Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, growing concerned about the course of the war in Vietnam, first considers commissioning a study of the history of U. S. involvement in Vietnam. June 1967 Morton Halperin, an aide to Secretary McNamara, proposing a study of U. S. involvement in Vietnam, with himself directing the study.
Confidential Memorandum From Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to President Johnson (Note: this memo was later revealed to the American public when the Pentagon Papers were published in the New York Times and other newspapers in 1971)Washington, July 1, 1965. /1/Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, Vietnam, Vol. XXXVII, Memos (C).
CIA Special National Intelligence Estimate, “Major Consequences of Certain U.S. Courses of Action on Cuba,” October 20, 1962. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, military briefing, “Notes on October 21, 1962 Meeting with the President.”
Jul 07, 2009 · Robert S. McNamara, the forceful and cerebral defense secretary who helped lead the nation into the maelstrom of Vietnam and spent the rest of …
"Mutual Deterrence" Speech by Sec. of Defense Robert McNamara San Francisco, September 18, 1967 In a complex and uncertain world, the gravest problem that an American Secretary of Defense must face is that of planning, preparation and policy against the possibility of thermonuclear war.
With this in mind, we must choose among three courses of action with respect to South Vietnam: (1) Cut our losses and withdraw under the best conditions that can be arranged; (2) continue at about the present level, with US forces limited to, say, 75,000, holding on and playing for the breaks while recognizing that our ...
McNamara, in full Robert Strange McNamara, (born June 9, 1916, San Francisco, California, U.S.—died July 6, 2009, Washington, D.C.), U.S. secretary of defense from 1961 to 1968 who revamped Pentagon operations and who played a major role in the nation's military involvement in the Vietnam War.
McNamara became a close adviser to Kennedy and advocated the use of a blockade during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Kennedy and McNamara instituted a Cold War defense strategy of flexible response, which anticipated the need for military responses short of massive retaliation.
McNamara called for a boost in American firepower and a troop increase to 200,000 soldiers. By the end of the month, 50,000 additional troops were heading to Vietnam, with 75,000 more to be deployed before 1966. McNamara's memo was one of the most important policy statements of the entire war.
The secretary of defense oversees the Defense Department and acts as the principal defense policymaker and adviser.
January 1961McNamara became the secretary of defense in January 1961. In that post, he brought the military under greater and more centralized civilian control.
Robert S. McNamaraPresident Kennedy and Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara at the Pentagon, 11:30AM | JFK Library.
McNamara was Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1968 in the Kennedy Administration, which led the US into the Vietnam adventure, and in the Johnson Administration, which widened the involvement to a war in which 58,000 American troops died.
Robert S McNamara was born on June 9, 1916 in San Francisco, California. He graduated from Berkeley with a B.A. in Economics and Philosophy and received an M.B. A from Harvard in 1939. During World War II he served as an analyst in the Army Air Force studying the missions of the B-17 bombers in Japan.
David Dean RuskIntroduction. David Dean Rusk served as Secretary of State under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson. Rusk entered into duty as Secretary on January 21, 1961, and resigned on January 20, 1969.
In a public exchange of letters with South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, President John F. Kennedy formally announces that the United States will increase aid to South Vietnam, which would include the expansion of the U.S. troop commitment.
Despite his caution when dealing with international crises and his refusal to send combat troops to South Vietnam, Kennedy did escalate American involvement there. Around 700 US military personnel were in South Vietnam when he was inaugurated; on his death there were roughly 16,000.Nov 1, 2020
In 1982 McNamara joined several other former national security officials in urging that the United States pledge not to use nuclear weapons first in Europe in the event of hostilities; subsequently he proposed the elimination of nuclear weapons as an element of NATO's defense posture. His memoir, In Retrospect, published in 1995, presented an account and analysis of the Vietnam War from his point of view.
After his election in 1960, President-elect John F. Kennedy first offered the post of Secretary of Defense to former secretary Robert A. Lovett; Lovett declined but recommended McNamara. Kennedy then sent Sargent Shriver to approach him regarding either the Treasury or the Defense cabinet post less than five weeks after McNamara had become president at Ford. McNamara immediately rejected the Treasury position but eventually accepted Kennedy's invitation to serve as Secretary of Defense.
