100%

Scanned image of the page. Keyboard directions: use + to zoom in, - to zoom out, arrow keys to pan inside the viewer.

Page Options

Download this Issue

Share

Something wrong?

Something wrong with this page? Report problem.

Rights / Permissions

This collection, digitized in collaboration with the Michigan Daily and the Board for Student Publications, contains materials that are protected by copyright law. Access to these materials is provided for non-profit educational and research purposes. If you use an item from this collection, it is your responsibility to consider the work's copyright status and obtain any required permission.

October 08, 1966 - Image 5

Resource type:
Text
Publication:
The Michigan Daily, 1966-10-08
Note:
This is a tabloid page

Disclaimer: Computer generated plain text may have errors. Read more about this.

r 8

_4-

THE MYTHS ABOUT

(from page five)
the job, and in some ways off the job,
McNamara is fundamentally more inter-
ested in ideas than in people. A more po-
litically-inclined man might be more in-
terested in people as people, but McNa-
mara isn't," a top assistant commented
recently. "And people who aren't like that
often find this quality very hard to take."
As Mrs. McNamara has remarked, her'
husband "suffers fools badly, especially if
they impede his work." A conversation
with McNamara in his office is likely to
be somewhat unsettling; he is so direct,
perceptive and focused on the matter at
hand that he is likely to get the gist of a
question when about half of it has been
phrased; he then answers it directly,
without preliminaries or persiflage. "And
that man speaks so damned fast," com-
ments one reporter, "that I barely have
time to get it all down and think about
what I'm going to ask next."
NOT ONLY does McNamara slice imme-
diaitely to the core of a problem or
a question; he is also generally informed
to a formidable degree about the problem
itself. As one assistant puts it in a mas-
sive understatement, "He immerses him-
self in the facts more than most mana-
gers." McNamara goes easily from the
current production rate of the UH-1B/D
helicopter to the infiltration rates in Viet
Nam to the projections for airlift to 1973.
Indeed, this penchant for extensive pre-
paration is nothing new. One manage-
ment consultant who worked with Mc-
Namara when he was at Ford recalls, "All
the other executives would ask for the
summary of my report and my conclu-
sions. McNamara would ask for the whole
report, including the statistical tables,
and several days later would tell me his
conclusions-and ask me if I thought they
were justified."
Underlying this way of operating is a
fundamental McNamara belief in ration-
alism the idea that reason can ulti-
mately settle most problems, no matter
how confusing and complex they seem at
first glance. "Quantifying" problems, or
MAGAZINE
Magazine Editor-Robert Moore
CONTRIBUTORS
ANDREW LUGG is a graduate stu-
dent in Physics. He came to
Ann Arbor from the University
of London, and has been a long-
time follower of avant-garde
film. CHARLOTTE WOLTER,
who will coordinate the series
on new movements in the arts,
is a senior in English and As-
sociate Editorial Director of the
DAILY.
THE SPORTS STAFF is a collection
of poets and would-be athletes
who love to write about sports.
Associate Sports Editors JIM
TINDALL and JIM LaSOVAGE
compiled these rankings from
ballots by the staff-one of the
largest newspaper sports staffs
in the country-and wrote the
accompanying stories.
MARK R. KILLINGSWORTH, a se-
nior in Honors Economics, is
Editor of The Daily. He spent
the summer in Washington as
a legislative intern and inter-
viewed Secretary McNamara
last month.
ROGER RAPOPORT, a junior ma-
joring in Journalism, is a
DAILY night editor. He has
written for several magazines
and worked this summer as a
Wall Street Journal reporter.

PICTURE CREDITS
Aseociated Press, p.8, p.4, p.5
Charles Boultenhouse, p.3
Purdue, p. 2
Daily, p. 2
ESP-Disc Records-p. 6
Page Eight

