Robert McNamara

Robert McNamara (1961)

Robert Strange McNamara (born June 9, 1916 in San Francisco , California - † July 6, 2009 in Washington, DC ) was an American manager and politician. In 1960 he became the first non- Ford President of the Ford Motor Company. He was US Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1968 and President of the World Bank from 1968 to 1981.

Studies, military service and Ford

McNamara was born in San Francisco in 1916, the son of Robert James McNamara, sales manager of a shoe wholesaler, and his wife, Clara Nell Strange. According to his own statements, he lacked the financial means to study at the private Stanford University , so he instead studied economics and philosophy at the public University of California, Berkeley . He was accepted into the Phi Beta Kappa Association in his sophomore year . After his bachelor's degree in 1937, McNamara completed the MBA program at Harvard University .

After completing his studies, he first worked at Price Waterhouse and returned to Harvard University as a lecturer in 1940 , where he a. a. also made contact with the US Army Air Corps and decided to join it. He served in the USAAF on the staff of the then General Curtis LeMay . He entered the USAAF in 1943 with the rank of captain and left the service in 1946 with the distinction of Legion of Merit as Lieutenant Colonel .

There he developed mathematical models for the bombing of Japanese cities with incendiary bombs with the intended effect of increasing their effectiveness while keeping costs constant.

At the end of his military service, he began a managerial position at Ford Motor Company in 1946, as he - according to his own statements - had information that there was a shortage of academically trained executives there. Initially, he was responsible for financial analysis. After that, his ascent to higher positions began. He became the first President of Ford who was not a member of the Ford family in 1960. The successful expansion of Ford in the post-war period is largely due to McNamara. At that time it was considered a “lighthouse” of American management and belief in progress.

Ministry of Defense

Reforms

McNamara with US President Kennedy , June 1962

McNamara, right, with President Johnson and Secretary of State Dean Rusk , February 1968.

John F. Kennedy , the newly elected Democratic President of the United States , initially offered the post of Secretary of Defense in his cabinet to Robert A. Lovett , who declined, however, and proposed McNamara. McNamara, a Liberal Republican , accepted the office.

Although the problems posed by the Ministry initially represented completely new territory for Robert McNamara, he managed to quickly familiarize himself with his area of ​​responsibility. a. opposed to radical changes like the replacement of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by a single person. Many other organizational streamlines in the Ministry of Defense are thanks to him. He did not necessarily make friends with the higher military who did not want any changes to the structures and mistrusted this “rationalist” with his staff of young employees.

During the tenure of Robert McNamara, the United States Army Special Forces Command (Airborne) was also expanded , which was considerably strengthened during this time and whose importance in the combat doctrine of the US Army increased, especially with the beginning of the Vietnam War.

Nuclear strategy

The McNamara doctrine on nuclear weapons strategy was also named after him. As Secretary of Defense , he complied with President Kennedy and no longer viewed a nuclear deterrent or preemptive strike as the only means of discussing the arms race with the Soviet Union . He advocated the principle of flexible response , a combined deterrent strike and, at the same time, a first strike in the case of an absolutely imminent war, if the enemy and his troops could strike at any time.

Cuba

Under his aegis, the Bay of Pigs invasion was also planned, the training center of which was in Nicaragua under Anastasio Somoza Debayle . Its aim was to overthrow Fidel Castro's revolutionary government in Cuba , but ended up as a complete failure and a serious international embarrassment for the United States. On the other hand, the American tactics during the Cuban Missile Crisis , which he had a decisive influence on, were successful. In October 2002, Fidel Castro and McNamara met for the last time, but in a friendly manner.

Vietnam

McNamara and General Westmoreland in Vietnam 1965

One of the central political areas of responsibility in his time as minister was the Vietnam War , which was also to lead to his departure from office. Under McNamara, the troops in Vietnam were increased and the bombing intensified. With the support of senior US officers, this eventually led to the stationing of 485,000 soldiers by the end of 1967 and 535,000 by June 1968 under the command of General William Westmoreland .

