Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara
A cinematic masterclass in historical retrospection, political philosophy, and the terrifying collision of rationality with human nature.
"McNamara might be sneaky and self-serving, but his sheer vigour and unapologetic brainpower are as refreshing as iced water."
Robert McNamara agreed to talk with Morris for an hour or so, supposedly for a TV special. He eventually spent 20 hours peering into Morris' "Interrotron," a video device that allows Morris and his subjects to look into each other's eyes while also looking directly into the camera lens.
McNamara was 85 when the interviews were conducted -- a fit and alert 85, still skiing the slopes at Aspen. Guided sometimes by Morris, sometimes taking the lead, he talks introspectively about his life, his thoughts about Vietnam, and, taking Morris where he would never have thought to go, of his role in planning the firebombing of Japan, including a raid on Tokyo that claimed 100,000 lives. He speaks concisely and forcibly, rarely searching for a word, and he is not reciting boilerplate and old sound bites; there is the uncanny sensation that he is thinking as he speaks.
His thoughts are organized as "11 Lessons From the Life of Robert McNamara," as extrapolated by Morris, and one wonders how the current planners of the war in Iraq would respond to lessons No. 1 and 2 ("Empathize with your enemy" and "Rationality will not save us"), or for that matter No. 6 ("Get the data"), No. 7 ("Belief and seeing are both often wrong") and No. 8 ("Be prepared to reexamine your reasoning"). I cannot imagine the circumstances under which Donald Rumsfeld, the current Secretary of Defense, would not want to see this film about his predecessor, having recycled and even improved upon McNamara's mistakes.
McNamara recalls the days of the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the world came to the brink of nuclear war (he holds up two fingers, almost touching, to show how close -- "this close"). He recalls a meeting, years later, with Fidel Castro, who told him he was prepared to accept the destruction of Cuba if that's what the war would mean. He recalls two telegrams to Kennedy from Khrushchev, one more conciliatory, one perhaps dictated by Kremlin hard-liners, and says that JFK decided to answer the first and ignore the second. (Not quite true, as Fred Kaplan documents in an article at Slate.com.) The movie makes it clear that no one was thinking very clearly, and that the world avoided war as much by luck as by wisdom.
And then he remembers the years of the Vietnam War, inherited from JFK and greatly expanded by Lyndon Johnson. He began to realize the war could never be won, he says, and wrote a memo to the president to that effect. The result was that he resigned as defense secretary. (He had dinner with Katharine Graham, publisher of the Washington Post, and told her "Kay, I don't know if I resigned or was fired." "Oh, Bob," she told him, "of course you were fired.") He didn't resign as a matter of principle, as a British cabinet minister might; it is worth remembering that a few months later Johnson, saying he would not stand for reelection, also effectively resigned.
McNamara is both forthright and elusive. He talks about a Quaker who burned himself to death below the windows of his office in the Pentagon and finds his sacrifice somehow in the same spirit as his own thinking -- but it is true he could have done more to try to end the war, and did not, and will not say why he did not, although now he clearly wishes he had.
With disarming candour and good humour, McNamara takes us through his brilliant career as the IBM technocrat who brought new-fangled punch-card efficiency techniques to bear as a military aide to General Curtis LeMay in the second world war, helping to increase the number of buildings annihilated and civilians incinerated in the firebombing campaign of Japanese cities that preceded Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
McNamara says quite openly that he and LeMay could have been tried as war criminals if the result had gone the other way. To my shame, I admit I had no idea about the enormity of these pre-nuclear campaigns; I suspect many more are in the dark and, for this reason alone, Morris's movie deserves to be shown on every school and university campus.
Lesson #1: Empathize with your enemy.
Context: The Cuban Missile Crisis (October 1962).
Analysis: McNamara credits Tommy Thompson, the former U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union, with preventing a nuclear holocaust. Thompson knew Nikita Khrushchev personally and urged Kennedy to accept Khrushchev's "soft" message (promising not to invade Cuba if the U.S. pledged the same) while ignoring the "hard" second message. McNamara emphasizes that we must look through our enemy's eyes to understand their fears and motivations.
Lesson #2: Rationality will not save us.
Context: The brink of nuclear war.
Analysis: McNamara stresses that the peaceful resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis was ultimately a matter of sheer luck, not pure rationality. Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro were all highly rational, yet they came terrifyingly close to mutual destruction. Human fallibility, when paired with nuclear weapons, will eventually guarantee catastrophe.
Lesson #3: There’s something beyond one’s self.
Context: McNamara's early life, marrying his wife Margaret, and the onset of WWII.
Analysis: This lesson represents a brief detour into McNamara's personal philosophy and humanism, reflecting on love, family, and the civic duty to serve a cause larger than oneself.
Lesson #4: Maximize efficiency.
Context: World War II and the U.S. Army Air Forces.
Analysis: As part of the Office of Statistical Control, McNamara helped revolutionize the efficiency of Allied bombing runs. He notes that the B-29 bombers were failing to destroy targets effectively until General Curtis LeMay took command and ordered low-altitude firebombing runs.
Lesson #5: Proportionality should be a guideline in war.
Context: The firebombing of Japan (1945).
