Robert McNamara served as the eighth United States secretary of defense from 1961 to 1968 under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson at the height of the Cold War. He remains the longest-serving secretary of defense, having remained in office over seven years. He played a major role in promoting the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. McNamara was responsible for the institution of systems analysis in public policy, which developed into the discipline known today as policy analysis.

Many of his views on the military, including negative views, were formed during his U.S. Army Air Force service in World War II under General Curtis LeMay.

Nomination

After his election in 1960, President-elect John F. Kennedy first offered the post of Secretary of Defense to Robert A. Lovett, who had already served in that position in the Truman administration; Lovett declined but recommended McNamara. Kennedy had read about McNamara and his career at Ford Motor Company in a Time magazine article on 2 December 1960, and interviewed him on 8 December, with his brother and right-hand man Robert F. Kennedy also present. McNamara told Kennedy that he didn't know anything about government, to which Kennedy replied: "We can learn our jobs together. I don't know how to be president either". McNamara had read Kennedy's ghostwritten Pulitzer Prize winning book Profiles in Courage and asked him if he had really written it himself, with Kennedy insisting that he did. McNamara's confidence and self-assurance impressed Kennedy. Kennedy offered McNamara the chance to be either Secretary of Defense or Secretary of the Treasury; McNamara came back a week later, accepting the post of Secretary of Defense on the condition of having the right of final approval in all appointments to the Department of Defense (DoD), with Kennedy replying: "It's a deal". McNamara's salary as the CEO of Ford was $3 million per year while by contrast the position of the Defense Secretary paid only $25,000 per year. Given the financial sacrifices, McNamara was able to insist to Kennedy that he have the right to appoint his officials and run the Pentagon his own way.

McNamara became one of the few members of the Kennedy Administration to socialize with Kennedy, and he became close to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, eventually serving as a pallbearer at the younger Kennedy's funeral in 1968.

According to Special Counsel Ted Sorensen, Kennedy regarded McNamara as the "star of his team, calling upon him for advice on a wide range of issues beyond national security, including business and economic matters." Vice president Lyndon B. Johnson was similarly impressed with McNamara and the other Kennedy appointees, but his mentor House Speaker Sam Rayburn replied “Well, Lyndon, you may be right and they may be every bit as intelligent as you say, but I’d feel a whole lot better about them if just one of them had run for sheriff once,” a comment on the importance of respect for democratic norms.

McNamara's powers of retention were impressive: at a 23 July 1962 Honolulu meeting on the Vietnam War buildup he suddenly said “Stop—slide 319 does not agree with slide 5” and was proved correct upon retrieval of slide 5. McNamara insisted that all DoD briefers submit written reports “[b]ecause I can read faster than they can talk.”

Initially, the basic policies outlined by President Kennedy in a message to Congress on 28 March 1961, guided McNamara in the reorientation of the defense program. Kennedy rejected the concept of first-strike attack and emphasized the need for adequate strategic arms and defense to deter nuclear attack on the United States and its allies. U.S. arms, he maintained, must constantly be under civilian command and control, and the nation's defense posture had to be "designed to reduce the danger of irrational or unpremeditated general war." The primary mission of U.S. overseas forces, in cooperation with its allies, was "to prevent the steady erosion of the Free World through limited wars". Kennedy and McNamara rejected massive retaliation for a posture of flexible response. The U.S. wanted choices in an emergency other than "inglorious retreat or unlimited retaliation", as the president put it. Out of a major review of the military challenges confronting the U.S. initiated by McNamara in 1961 came a decision to increase the nation's "limited warfare" capabilities. These moves were significant because McNamara was abandoning President Dwight D. Eisenhower's policy of massive retaliation in favor of a flexible response strategy that relied on increased U.S. capacity to conduct limited, non-nuclear warfare.

Development of military capabilities Nuclear strategy

When McNamara took over the Pentagon in 1961, the United States military relied on an all-out nuclear strike to respond to a Soviet attack of any kind, which would kill Soviet military forces and civilians. This was the same nuclear strategy planned by the Strategic Air Command (SAC), formerly led by General Curtis LeMay (LeMay was Air Force Vice Chief of Staff in early 1961, and became Chief of Staff on 30 June 1961). McNamara did not initially agree with this approach. He sought other options after seeing that this strategy could not guarantee the destruction of all Soviet nuclear weapons, thus leaving the United States vulnerable to retaliation. He educated NATO members on the Cold War doctrine of deterrence. McNamara's alternative in the doctrine of counterforce was to try to limit the United States nuclear exchange by targeting only enemy military forces. This would hopefully prevent retaliation and escalation by holding Soviet cities hostage to a follow-up strike. McNamara later concluded that counterforce was not likely to control escalation but to provoke retaliation. The U.S. nuclear policy remained the same.

