of understanding of the enemy and its culture, and a decision made in the President's office to withhold information from the Congress of the United States and the American public.
McNamara blamed both himself and other government officials, including President Johnson, for not engaging in more detailed debate that might have illuminated the problems surrounding the war. The book was extremely controversial as many people were perplexed why McNamara had waited so long to voice his reflections about the war. His other writings include "The Essence of Security: Reflections in Office," which was published in 1968, "Out of the Cold: New Thinking for American Foreign," and "Defense Policy in the 21st Century," which was published in 1989.
Photos Courtesy of Vietnam Photos
