Interview with Robert McNamara, 1986 [2]

Item Information

Title:
Interview with Robert McNamara, 1986 [2]
Description:
When Robert McNamara moved from president of Ford Motor Company to secretary of defense in 1961, he brought his very active management control and systems-planning philosophy to the Kennedy administration. In his interview conducted for War and Peace in the Nuclear, McNamara recalls how he rejected the doctrine of "massive retaliation" in favor of "flexible response" in order to raise the nuclear threshold and increase the United States' ability to wage limited nuclear and non-nuclear warfare. He outlines the exhaustive review and overhaul of programs he and his analysts conducted early in the Kennedy administration. He rejected not only massive retaliation but also SIOP-62, the blueprint for the use of nuclear weapons in the event of war; consistent overestimates of Soviet nuclear and conventional capabilities; and the very concept of first-strike force. Initially, McNamara embraced a city-avoidance policy and missile programs that would create a menu of alternate strategies to avoid all-out nuclear war. Realizing the infeasibility of limited nuclear war, he turned to the idea of "assured destruction" and focused on building a deterrent around survivable second-strike weapons that could inflict unacceptable damage on the aggressor. By the time he left the Defense Department in 1968 to become president of the World Bank, McNamara had spearheaded significant shifts in both military policy and the structure of U.S. strategic nuclear forces--a structure that remains largely in place today.
Interviewee:
McNamara, Robert S., 1916-2009
Date:
March 28, 1986
Format:
Film/Video
Location:
WGBH
Collection (local):
WGBH Open Vault
Series:
War and Peace in the Nuclear Age
Subjects:
United States. Dept. of Defense
Massive retaliation (Nuclear strategy)
Single Integrated Operational Plan
Flexible response (Nuclear strategy)
Warfare, Conventional
Minuteman (Missile)
Nuclear warfare
Nitze, Paul H.
Deterrence (Strategy)
United States. Central Intelligence Agency
Nuclear arms control
Kaysen, Carl
Warsaw Treaty Organization
Mutual assured destruction
Polaris (Missile)
First strike (Nuclear strategy)
Alsop, Stewart
Antimissile missiles
United States. Air Force. Strategic Air Command
Soviet Union
Nuclear weapons
LeMay, Curtis E.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Wilson, Harold, 1916-1995
Eisenhower, Dwight D. (Dwight David), 1890-1969
Gaulle, Charles de, 1890-1970
Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963
Brown, Harold, 1927-
Kosygin, Aleksey Nikolayevich, 1904-1980
Johnson, Lyndon B. (Lyndon Baines), 1908-1973
Places:
District of Columbia > Washington
Germany
France
Extent:
01:32:59:24
Link to Item:
https://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_82317190244B46168DFDFB0314E8E7B8
Terms of Use:
Rights status not evaluated.
Contact host institution for more information.
Publisher:
WGBH Educational Foundation
Identifier:
V_82317190244B46168DFDFB0314E8E7B8