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Robert McNamara Biography

Robert McNamara

Robert Strange McNamara (June 9, 1916 – July 6, 2009) was an American business executive and the eighth Secretary of Defense, serving from 1961 to 1968 under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. He played a major role in escalating the United States 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.

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Robert McNamara Quotes

Belief and seeing are both often wrong.

Belief, Nihilism, Seeing, Wrong

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

Computer, Computer Literacy, Inspiring, Pencil, Substitute, Writing

To this day we seem to act in the world as though we know what's right for everybody.

Act, Drug, Right, Though, War, World

We see what we want to believe.

Believe, See, Want

Brains are like hearts - they go where they are appreciated.

Appreciated, Broken Heart, Hearts, Leadership, Like, Love

. . . but highly placed sources within the Kennedy Administration disagreed: "[T]he assumption that the strategic nuclear balance mattered in any way was wrong. . . As far as I am concerned, it made no difference. . . If my memory serves me correctly, we had some five thousand strategic nuclear warheads as against t heir three hundred. Can anyone seriously tell me that their having three hundred and forty would have made any difference? The military balance wasn't changed. I didn't believe it then, and I don't believe it now. . . "

Administration, Believe, Difference, Hundred, Memories, Military

The greatest contribution Vietnam is making-right or wrong is beside the point-is that it is developing an ability in the United States to fight a limited war, to go to war without the necessity of arousing the public ire.

Fighting, United, United States, Vietnam, War, Wrong

Kennedy was trying to keep us out of war. I was trying to help him keep us out of war. And General Curtis LeMay, whom I served under as a matter of fact in World War II, was saying "Let's go in, let's totally destroy Cuba. "

Cuba, General, Help, Saying, Served, World

Elimination of nuclear weapons, so naive, so simplistic, and so idealistic as to be quixotic? Some may think so. But as human beings, citizens of nations with power to influence events in the world, can we be at peace with ourselves if we strive for less? I think not.

Events, Human, Influence, Nuclear, Power, Thinking

If we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals. And I think he's right. He, and I'd say I, were behaving as war criminals.

Criminals, Prosecuted, Right, Thinking, War

I would characterize current US nuclear weapons policy as immoral, illegal, militarily unnecessary, and dreadfully dangerous

Dangerous, Dreadfully, Inspirational, Militarily, Nuclear, Weapons

Poor planning or poor execution of plans is simply to let some force other than reason shape reality.

Let, Plans, Poor Planning, Reality, Shapes

We do not have the God-given right to shape every nation in our image or as we choose.

Choose, Foreign Policy, Given, Image, Nation, Shapes

They'll be no learning period with nuclear weapons. Make one mistake and you're going to destroy nations.

Make, Mistake, Nations, Nuclear, Period, Weapons

Management is the gate through which social and economic and political change, indeed change in every direction, is diffused though society.

Direction, Economic, Management, Political, Society, Though

Engagement is the conscious inhabitation of your body and mind. Practice is happening when your open awareness is moving with, in and through your embodied activity. Intrinsic to practice is your conscious participation with your life. Engagement is the conduction of your free and open awareness through your activities, whatever they may be.

Activity, Engagement, Medicine, Mind, Moving, Philosophy

Never answer the question that is asked of you. Answer the question that you wish had been asked of you.

Answer, Answers, Asked, Question, Wish

One must take draconian measures of demographic reduction against the will of the populations. Reducing the birth rate has proved to be impossible or insufficient. One must therefore increase the mortality rate. How? By natural means. Famine and sickness

Birth, Birth Rate, Mean, Population, Populations, Rate

The picture of the world's greatest superpower killing or seriously injuring 1,000 noncombatants a week, while trying to pound a tiny backward nation into submission on an issue whose merits are hotly disputed, is not a pretty one.

1000, Injuring, Issues, Pretty, Trying, World

The indefinite combination of human fallibility and nuclear weapons will lead to the destruction of nations.

Call Of Duty, Indefinite, Lead, Nuclear, Weapons

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