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Rank: Advanced Member
Joined: 3/7/2009
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Location: Inside Farlex computers
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 Robert McNamara (1916)McNamara served as the US Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1968. He took the post just months after being named president of the Ford Motor Company. As secretary, he shifted US military strategy away from heavy reliance on nuclear weaponry and strengthened conventional fighting capacity. He initially supported the escalation of the Vietnam War, but his growing doubts led him to eventually resign from the cabinet. He then became the president of what international organization? More...
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Rank: Advanced Member
Joined: 12/19/2013
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His middle name is peculiar.
;-)
See a documentary film called The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara (2003). It's fascinating, and explains exactly how close we came to a nuclear apocalypse.
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Rank: Advanced Member
Joined: 12/19/2013
Posts: 470
Neurons: 350,540
Location: Cheboygan, Michigan, United States
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For those who are curious about the "Eleven Lessons" in The Fog of War, this is from IMDB.com:
1. Empathize with your enemy.
2. Rationality will not save us.
3. There's something beyond one's self.
4. Maximize efficiency.
5. Proportionality should be a guideline in war.
6. Get the data.
7. Belief and seeing are both often wrong.
8. Be prepared to reexamine your reasoning.
9. In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil.
10. Never say never.
11. You can't change human nature.
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He became the president of the World Bank in 1968
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Rank: Advanced Member
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Hey Chevegas, thank you for this link. Chevegas wrote:His middle name is peculiar.
;-)
See a documentary film called The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara (2003). It's fascinating, and explains exactly how close we came to a nuclear apocalypse.[/size]
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Rank: Advanced Member
Joined: 9/21/2012
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Many people say that we should not be too hard on Mr. McNamara.
Everyone says that the United States could have, of course, won the Vietnamese War.
But it was constrained by the fear that the Chinese would come in -- as they had done in Korea during the 1950's.
Therefore, the United States was fighting with one arm tied behind it. (The United States was prevented from invading North Vietnam.)
And, of course, the South Vietnamese did not help themselves by having one corrupt government after another.
Public opinion polls show that most Americans are tired of trying to turn other countries into democracies.
As some people put it, it's hopeless.
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Rank: Advanced Member
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Those maxims sound like something Sun Tzu would have said. Only he wouldn't feel the need to justify the evil. Just the expense!  6. Get the data. 7. Belief and seeing are both often wrong. 8. Be prepared to reexamine your reasoning. those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it. Now where would those ideas have come in handy more recently.... Not America- bashing, honest. I would make a terrible young communist!
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Location: Bogotá, Bogota D.C., Colombia
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WISE!!!
"The military tactics are those of the sniper, the ambush, and the raid. The political tactics are terror, extortion, and assassination."
Robert McNamara!!
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Rank: Advanced Member
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Wise - maybe, Shrewd - definitely
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