Triad doctrine

Regarding strategic nuclear weapons delivery systems, McNamara continued development of the nuclear triad, a three-pronged military force structure of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), sea-based submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and airborne strategic bombers with short range attack missiles (SRAMs); this structure was considered necessary to ensure the survival of enough weapons for deterrence.

McNamara would accelerate the retirement of obsolete or marginally useful strategic systems.

The Department of Defense began the STRAT-X study on 1 November 1966 to evaluate a new ballistic missile proposal from the Air Force. The first result, the heavy BGM-75 AICBM, would be canceled by McNamara in 1967 on the grounds that it would be destabilizing; the study would later lead to several more advanced missile systems after McNamara left office.

Skybolt Crisis Prior to the decision to develop SRAMs, the U.S. and the United Kingdom had agreed during the Eisenhower administration to jointly develop the AGM-48 Skybolt air-launched ballistic missile (ALBM), with the British canceling all of their missile programs. McNamara announced plans to cancel the program in November 1962, following unsuccessful tests of Skybolt and successful tests of the Polaris and Minuteman missiles, though early Polaris and Minuteman test failure rates had been comparable to Skybolt. He persuaded President Kennedy to cancel the program on 23 November 1962. This triggered the diplomatic Skybolt Crisis with the UK; Kennedy quickly convened a conference with Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in mid-December 1962. The result was the Nassau Agreement, under which the U.S. would supply the Royal Navy with Polaris missiles for UK manufactured nuclear warheads and submarines (a step McNamara had opposed).

Heightened alert McNamara raised the proportion of Strategic Air Command (SAC) strategic bombers on 15-minute ground alert from 25% to 50%, thus lessening their vulnerability to missile attack. He also approved Operation Chrome Dome in 1961, in which some B-52 strategic bomber aircraft armed with thermonuclear weapons remained on continuous airborne alert, flying routes that put them in positions to attack targets in the Soviet Union if they were ordered to do so. This would lead to a number of Broken Arrow nuclear weapon accidents.

Command and control McNamara was concerned that unauthorized use of nuclear weapons was possible. He advocated the development of what became known as Permissive Action Links (PALs), devices incorporated into nuclear weapons that would render them inoperable during an unauthorized attempted use. The PALs were first installed on weapons stored in Europe, and then throughout the U.S. inventory.

In an October 1961 memo, McNamara was quoted as expressing concern over command and control and proliferation of the infantry crewed Davy Crockett nuclear recoilless rifle.

Nuclear testing

Prior to the end of the 1958–1961 nuclear test moratorium, McNamara privately acknowledged that atmospheric tests were "not really necessary." Once President Kennedy decided to resume atmospheric and exoatmospheric testing, the Department of Defense gave materiel support to the 1962 Operation Dominic, Operation Fishbowl and Operation Sunbeam test series. After the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty had been signed, McNamara in August 1963 announced his "unequivocal support" for the treaty ratification before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, arguing that U.S. nuclear forces were secure and clearly superior to those of the Soviet Union, and that any major Soviet tests would be detected.

Anti-ballistic missile system

Toward the end of his term, McNamara opposed an anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system proposed for installation in the U.S. in defense against Soviet missiles, arguing that the $40 billion "in itself is not the problem; the penetrability of the proposed shield is the problem." Under pressure to proceed with the ABM program after it became clear that the Soviets had begun a similar project, McNamara finally agreed to a "light" system which he believed could protect against the far smaller number of Chinese missiles. However, he never believed it was wise for the United States to move in that direction because of the psychological risks of relying too much on nuclear weaponry, and that there would be pressure from many directions to build a larger system than would be militarily effective.

McNamara always believed that the best defense strategy for the U.S. was a parity of mutual assured destruction with the Soviet Union. An ABM system would be an ineffective weapon as compared to an increase in deployed nuclear missile capacity.

Tactical weapons

Under McNamara the U.S. military continued to accept the upgrading of existing tactical nuclear weapons with new warheads, while new weapon delivery systems were uncommon. Development and initial deployment of the MGM-31 Pershing theater ballistic missile was completed under McNamara, which allowed for the retirement of several competitors. Also developed and/or deployed at this time were the MGM-29 Sergeant and MGM-52 Lance short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) and the innovative UUM-44 SUBROC anti-submarine missile.

Chemical and biological warfare Project 112

Project 112, a biological and chemical weapon experimentation project, was authorized by Robert McNamara as part of a total review of the U.S. military. The name "Project 112" refers to this project's number in the 150 project review process authorized by McNamara. Funding and staff were contributed by every branch of the U.S. armed services and intelligence agencies. Project 112 primarily concerned the use of aerosols to disseminate biological and chemical agents that could produce "controlled temporary incapacitation". The test program was conducted on a large scale at "extracontinental test sites" in the Central and South Pacific with some exposure to military personnel, and secretly in civilian locations such as the New York subway with bacteria deemed 'harmless' but without consent.

Defoliants