As the troop increase escalated and the fighting intensified, so did the casualties. Contrary to the view of many US officers, McNamara relied on statistics as an essential strategy of warfare: Assuming that the number of Viet Cong fighters was limited, he relied on a war of attrition , at the end of which the opposing side would be defeated. The success of this strategy was then measured by the number of enemies killed, the body count . This penchant for statistics and tables earned him the name “computer on legs” at the United States Department of Defense .

In November 1967, McNamara surprisingly recommended freezing troops, stopping the bombing of North Vietnam and leaving the ground fighting to South Vietnam - which President Johnson immediately rejected. McNamara declared that the policies he had followed for years were wrong and that his strategy for war had failed. After resolutely advocating the war, his position was now discredited and he lost all support, including from President Johnson. At this point in time, he was on the verge of nervous breakdown several times, as he faced the media and publicly the protesting students, took his opinions offensively and thus became one of the most unpopular politicians of his era.

On November 29, 1967, he finally announced his resignation, combined with the announcement of his new post at the World Bank . On February 29, 1968, he was officially dismissed from the President, who appointed Clark M. Clifford as his successor. McNamara was the longest-serving Secretary of Defense in the United States, with 2,595 days. After leaving office, President Johnson awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom , the highest civilian honor in the United States, in February 1968 .

Many years later, McNamara, who during his time at Ford Motors advocated the introduction of seat belts, confessed: "If only I hadn't followed Kennedy's call into politics and thus been responsible for countless deaths in Vietnam". When he visited the Memorial of the Fallen in Washington in 1995, he was moved to find no words.

Armaments projects

In 1961, three months after his inauguration, McNamara removed the B-70 bomber favored by his former superior, General Curtis LeMay, on only three planes. The SAC had applied for 250 machines. McNamara estimated the replacement cost of about ten billion dollars to be too high and instead forced the introduction of cheaper intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM). He also clashed with LeMay during the Cuban Missile Crisis and then made sure that LeMay was retired.

Under his leadership, one of the US Air Force’s largest procurement programs to date was decided: In 1965, Lockheed was awarded the contract for the C-5A Galaxy , the first wide-body transport aircraft in its class. Due to constantly rising costs, the number of machines was reduced from 115 to 81 at the beginning. At the same time, he pushed through the construction of the F-111 , but had to abandon the Navy version in favor of the Grumman F-14 after testing the machine , as he wanted to purchase an aircraft type for all branches of the armed forces in order to reduce costs, which only happened in the 21st century with the F-35 could be realized.

World Bank President

Robert McNamara (1964)

In April 1968 he began to devote himself to his new role as President of the World Bank. McNamara's activity in this capacity continued until 1981. During his term of office, he increased lending to the countries of the Third World with the aim of putting an end to the phenomenon of absolute poverty . McNamara saw this as an essential prerequisite to prevent the emergence of communist movements. To do this, he focused on economic growth and equipping the agriculture of the countries concerned with an industrial infrastructure. Part of this policy was also the implementation of the so-called Green Revolution in the agricultural sector. The granting of generous loans for mostly ambitious projects - such as The result, for example, of building dams , was that the foreign debts of the countries concerned reached unprecedented levels. That was the prerequisite for the development of the structural adjustment programs in 1979. In doing so, he shaped the new direction of the World Bank and helped it to achieve a more positive image.

From falcon to advocate of worldwide nuclear disarmament

McNamara was considered a " falcon ", so the number of nuclear ICBMs in the USA increased explosively under his aegis from less than 100 ICBM and SLBM to more than 1,000 and more than 600 respectively. Since the 1980s at the latest, he has changed due to his knowledge many of his views. So he advocated unconditional global nuclear disarmament. Accidents with nuclear warheads, which had already occurred several times, were so dangerous that further use would be too risky: Despite appropriate precautionary measures, detonations could also occur that would devastate entire regions. In his 1995 memoir, he described the Vietnam War as a terrible mistake in US policy at the time, which he was, however, largely responsible for. He was a co-signer of the Global Zero Plan for total nuclear disarmament.

He condemned the Iraq war as a fatal and moral mistake that George W. Bush was to blame. McNamara used to be a bogeyman for the left in the United States, but in the last years of his life he turned into a pacifist role model. President Barack Obama also relies on McNamara's insights.

Private life

On August 13, 1940, McNamara married his childhood sweetheart Margaret Craig. The two had two daughters and a son. Margaret McNamara died in February 1981 of cancer . In September 2004 he married Diana Masieri Byfield for the second time.

