Terms: hanson
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1. McNamara, Robert S. - Former Secretary of Defense (DefenseLink.mil)
   "The first company head selected outside the Ford family, McNamara received substantial credit for Ford's expansion and success in the postwar period. Less than five weeks after becoming president at Ford, he accepted Kennedy's invitation to join his cabinet."
   
   "Evaluations of McNamara's long career as secretary of defense vary from glowing to negative and sometimes scathing. One journalist reported criticism of McNamara as a " 'human IBM machine' who cares more for computerized statistical logic than for human judgments." On the other hand, a congressman who had helped shape the National Security Act in 1947 stated when McNamara left the Pentagon that he "has come nearer [than anyone else] to being exactly what we planned a Secretary of Defense to be when we first wrote the Unification Act." Former Secretary of State Dean Acheson wrote, "Except for General Marshall I do not know of any department head who, during the half century I have observed government in Washington, has so profoundly enhanced the position, power and security of the United States as Mr. McNamara." Journalist Hanson W. Baldwin cited an impressive list of McNamara accomplishments: containment of the more damaging aspects of service rivalry, significant curtailment of duplication and waste in weapon development, institution of systems analysis and the PPBS, application of computer technology, elimination of obsolescent military posts and facilities, and introduction of a flexible strategy, which among other things improved U.S. capacity to wage conventional and limited wars. Although McNamara had many differences with military leaders and members of Congress, few could deny that he had had a powerful impact on the Defense Department, and that much of what he had done would be a lasting legacy."
   
   "His book, In Retrospect, published in 1995, presented an account and analysis of the Vietnam War that dwelt heavily on the mistakes to which he was a prime party and conveyed his strong sense of guilt and regret." 1-04