Analysis: In one of the film's most sobering sequences, McNamara details the wholesale destruction of Japanese cities before the atomic bomb was ever dropped. He compares the destroyed Japanese cities to American equivalents (e.g., Tokyo was 51% destroyed, Toyama was 99% destroyed). He quotes LeMay as saying that if the U.S. had lost, they would have been prosecuted as war criminals—an assessment McNamara agrees with.
Lesson #6: Get the data.
Context: McNamara's post-war tenure as an executive (and eventually President) of the Ford Motor Company.
Analysis: A consummate technocrat, McNamara applied quantitative analysis to make cars safer (introducing seatbelts and padded dashboards). He demonstrates his lifelong belief that complex human problems can be managed, mitigated, and optimized through rigorous empirical data.
Lesson #7: Belief and seeing are both often wrong.
Context: The Gulf of Tonkin incidents (August 1964).
Analysis: This lesson deals with the critical turning point of the Vietnam War. McNamara admits that while the first attack on U.S. destroyers did happen, the second attack—which triggered the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and massive U.S. escalation—never actually occurred. The administration saw what it wanted to believe, mistaking radar glitches and tense nerves for enemy torpedoes.
Lesson #8: Be prepared to reexamine your reasoning.
Context: The failure of unilateral action in Vietnam.
Analysis: McNamara argues that even if a nation is a superpower, it must never act unilaterally. If a nation cannot convince other nations of comparable values of the merit of its cause, it must stop and reexamine its underlying assumptions.
Lesson #9: In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil.
Context: The moral paradoxes of leadership in wartime.
Analysis: McNamara wrestles with the terrifying moral math of war. To stop a greater evil, how much evil is one permitted to commit? He argues that while leaders must engage in evil occasionally, they must always strive to minimize it.
Lesson #10: Never say never.
Context: The unpredictability of history and the tragedy of Vietnam.
Analysis: McNamara reflects on the shift in power from John F. Kennedy to Lyndon B. Johnson. He posits that had Kennedy lived, the U.S. would likely have withdrawn from Vietnam. He explores the limits of political certainty and the ways in which historical momentum can sweep individuals along.
Lesson #11: You can’t change human nature.
Context: The concept of the "Fog of War" itself.
Analysis: War is a product of human nature, which is inherently flawed, aggressive, and limited in its foresight. The "fog" of war refers to the compounding layers of uncertainty, misinformation, and psychological pressure that make rational decision-making in conflict nearly impossible.
Robert S. McNamara (1916–2009)
Robert Strange McNamara was an American business executive and statesman who served as the 8th U.S. Secretary of Defense (1961–1968) and the 5th President of the World Bank (1968–1981). He is best remembered as the primary architect of the U.S. escalation in the Vietnam War, a role that shadowed his later reputation.
1. Early Life and the "Whiz Kids"
Born in Oakland, California, McNamara studied economics and philosophy at UC Berkeley before earning an MBA from Harvard Business School.
During World War II, he served in the Army Air Forces' Office of Statistical Control, where he used data to improve the efficiency and lethal effectiveness of U.S. bomber raids over Japan. After the war, he and nine other veterans (the "Whiz Kids") were hired by Ford Motor Company to modernize the struggling automaker.
Ford Presidency: In 1960, he became the first person from outside the Ford family to serve as the company's president.
Innovations: He was instrumental in introducing the Ford Falcon and pioneering safety features like factory-installed seat belts.
2. Secretary of Defense (1961–1968)
McNamara served under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. He remains the longest-serving Secretary of Defense in history.
The Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)
During the 13-day standoff with the Soviet Union, McNamara was a key member of the EXCOMM advisory group. He famously advocated for a naval "quarantine" (blockade) of Cuba rather than an immediate air strike, a strategy that allowed for a diplomatic resolution and averted nuclear war.
The Vietnam War
McNamara applied "systems analysis" to military strategy, attempting to manage the war through metrics such as "body counts" and sortie rates.
Escalation: He oversaw the massive buildup of U.S. forces, which grew from a few thousand advisors to over 500,000 combat troops by the time he left office.
Disillusionment: By 1966, McNamara began to privately doubt that the war could be won militarily. His growing skepticism led to a rift with President Johnson, who eventually "eased" him out of the Pentagon in 1968.
3. President of the World Bank (1968–1981)
McNamara shifted his focus from military destruction to international development. He transformed the World Bank from a conservative lender for infrastructure into a massive agency focused on targeted poverty reduction.
Growth: During his 13-year tenure, he increased the Bank’s lending from $1 billion to over $12 billion annually.
Social Focus: He directed funds toward rural development, public health (including the fight against river blindness), and education in the developing world.
4. Legacy and Reflection
In his later years, McNamara became a vocal advocate for nuclear disarmament and expressed profound regret for his role in Vietnam.
"The Fog of War": His reflections were captured in the 2003 Academy Award-winning documentary The Fog of War, where he outlined eleven lessons on the nature of modern conflict, emphasizing that "rationality will not save us."
Complexity: He remains a polarizing figure—hailed by some for his brilliance and humanitarian work at the World Bank, and condemned by others for the human cost of his data-driven pursuit of victory in Vietnam.
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