Quote:A revelatory portrait of Robert S. McNamara, informed by newly discovered diaries, letters, and interviews with those closest to him.
Robert S. McNamara was widely considered to be one of the most brilliant men of his generation. He was an invaluable ally of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson as U.S. secretary of defense, and he had a deeply moving relationship with Jackie Kennedy. But to the country, McNamara was the leading advocate for American escalation in Vietnam. He strongly advised Johnson to deploy hundreds of thousands of American ground troops, just weeks before concluding that the war was unwinnable, and for the next two and a half years, McNamara failed to urge Johnson to cut his losses and withdraw.
McNamara at War examines McNamara's life of intense personal contradictions, following his childhood, his career as a young faculty member at Harvard Business School, and his World War II service, to his leadership of the...