Robert McNamara
Robert Strange McNamara (; June 9, 1916 – July 6, 2009) was an American businessman and government official who served as the eighth United States secretary of defense from 1961 to 1968 under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson at the height of the Cold War. He remains the longest-serving secretary of defense, having remained in office over seven years. He played a major role in promoting the U.S.'s involvement in the Vietnam War. McNamara was responsible for the institution of systems analysis in public policy, which developed into the discipline known today as policy analysis.McNamara was born in San Francisco, California, and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley and Harvard Business School. He served in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. After World War II, Henry Ford II hired McNamara and a group of other Army Air Force veterans to work for Ford Motor Company. These "Whiz Kids" helped reform Ford with modern planning, organization, and management control systems. After briefly serving as Ford's president, McNamara accepted appointment as secretary of defense.
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 consolidated intelligence and logistics functions of the Pentagon into two centralized agencies: the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Defense Supply Agency. During the Kennedy administration, McNamara presided over a build-up of U.S. soldiers in South Vietnam. After the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, the number of U.S. soldiers in Vietnam escalated dramatically. McNamara and other U.S. policymakers feared that the fall of South Vietnam to a Communist regime would lead to the fall of other governments in the region.
McNamara grew increasingly skeptical of the efficacy of committing U.S. troops to South Vietnam. In 1968, he resigned as secretary of defense to become president of the World Bank. He served as president until 1981, shifting the focus of the World Bank from infrastructure and industrialization towards poverty reduction. After retiring, he served as a trustee of several organizations, including the California Institute of Technology and the Brookings Institution. In his later writings and interviews, he expressed regret for the decisions he made during the Vietnam War. Provided by Wikipedia
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1
The Hashemites? : the Dream of Arabia - The Peace Conferences of, 1919-23 and Their Aftermath. by McNamara, Robert
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The personalism of Edith Stein : a synthesis of Thomism and phenomenology / by McNamara, Robert
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Beating the odds : crime, poverty, and life in the inner city / by McNamara, Robert P.
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Problem children : special populations in delinquency / by McNamara, Robert Hartmann
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Britain, Nasser and the balance of power in the Middle East, 1952-1967 : from the Egyptian revolution to the Six-Day War / by McNamara, Robert, 1974-
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Britain, Nasser and the balance of power in the Middle East, 1952-1967 : from the Egyptian revolution to the Six-Day War / by McNamara, Robert, 1974-
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The Hashemites : the dream of Arabia / by McNamara, Robert, 1974-
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One hundred countries, two billion people; the dimensions of development by McNamara, Robert S., 1916-2009
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The McNamara years at the World Bank : major policy addresses of Robert S. McNamara, 1968-1981 ; with forewords by Helmut Schmidt, and Léopold Senghor. by McNamara, Robert S., 1916-2009
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Blundering into disaster : surviving the first century of the nuclear age / by McNamara, Robert S., 1916-2009
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Out of the cold : new thinking for American foreign and defense policy in the 21st century / by McNamara, Robert S., 1916-2009
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Argument without end : in search of answers to the Vietnam tragedy / by McNamara, Robert S., 1916-2009
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The essence of security; reflections in office by McNamara, Robert S., 1916-2009
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M'Namara letter concerning identity of reviewers. by McNamara, Robert S., 1916-2009
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The makers of the modern Middle East / by Fraser, T. G., Mango, Andrew, McNamara, Robert, 1974-
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The makers of the modern Middle East / by Fraser, T. G., Mango, Andrew, McNamara, Robert, 1974-
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The omega-3 fatty acid deficiency syndrome : opportunities for disease prevention /
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The Gulf of Tonkin, the 1964 incidents. hearing before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, Ninetieth Congress, second session with the Honorable Robert S. McN...
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Kennedy letter to McNamara. by Kennedy, John F. 1917-1963
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Dimensions of crime as a social problem /
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