Robert McNamara Quotes

• Although we sought to do the right thing—and believed we were doing the right thing—in my judgement, hindsight proves us wrong.

  Robert McNamara

  Topics in Uncategorized

• We tend to justify our actions and in a sense we color history to achieve that objective.

  Robert McNamara

  Topics in Uncategorized

• We had a two-track approach, one political and the other military, and the military was designed to move us along the political track.

  Robert McNamara

  Topics in Uncategorized

• I wondered if I’d ever see another Saturday night.

  Robert McNamara

  Topics in Uncategorized

• A test case of US capacity to help a nation meet a Communist ‘war of liberation’.

  Robert McNamara

  Topics in Uncategorized

• I don’t object to it being called ‘McNamara’s war’… It is a very important war and I am pleased to be identified with it and do whatever I can to win it.

  Robert McNamara

  Topics in Uncategorized

• In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil.

  Robert McNamara

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in War

• We burned to death 100,000 Japanese civilians in Tokyo – men, women and children. LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?

  Robert McNamara

  Topics in Children

  Tags in Women, Men

• Coercion, after all, merely captures man. Freedom captivates him.

  Robert McNamara

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Freedom, After

• A computer does not substitute for judgment any more than a pencil substitutes for literacy. But writing without a pencil is no particular advantage.

  Robert McNamara

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Writing, Advantage

• Neither conscience nor sanity itself suggests that the United States is, should or could be the global gendarme.

  Robert McNamara

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Conscience, United

• One cannot fashion a credible deterrent out of an incredible action.

  Robert McNamara

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Fashion, Action

• War is so complex it’s beyond the ability of the human mind to comprehend. Our judgment, our understanding, are not adequate. And we kill people unnecessarily.

  Robert McNamara

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in War, Understanding, Judgment

• It would be our policy to use nuclear weapons wherever we felt it necessary to protect our forces and achieve our objectives.

  Robert McNamara

  Topics in Achievement

Robert McNamara (14)

Birth:	9th June, 1916
Death:	6th July, 2009
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Businessman

About

Robert Strange McNamara was an American business executive and the eighth Secretary of Defense, serving under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961 to 1968, during which time he played a large role in escalating the United States involvement in the Vietnam War.

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• 1867 - Nathaniel Parker Willis
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