Robert McNamara died on July 6, 2009 at the age of 93. The cause of death was not disclosed, but his health is said to have deteriorated recently due to old age. According to his wife, he died in his sleep early in the morning.

Outwardly, McNamara was particularly noticeable because of his rimless glasses, the fact that he was wearing the watch on his right wrist and his hair, combed straight back with a severe parting.

Memberships

In 1969 McNamara was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and 1981 to the American Philosophical Society .

reception

In 2003, director Errol Morris created the documentary The Fog of War from interviews with Robert McNamara . It won the Oscar in the “Best Documentary” category .

He is portrayed by Bruce Greenwood in the 2017 film The Publisher .

Works

In his book Vietnam - The Trauma of a World Power , in which he reflects on US policy during the Vietnam War, he confesses, among other things. a. a:

"We were terribly wrong ... American spray campaigns have at no time led to any actual and permanent security in South Vietnam ..."

The then assumed "North Vietnamese danger" was completely overrated during the Cold War .

The Vietnam War , he judges in retrospect, was "... a terrible mistake."

About the explosive but ultimately happy outcome of the Cuba crisis: "It was luck, it was nothing but pure coincidence."

• Original: Robert S. McNamara, with Brian VanDeMark: In Retrospect. The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam , Random House, Inc., New York 1995
• German: Robert S. McNamara, Vietnam - The trauma of a world power , 508 pages, Goldmann Verlag, ISBN 3-442-12956-7 , 1997

Web links

Commons : Robert McNamara  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Wikiquote: Robert McNamara  - Quotes

• Literature by and about Robert McNamara in the catalog of the German National Library
• Robert McNamara in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Robert McNamara in the nndb (English)
• Robert McNamara in the Miller Center of Public Affairs of the University of Virginia (English)
• Interview by Arthur M. Schlesinger with R. McNamara on April 4, 1964 (English, PDF, 32 pages, parts of which are censored)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Robert McNamara died. From falcon to dove: on the death of the former US Secretary of Defense. In: The world . Axel Springer Verlag , July 7, 2009, accessed on October 27, 2010 . 
2. ↑ National Affairs: SIX FOR THE KENNEDY CABINET. In: Time . Time Inc. , December 26, 1960, accessed October 27, 2010 . 
3. ↑ ^{a b c d} Hauke ​​Friederichs: From the falcon to the dove. Die Zeit , July 6, 2009, accessed October 27, 2010 . 
4. ↑ David Ignatius: The Destroyed Faith of a Rationalist. Letter from the USA. Wiener Zeitung , July 9, 2009, accessed on November 21, 2013 . 
5. ↑ Robert McNamara is dead. "Architect of the Vietnam War" has died. the daily newspaper , July 6, 2009, accessed on October 27, 2010 . 
6. ↑ Cuban Missile Crisis. (Index page to many articles about the Cuban Missile Crisis) October 1962. latinamericanstudies.org, accessed October 27, 2010 (English, shows a photo of old McNamara with Castro on the index page). 
7. ↑ ^{a b} Former US Secretary of Defense McNamara is dead. Spiegel Online , July 6, 2009, accessed October 27, 2010 . 
8. ↑ Andreas Geldner: Face of the Vietnam War. Robert McNamara is dead. Frankfurter Rundschau , July 7, 2009, archived from the original on July 10, 2009 ; Retrieved October 27, 2010 . 
9. ↑ ^{a b c d} TV report on McNamara's death. In: tagesschau.de . ARD , archived from the original on July 27, 2010 ; Retrieved October 27, 2010 . 
10. ↑ Washington: Former US Secretary of Defense McNamara is dead
11. ^ "Vietnam War Architect" McNamara is dead. Deutsche Welle , July 6, 2009, accessed on October 27, 2010 . 
12. ↑ Vietnam War defense chief Robert S. McNamara dies. blog.syracuse.com, July 6, 2009, accessed October 27, 2010 . 
13. ^ American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Book of Members ( PDF ). Retrieved April 18, 2016
14. ^ Member History: Robert S. McNamara. American Philosophical Society, accessed February 3, 2019 .