Robert Strange McNamara

Robert Strange McNamara , 1916-, U.S. Secretary of Defense (1961-68), b. San Francisco. He taught (1940-43) business administration at Harvard, served in World War II, and was (1946-60) an executive of the Ford Motor Company, where he was responsible for many of the managerial and product changes that enabled the company to regain its high rank among the nation's corporations. In Nov., 1960, he became the first president of the corporation who was not a member of the Ford family, but he resigned shortly afterward to become (Jan., 1961) President Kennedy's secretary of defense. McNamara introduced modern management techniques in the Defense Dept. and asserted civilian control over the defense establishment. He also shifted U.S. military strategy away from heavy reliance on nuclear weaponry and strengthened conventional fighting capacity. Although he at first supported escalation of the Vietnam War , growing doubts about the war led McNamara to resign from the cabinet. From 1968 to 1981 he was president of the World Bank. McNamara wrote The Essence of Security (1968), One Hundred Countries, Two Billion People (1973), and The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam (1995).

Bibliography: See biography by D. Shapley (1988).

McNamara, Robert S. (1916–) secretary of defense (1961–68), born in San Francisco. McNamara brought civilian management practices to the Department of Defense. Such reforms as centralized decision making and the application of quantitative cost analysis to procurement decisions kept McNamara at odds with the military brass. His tenure, which coincided with a period of heightened Cold War tensions and Vietnam War escalation, also saw a military buildup that included improved strategic nuclear forces and increases in intercontinental and submarine-launched missiles, as well as an expansion of conventional forces. His support of the Vietnam policies of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson made him a prime target of attack as opposition to the war grew. McNamara resigned to become president of the World Bank, where he remained until 1981.