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 At 5:45 a.m. on June 9, 1916, Robert Strange McNamara was born to parents Claranell and Robert James McNamara at San Francisco's Mount Zion hospital. After a bout with bronchitis caused Claranell to move the family to San Rafael in search of a better climate, they finally settled in Oakland, California when McNamara was seven. Robert James McNamara, a first generation Irishman, never attended high school, dropping out of organized education after eighth grade in order to pursue a career with a wholesale shoe company known as Williams Marvin Company. His bride, by contrast, Claranell Strange, was from educated stock; two of her siblings, Brother Shelby and sister Bess attended Stanford University. Claranell claimed that she too would have attended Stanford, but was struck with amnesia in her youth. Family friend Marion Goodin once commented "How you get Bob McNamara out of that pair of people, I don't know. Maybe it was just an aberrant gene…"
However it happened, Claranell and Robert James had produced an intelligent young man. McNamara was driven to succeed by his mother from early in life. By reading Robert and his sister Peg stories, such as David Copperfield, when they were young, Claranell locked into Robert the fact that he was special. Along with this feeling came a burden however, as his mother placed great pressure on him to perform well grade-wise. The pressure paid off: McNamara graduated from Piedmont High and enrolled in the University of California at Berkeley in 1933. Joining him was fellow Piedmont alum and close friend Vernon Goodin.
Freshman year was an ambitious one for RSM, who pledged Phi Gamma Delta Fraternity and joined the crew team. Although he was named the chair of the fraternity's Mardi Gras Dance, he grew to dislike the atmosphere of heavy drinking that existed in the all-male organization. He also found that his rowing skills might not be up to par, so he became crew manager. He began to develop a deep interest in logic during his sophomore year and like many students of the era who sought to explain and solve the problems of the current depression facing America, McNamara chose economics as a major.
After a strong sophomore showing in his grades, McNamara was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, one of many prestigious honors he was to receive at Cal. Sophomore year also brought a nomination to the distinguished Student Affairs Committee and Triune, another select student society. By the time he was a senior, McNamara was warden, or head, of the Order of the Golden Bear, Cal's most elite academic society. After failing to obtain the much-coveted Rhodes Scholarship, McNamara settled for enrolling at Harvard Business school, figuring that it would set him on track for a high paying job.
After attending business school, McNamara, who was disqualified for participation in the Armed Forces during World War II due to poor vision, joined the Harvard faculty. He contributed to the war effort by serving as one of the individuals brought into the Pentagon to help solve government problems. McNamara worked on developing logistical systems for bomber raids and statistical systems for monitoring troops and supplies.
When the Second World War finished and the United States assumed the position of the preeminent industrial power in the world, McNamara was at the forefront. After his stint at the Pentagon, he worked to revitalize Ford Motor Company. He was extremely successful in this endeavor and in 1960 he became the first person outside of the Ford family to become the president of Ford Motor Company. After only one month at this job, however, McNamara resigned to become Secretary of Defense in the Kennedy administration.
After his narrow victory over Richard Nixon in the 1960 election, John F. Kennedy set about forming his cabinet. He set up a committee headed by R. Sargent Shriver to achieve that end. At the recommendation of both former Secretary of Defense Robert A. Lovett and the Shriver Committee, he contacted McNamara despite the fact that, as McNamara declared, he didn't know anything about government. Kennedy responded, "I don't know how to be president, either," and told McNamara, "We can learn our jobs together." Kennedy offered McNamara his choice of positions, Defense or Treasury.
McNamara was hesitant to jump right into government and brooded over the decision. He had several questions, one of which was whether or not the President-Elect had truly been the sole author of Profiles in Courage. Kennedy asserted that he was. After about a week of consideration, McNamara returned to Kennedy and expressed his preference to become Secretary of Defense. He produced a letter detailing conditions of his appointment, including right of final approval of all appointments in the Defense Department. Kennedy and his brother, Robert Kennedy, approved the conditions, and McNamara became Secretary of Defense.
McNamara's tenure as Secretary of Defense lasted through some of the most turbulent times in American history. Early in his term he faced the 1961 Bay of Pigs debacle, a failed attempt to oust Cuban leader Fidel Castro from office. McNamara felt guilt for his role in backing the assassination attempt, which tarnished Kennedy's public image. As one who strove to contain communism, McNamara had supported the plan, yet was by no means the chief advocate or designer of the scheme. Nevertheless, McNamara, who held the belief that he personally impact events, felt the burden of blame. He began to question whether he was out of place in government work, feeling that he knew "[z]ero" about his job.
The Cuban Missile Crisis, dramatized by the Hollywood movie 13 Days, also occurred during McNamara's tenure. The Cuban Missile crisis took brinkmanship to a new level as Kennedy and Soviet Khrushchev clashed over Soviet placement of nuclear missiles in Cuba, a mere 90 miles away from the United States. At first, McNamara proposed an air strike against the missile installments before they became operational, but soon came to advocate the quarantine strategy of military blockade eventually chosen by Kennedy. He had a tense showdown with Chief of Naval Operations Admiral George Anderson, whom McNamara had to repeatedly order not to fire on Russia ships as they approached the blockade line. Nuclear holocaust was averted and Robert McNamara was one of the main figures advising John Kennedy as he took foreign relations to a new level.
Perhaps what McNamara is most famous for is his involvement in America's longest war, the Vietnam conflict, lasting from 1962-1975. McNamara visited South Vietnam in 1962, 1964, and 1966, and each time held the belief that the United States would soon win the war. He became the chief spokesman for the United States regarding day-to-day operations.
During the Presidency of Lyndon Baines Johnson, McNamara became even more influential. Johnson regarded him as "the smartest man" he had "ever met," and deeply valued his opinions. In 1965, McNamara presented Johnson three options on how to continue in regards to the war: withdraw, continue fighting while allowing the South Vietnamese to take over the fighting gradually, or increase presence in the area. McNamara heavily hinted at his liking of the third option, which LBJ eventually chose. This initiated a build up that included several programs, such as Project 100,000. This decision was a crucial one in American history, as it sent thousands of young men into a quagmire; many did not come back alive, and, of those that did, many were changed men. By 1968 McNamara began to disagree with American involvement in Vietnam. He launched an investigation into it in the 1967 Pentagon Papers. In February of 1968, having fallen out of favor with his boss, McNamara left the Johnson administration to become head of the World Bank.
McNamara served as head of the World Bank for 13 years. During his time he traveled the globe and was generally regarded as having a good record of helping Third World countries. After retiring from this post in 1981, McNamara took his turn at writing. One example of his writing is in 1986's Blundering Into Disaster: Surviving the First Century in a Nuclear Age, which discusses the threat of nuclear warfare.
In 1995 McNamara wrote the memoir In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. In this book McNamara described the times surrounding the Vietnam War and essentially apologized for the United States' involvement. He stated, "We of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations who participated in the decisions on Vietnam acted according to what we thought were the principles and traditions of this nation. We made our decisions in light of those values. Yet we were wrong, terribly wrong…" This capitulation incensed many Vietnam Veterans who sacrificed for their country.
McNamara is still alive in the 21st century. He occasionally speaks to college students about international relations when not relaxing at his home in Colorado.
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