McNamara and JFK

Former Defense Secretary of Presidents’ Kennedy and Johnson, Robert McNamara passed away today at age 93. McNamara’s tenure included the Soviet Missile Crisis in Cuba, the Vietnam War, the USS Liberty incident during the Six-Day War, and the first time the infamous “Hot Line” was put to use.

McNamara on war with the former Soviet Union:

“During the seven years I was Secretary, on three occasions we came very very close to war with the Soviet Union. They put pressure on West Berlin to take West Berlin from NATO in August of 1961, we came close to war then. They introduced nuclear weapons into Cuba and we came close to nuclear war with the Soviets then — that was in October of 1962. They were backing Egypt to destroy Israel, eliminate it from the face of the earth, in June of 1967; the hotline was used for the first time in connection with that. The message from Kosygin, the Prime Minister of the Soviet Union, to Johnson was “If you want war you’ll get it.”"
April 16, 1996

Robert McNamara on President Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis:

“We didn’t learn until nearly 30 years later, that the Soviets had roughly 162 nuclear warheads on this isle of Cuba, at a time when our CIA said they believed there were none. And included in the 162 were some 90 tactical warheads to be used against a US invasion force. Had we… attacked Cuba and invaded Cuba at the time, we almost surely would have been involved in nuclear war. And when I say “we”, I mean you – it would not have been the US alone. It would have endangered the security of the West, without any question.”
Cold War Interviews

McNamara on the Vietnam War

“Now, speaking out, that is somewhat of a different issue. In my case, some have said I should have spoken out more than I did. I had spoken out a lot. There was a hearing before the Senate Arms Services Committee in August of 1967. I resigned March 1 or February 29 of 1968, so a few months before I left there was this tortured hearing before the Senate Arms Service Committee at which, at the end of a long day of my testimony, Senator Strom Thurmond, who is still in the Senate at 93 years old, pointed his finger at me and he said, “Mr. Secretary, you are a Communist appeaser. What you told us today is a no-win policy.” Now he said it because I was saying publicly, in effect, what I’d said to the President. So the public was aware of that part of my view.”
Interview – April 16, 1996

McNamara on Nuclear Proliferation

Whiteley: Mr. McNamara, four decades into the nuclear age how secure are we?

“McNamara: Not as secure as we think. What has four decades brought us? We moved from July 16th, which I think forty years ago saw the first nuclear explosion. We moved in four decades to 50,000 warheads, roughly 25,000 U.S. and 25,000 Soviet Union. And worse than that we moved to acceptance of a warfighting doctrine. Those 50,000 warheads aren’t just in storage. They’re associated with strategies and war plans which contemplate their use. It is a very, very dangerous situation, and one which I am unwilling to pass on to my children without endeavoring to change it.”
Interview – 1985

McNamara on the USS Liberty Incident, an attack on a neutral United States Navy technical research ship by Israeli fighter jets and torpedo boats, June 8, 1967, during the Six-Day War.

“Now, you won’t believe this but this is now June ‘67 and the Hot Line was installed following the Cuban Missile Crisis so it probably was installed in early ‘63 so the damn thing had been there four years and he said to me “Well, I’m calling you because the Hot Line ends in the Pentagon.” I didn’t even know that. It had never been used other than by the sergeants who tested it to make sure that the thing worked. And, of course, it was a teletype, it wasn’t a telephone. In any event, the thing ended in the Pentagon. So I said to the Duty Officer, “Well, I don’t know,” our defense budge then was about $40 billion. I said, “You take a few thousands of dollars out of that $40 billion and you figure out how the hell to patch this Hot Line from the Pentagon over to the Situation Room in the White House and I’ll call the President and we’ll figure out what to do.”
Interview, 12-17-93 – The Liberty Incident

McNamara on Terrorism after 911

“Jon Snow: Do you think we live in a more dangerous, more unstable and more threatening world than that which you were Secretary of State for Defence at the time?

Robert McNamara: It’s a totally different world, it’s hard to compare the two but my answer is yes. I do believe we’re in more threatening world. There is a danger, as you imply that terrorists will acquire fissile materials. If they do, it’s within their capability to develop nuclear weapons and that is a terrible danger to you and to us.”
June 1, 2005

Robert McNamara on President Lyndon Baines Johnson and the Civil Rights Bill:

“They didn’t think he would turn his back, if you will, on the South, which in a sense he did. He opposed the southerners, Dick Russell of Georgia and many others who opposed the Civil Rights bill and who opposed the Voting Rights bill. Johnson led the fight for the Civil Rights bill, in part because he’d inherited that bill from President Kennedy and he thought he owed it to the president and he didn’t want to be criticized for not pursuing the Civil Rights idea that he and Kennedy had [fought for], but also he fought for it because he believed in it. And when the Voting Rights Act came out, it was his bill, it certainly wasn’t inherited from Kennedy, and he fought tooth and nail to get it through. And I observed and participated in discussions he had on both of those bills, so that was one tremendous achievement.”
April 16, 1996

By LBG

Image – Robert McNamara and JFK