Toward the end of his term McNamara also opposed an anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system proposed for installation in the United States in defense against Soviet missiles, arguing the $40 billion "in itself is not the problem; the penetrability of the proposed shield is the problem." [ 17] Under pressure to proceed with the ABM program after it became clear that the Soviets had begun a similar project, McNamara finally agreed to a "light" system which he believed could protect against the far smaller number of Chinese missiles. However, he never believed it was wise for the United States to move in that direction because of psychological risks of relying too much on nuclear power and that there would be pressure from many directions to build a larger system than would be militarily effective. [ 18]
The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara is a 2003 Errol Morris documentary consisting mostly of interviews with Robert McNamara and archival footage. It went on to win the Academy Award for Documentary Feature. The particular structure of this personal account is accomplished with the characteristics of an intimate dialogue. As McNamara explains, it is a process of examining the experiences of his long and controversial period as the United States Secretary of Defense, as well as other periods of his personal and public life. In this documentary he referred to the Vietnam war and he said, "None of our allies supported us. Not Japan, not Germany, not Britain or France. If we can't persuade nations with comparable values of the merit of our cause, we'd better reexamine our reasoning."
Robert McNamara was born in San Francisco , California. [ 3] His father was Robert James McNamara, sales manager of a wholesale shoe company. His mother was Clara Nell Strange McNamara, whose maiden name was given as her son's middle name. [ 6][ 7] According to McNamara, his father's family was Irish and in about 1850, following the Great Irish Famine, had immigrated to Massachusetts and later to California. [ 8] He graduated from Piedmont High School in Piedmont, California in 1933 where he was president of the Rigma Lions boys club [ 9] and earned the rank of Eagle Scout. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1937 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics with minors in mathematics and philosophy. He was a member of Phi Gamma Delta fraternity, [ 10] was elected to Phi Beta Kappa his sophomore year and earned a varsity letter in crew. He was also a member of the UC Berkeley's Order of the Golden Bear which was a fellowship of students and leading faculty members formed to promote leadership within the student body. He earned an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1939.
In 1993, Washington journalist Deborah Shapley published a 615-page biography of Robert McNamara entitled Promise and Power: the Life and Times of Robert McNamara. The last pages of her book made clear that while Ms. Shapley deeply admired certain aspects of McNamara the man, and the public servant, she had seen first-hand his need to manipulate the truth, as well as to tell it.
McNamara married Margaret Craig, his teenage sweetheart, on August 13, 1940. Margaret McNamara, a former teacher, used her position as a Cabinet spouse to launch a reading program for young children, Reading Is Fundamental, which became the largest literacy program in the country. She died of cancer in 1981.
The idea of the United States’ losing a war seemed impossible when Mr. McNamara came to the Pentagon in January 1961 as the nation’s eighth defense secretary. He was 44 and had been named president of the Ford Motor Company only 10 weeks before.
Mr. McNamara’s time at the Pentagon came close to breaking his spirit. But he immediately followed that ordeal with 13 years as president of the World Bank. He set out to expand the bank’s power and to attack global poverty.
The underlying principle of nuclear deterrence became known as “mutual assured destruction” meaning that Washington and Moscow each knew it could destroy the other even if the other struck first. In retirement, Mr. McNamara argued that planning for nuclear war was futile.
Robert S. McNamara, Architect of a Futile War, Dies at 93. Robert S. McNamara, the forceful and cerebral defense secretary who helped lead the nation into the maelstrom of Vietnam and spent the rest of his life wrestling with the war’s moral consequences, died Monday at his home in Washington. He was 93.
McNamara said after a few weeks at his desk at the Pentagon. He sent teams of bright young civilians the whiz kids, as they were known out across the Pentagon to tame it.
Robert Strange McNamara Strange was his mother’s maiden name was born June 9, 1916, in San Francisco to Robert and Clara Nell McNamara. His father, the son of Irish immigrants, managed a wholesale shoe company. “My earliest memory is of a city exploding with joy,” he said in “The Fog of War.”.
The attack never happened , as a report declassified by the National Security Agency in 2005 made clear. The American ships had been firing at radar shadows on a dark night. At the time, however, the agency’s experts in signals intelligence, or sigint, told Mr. McNamara that the evidence of an attack was iron-clad.
Answer: the United States was unaware of any South Vietnamese attacks on North Vietnam.
How did discrimination affect Chinese immigrants in the 1870s? Select three answers. ( ) They were not allowed to vote. ( ) They started early agric …