Robert Strange McNamara 1916-2009

[NERVA]

He had the "smartest man in the room" disease. Wasn't a fan of the SST project either.

His negatives outweigh his positives.

 

[alertken]

Positive: JFK inherited a SAC created by his CAS, Dr.Strangelove LeMay, who believed in pre-emption and, later, in bombing gooks back to the Stone Age. Ike's Farewell Address to the Nation, January 17,’61 included: “This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence - economic, political, even spiritual - is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government ...In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together”. Ike had funded Overkill - making the rubble bounce; McNamara's whizz-kids introduced "cost-effectiveness...biggest bang for the buck", which are now normal metrics for any investment. Posters here bewailing loss of a preferred piece of kit want to buy the possible, not the affordable.

Negative: Vietnam. SecDef of the day is, clearly, prime champion, thus prime casualty of any use of Forces. He applied such metrics as body count...to the wrong war, wrong time, wrong place (say what you will of UK PM Harold Wilson, but, keeping UK out of there was good). JFK/LBJ declined to go all-out, such as by interdicting supply from PRC, while State failed to convey to the Administration that this was a nationalist Civil War, not a communist, Yellow Peril first move towards takeover of SE Asia, then more. (For millenia Cochin Chinese have hated Han Chinese; since "Liberation" PRC has twice tried to redraw its Vietnam border). So: his (and Presidents') meddling at the level of individual target: bad; but...to have left total discretion to the local Commander...they all remembered Truman's error in giving MacArthur too much rope.

 

[F-14D]

Positive: McNamara's whizz-kids introduced "cost-effectiveness...biggest bang for the buck", which are now normal metrics for any investment. Posters here bewailing loss of a preferred piece of kit want to buy the possible, not the affordable.

The problem here is he and his "whiz kids" were wrong, a lot.

They overruled the military and source selection board four times on the selection for the TFX, citing a pointless criteria that they considered the end, rather than the means to the end. They ended up with an aircraft that eventually gave good service, but failed to meet it major criteria for one service, and failed miserably for the other.

They overruled the selection board on what became the C-5, ending up with a very expensive and unreliable aircraft.

They also told all bidders on the above to design their aircraft's wingbox around the use of a 1,000,000 lb. press, despite the fact that no such press existed in this county. This, BTW, is the root of the C-5's wingbox problems.

They didn't follow their own rules on selecting winners.

Because neither Congress nor USAF would accept his beloved F-111 as an ADC interceptor, he ordered teh Blackbird tooling not just mothballed, but destroyed, not only killing any possibility of a weapons carrying version being developed, but also ended SR-71 production early and precluded any restart of production should tat become necessary

Once we were in the War (which he looked on as a testing ground for his pet theories) they failed to provide our forces with needed supplies. When reality didn't match their models and estimates, they ignored reality and operated under the models.

He adamantly refused construction of any more nuclear carriers for most of his tenure. In fact, nuclear carriers are the only major system that he admitted he was wrong and reversed himself.

Regarding cost effectiveness, examination of the records shows that the amount and size of overruns and late programs was about the same under McNamara as it was before he introduced his "efficiencies".

Note that with the exception of shortages, I haven't even gone into his personal mismanagement of the war, for which he bears major responsibility for its duration and the consequent loss of lives and treasure on both sides.

 

[alertken]

Not RSM's fault -alone - that some decisions proved flawed. His bosses gave VC their PRC supply safe haven, his Ally gave them local respite by failing in hearts-and-minds. McNamara's Forces won the N. Air and (modest) Naval events.

Kit commonality is better than duplication - he did a better job giving PACAF/USAFE (F-110) F-4C than, say, F-104G(US). Not his fault that GD drifted F-111A (and C) and Grumman bloated F-111B - the losing Boeing bid may have suffered similarly. Nor that Lockheed low bid to win CX-HLS and then played the bankruptcy card to get doled out -the losing Boeing bid may have gone same way - ask PanAm and other early 747-100 users for their view.

 

[Skybolt]

On Skybolt, I beg to differ. Surely McNamara disliked NEW bombers, but his dislike was motivated by a purely economical set of mind: if nuclear war is all in throwing a large number of nukes to the enemy as to annihilate him (LeMay alleged vision), which is the most economical and sure method ? ICBMs. And which ICBM ? Solid. In this set of mind, every apparently duplicated capability must be eliminated to save resources. We now fully understand the unique capability an ALBM gives a bomber, but the Air Force never mentioned (at least in the declassified docs) that that was the reason they wanted Skybolt. When asked, LeMay replied: to destroy SAM sites and make way to penetrating bombers that go in doing PRECISION strikes and/or opportunity strikes with their free-fall bombs. The bomber in the early ICBM era was justified primarily as a PRECISION weapon, since the low accuracy of ICBMs (XB-70 was justified lately, after the ICBM rise to power, as a precision weapon against MOBILE targets, i.e. the Soviet equivalent of Minutemen on trains. This infuriated Eisenhower who thought that the US hadn't the capablity to FIND the trains with a timeframe sufficient to strike). The Air Force had problems with they contrasting agendas: they wanted ICBM all right (to fend off Army competition, too), but they wanted bombers with free-fall bombs, too, as to not become silo-sitters (SAC dominated the Air Force, remember), a mission more of the Army (God preserve !!) but they knew that they would have had problems in a very short matter of time penetrating defenses. The logical step would have been switch to stand-off weapons, and the longer the stand-off the better. And, since you have to go to Congress and explain, how you differentiate the stand-off weapon from an ICBM capability-wise ? SInce the ALBM was a program thought to defend bomber from ICBM friendly-fire, so to speak, they needed it FAST. That's why the Skybolt was touted and designed as a low-cost weapon, using existing technology. Time and cost was instrumental in the decision to forlorn the initally multi-platform idea and decision to go only for a model of the B-52. The cancellation of Skybolt wasn't a trivial affair: had the Air Force been more substantive in her advocacy, it could have survived. As for the guidance system, the technology was in development and wasn't used because there wasn't enough time and because it was substantially superflous for the alleged mission. I personally consider Skybolt one of the worstly managed (technically and strategicaly-wise) program by the Air Force.

 

[sferrin]

Had Skybolt stuck around (and been maintained and upgraded) it could have made for a very interesting conventional, penetrating weapon.

 

[Rosdivan]

Had Skybolt stuck around (and been maintained and upgraded) it could have made for a very interesting conventional, penetrating weapon.

Only once you reach the age of GPS and quite possibly not even then. I don't think it would have enough room for a terminal radar seeker such as Pershing II had. Certainly not enough room to have it and retain a useful payload.

 

[sferrin]

Penetrating warheads are generally pretty dense (low volume). Given Skybolt's size you could mount the actual Pershing II RV on it's nose had one so desired.