The Lightning Rod

Robert McNamara died this morning at the age of 93. He was active to the end, a member of over 50 boards and foundations. Though it is unlikely that save historians, no one under the age of 50 will remember this man, he was the quintessential technocrat, the poster child of pragmatic, unemotional analysis. He was a patriotic soul, pushing himself into WWII despite the problems with his eyesight. He shunned publicity but placed himself among the most powerful and influential people on the planet.


He was an avid fan of statistics, bringing his team from the military to the Ford Motor Company after the war. He moved up quickly over 15 years and became the first non-Ford family member appointed as President of the company, 3 months before President Kennedy moved into the Oval Office. His reputation was such that Kennedy asked him to become a member of the "Best and the Brightest" as Secretary of Defense. And though we botched the "Bay of Pigs" operation that would have defeated Castro, McNamara's advice during the Cuban Missile Crises contributed to our being able to avoid a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. His pushing and shoving the military brass to accept a streamlined military complex improved the armed forces' efficiency and shared weapons systems. The one thing he is remembered for by most, however, is not so laudatory.

Robert McNamara will forever be known as is "the architect of the Vietnam War." The fact is, McNamara began to have his doubts as early as 1964 about the war being winnable. In his own words, he said that he "lacked the courage" to push the Johnson administration, chiefly Lyndon Baines Johnson himself, into accepting the reality that the United States had gotten itself into what was an unwinnable civil war. This was, as he reflected, not a classic test of conventional forces, much less a war by proxy to contain communism. When he finally had the opportunity in November 1968 of being able to fully illustrate the futility of the war effort, he was pushed out. Nevertheless, President Johnson, 5 months later in March of 1969, came to the same conclusion and went on television in the famous "I will not seek, nor will I accept, the nomination of my party for another term as President" speech.

McNamara left the Pentagon and joined the World Bank where he spent 13 years pumping up the Bank's aid to the poorest nations. Accused by his detractors that his efforts were an atonement for the atrocities of the Vietnam War, a tagline he vehemently denied, he coddled and pushed developed countries to increase their funding for his efforts.

McNamara did visit the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington one time. He stood silently before it and when asked by a reporter what he was feeling at that moment, he tersely replied, "I have nothing to say."