The Riddle of Robert McNamara

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Robert McNamara may have been the most consequential secretary of defense in U.S. history. The managerial genius who helped sink the country in the Vietnam quagmire is the subject of a new biography (see below), a political-psychological portrait that takes us inside the mind of the man tabbed by JFK in 1960 to run the Pentagon. Robert McNamara escalated the war and misled the American people about imaginary progress on the battlefield, despite serious personal doubts the war could be won. He never formally apologized, but admitted "we were wrong, terribly wrong" in the hope future policy-makers would avoid his intractable mistakes. Historian Fredrik Logevall is our guest.

Recommended reading:

McNamara at War: A New History by William Taubman and Philip Taubman (2025)

Choosing War: The Lost Chance for Peace and the Escalation of War in Vietnam by Fredrik Logevall (1999)

Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam by Fredrik Logevall (2012)

Further listening:

Defeat in Vietnam: Origins (podcast)