There is no more shakespearean parable of the tragic rise and fall of the postwar American meritocratic elite than Robert Strange McNamara. War hero, Harvard Business School, head of Ford, begged by JFK to take a role - any role - in Camelot. Then came the equally meteoric fall as JFK and then LBJ’s Secretary of Defense - Vietnam and all its death and deceit. With his brother William, Philip Taubman has written about what he calls McNamara’s “double life” in his new biography, McNamara At War. In this “new history”, they uncover new documents showing that McNamara was privately telling his aide John McNaughton in April 1966 - just nine months after advocating for massive escalation - that he "wanted to bring the boys home so bad I can hardly stand it." Yet this analytic whiz-kid, a poetry loving smart machine in a grey suit, continued prosecuting this unwinnable war for nearly two more years. The Taubmans suggest, therefore, that the catastrophic American defeat in Vietnam wasn’t simply a military failure. It was a defeat of the entire postwar American technocratic meritocracy represented, above all, by the tragic double life of Robert Strange McNamara.
1. Institutional Loyalty Can Override Moral Judgment McNamara's "contorted loyalty" to LBJ and the presidency led him to continue prosecuting a war he privately knew was unwinnable. His defense was that cabinet members serve the president, not some "higher calling" - yet the actual oath of office mentions defending the Constitution, not the president.
2. Technical Brilliance Doesn't Guarantee Moral Leadership The "whiz kids" represented a new technocratic approach to governance based on data analysis and corporate efficiency. Yet when faced with Vietnam's moral complexities, these analytical skills became tools for prolonging catastrophe rather than preventing it.
3. Elite Institutions May Inadequately Prepare Leaders for Ethical Dilemmas McNamara's stellar credentials - Berkeley, Harvard Business School, Ford presidency - represented the pinnacle of American meritocracy. But this system apparently failed to develop his capacity to act on moral conviction when it conflicted with institutional pressure.
4. The "Double Life" Problem in High-Stakes Decision Making The gap between McNamara's private knowledge (war unwinnable by late 1965) and public actions (continued escalation through 1968) suggests a psychological split that may be endemic to powerful positions where personal judgment conflicts with role expectations.
5. Personal Character Flaws Amplified by Power McNamara's failures weren't limited to Vietnam - his treatment of his dying wife, his emotional manipulation by LBJ, and his suppression of his own moral compass suggest character weaknesses that became magnified and consequential when combined with immense institutional power.
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