Robert McNamara Dead at Age 93

[wkmac]

Much could be said here both pro and con of McNamara but in his mid 80's he sat down and provided 11 lessons from his perspective and maybe instead of going all over the place with this man, maybe his own words might serve us better to understand own world today.

I do think it a bit comical that much of what was said and spoken about Rumsfeld was first spoken of McNamara and I guess they both share with what has become an unpopular military venture and being the architects there of.

With that and in rememberance of Sec. McNamara, I give you

 

[soberups]

I always thought McNamara missed his true calling.

Basically he sat there in the Pentagon and tried to micromanage the Vietnam war from 6000 miles away. He ignored advice and requests from the men in the field who were there and actually involved in the fighting, preferring instead to base his decisions upon wishful thinking, unrealistic and ridiculous expectations, and the latest in computerized data management.

He was truly a man ahead of his time and he would have fit perfectly in to the corporate culture of UPS.

 

[UPS Lifer]

I always thought McNamara missed his true calling.

Basically he sat there in the Pentagon and tried to micromanage the Vietnam war from 6000 miles away. He ignored advice and requests from the men in the field who were there and actually involved in the fighting, preferring instead to base his decisions upon wishful thinking, unrealistic and ridiculous expectations, and the latest in computerized data management.

He was truly a man ahead of his time and he would have fit perfectly in to the corporate culture of UPS.

I have to agree with you on his micromanagement of the war. By his own omission he knew his strategy was flawed but pushed on. This says a lot about his character and IMO not in a good way. I do not think that he was able to shore up his legacy. But I will say that I am sure he felt (at the time) he was doing the right thing for our country. May he rest in peace.

 

[wkmac]

from retired Air Force Lt. Col. and Phd Karen Kwaitkowski on McNamara.

McNamaranism Alive and Well

 

[wkmac]

More of the McNamara Legacy

The official sketch of McNamara’s presidency noted that “his reliance upon government intervention sometimes meant turning a blind eye to coercive practices ... and could lead the Bank to ignore the inefficiency and economic cost of government policies.”
McNamara’s favorite foreign leader was Julius Nyerere, ruler of Tanzania, which received more bank aid per capita than any other country in that decade. In the early 1970s, with World Bank aid and advice, Nyerere sent the Tanzanian army to drive the peasants off their land, burn their huts, load them onto trucks, and take them where the government thought they should live. The peasants were then ordered to build new homes “in neat rows staked out for them by government officials.”
Nyerere wanted to curb his countrymen’s individualist and capitalist tendencies and make them easier to control. He even outlawed people’s sleeping in their gardens at night, which meant that monkeys were free to help themselves to their crops. In many cases, the new government villages were far from the farmers’ own lands, and so they simply gave up tilling the land, with the result that hunger in Tanzania soared.

Intervention followed by the infamous "unintended" consequences?