NcNAMARA'S APPOINTMEN

HOW DID McNamara become Secre-
tary of Defense?
One insider remembers the story this
way:
"McNamara had been suggested as a
possible chairman of a Businessmen
for Kennedy-Johnson' group in the
1960 campaign, but, because the Ken-
nedy organization wanted to get Henry
Ford II to head it up and was unsuc-
cessful, nothing much happened. Sar-
gent Shriver, who was in charge of
this operation, remembered McNa-
mara, though, and shortly after the
election called Democratic S t a t e
Chairman Neil Staebler of Ann Arbor
and told him, 'We want to offer Mc-
Namara a job. It's an advisory job in-
volving some amount of contact with
Congress. Can you find out how he
voted?
"Staebler, a little dubious that Mc-
Namara would let anything interfere
with his new position at Ford, talked
to him about it, told him Shriver would
call him, and was told by McNamara
that the idea was out of the question.
Shortly thereafter, however, after calls
from Shriver and Adam Yarmolinsky
-who was working with Shriver and
who later would join McNamara at the
Pentagon-McNamara called a friend
and asked him to stop over at his
house.
"McNamara told the friend, 'What
a surprise-they want me to be.,ecre-
tary of Defense! ((He had already
turned down the Secretary of the
Treasury-the other part of Shriver's
double-barreled offer.) McNamara
added he didn't have the slightest idea
of whether he'd hold his own in Wash-
ington. Learning of this, Staebler got
in touch with Senator Philip Hart and

Congressman Jam
gan to see what t
new Defense Secre
"McNamara, to
elect Kennedy wa
consolidation of1
was told by Hart
count on any c
Armed Services C
Carl Vinson (D-G
under any circum
was strong enoug]
McNamara also1
Pentagon officials,
ers.
"About a weel
called the friend

McNAMARA
T his chief's feelings on the war in Viet
Nam in detail, would only say, in a soft
es O'Hara of Michi- voice, that McNamara is "careful . .
he prospects for the cautious . . . and very concerned" and
etary might be. that the "Mac the Knife" image is "the
ld- that President- farthest possible thing from the truth."
nted a considerable Those who have studied his Montreal
the armed services, speech closely are inclined to agree; and
and O'Iara not to Under Secretary of State George Ball,
onsolidation--House according to highly reliable sources, has
ommittee Chairman been telling friends that McNamara was
a.) wouldn't have it the major force behind the second pause
stances and no one in U.S. bombings of North Viet Nam early
h to overcome him. this year. According to these informants
talked with former -including key McNamara aides-Mc-
newsmen, and oth- Namara pursued this proposal with Presi-
dent Johnson for some time, and finally
won acceptance of the pause in bombings
k later, McNamara after a dramatic trip to see the President
again and told him at the L.B.J. Ranch.

VOL. XI110 NO. 1

M1r4ga11

EatiltI MAGN

SATUR[

r

I've got to decide tomorrow. I now
know some of the things I can't do;
I'm not at all sure of my ability to
cope politically; all the other ques-
tions like money and my family's in-
terest in moving are settled. But I've
still got some nagging doubts. That
job at Ford has been tailor-made for
me, and it would be a dirty trick and
a wrench to the company to have them
try to reconstruct it for somebody else.
(McNamara was President of Ford for
only 42 days.) But it's a tremendously
important job at the Pentagon, and
people are saying you can't turn the
President down.'
"The friend then repeated to Mc-
Namara what Hart had been saying:
that Defense was the second biggest
job in Washington; that McNamara
was the man who could do the best job
at it though nobody could handle it
perfectly; that-as a result-it was
McNamara's fate to take the job. So
with that cold consolation, McNamara
took it." -M.R.K.

McNAMARA'S CONCERN about Viet
Nam, it is also understood, extends
to the U.S. buildup in Thailand. Thailand
has been slated for over $200 million in
American military construction (most of
it to support the Viet Nam effort) and
$40 million in civic action assistance;
Ambassador Graham Martin is known to
be pleading for helicopters and supplies
for the Thai army, which is trying to cope
with an insurgency problem in Northern
Thailand-and he is also asking for U.S.
pilots and troops to operate these weapons
until the Thai army can be trained to do
so. McNamara, according to reports con-
firmed by top Pentagon aides, is will-
ing to provide hardware for the Thais but
is unequivocally opposed to sending Am-
erican pilots and troops to use it too. One
source says he is "not only opposed to the
idea-he's stone-walling it. He may have
to manage the war in Viet Nam, but he'll
be damned if he'll start another one."

*

*

- -- - -- - I

measuring their extent, is a key part of
"rationalizing" decision-making: Alain
Enthoven, the Assistent Secretary of De-
fense for Systems Analysis, perhaps ex-
emplifies how McNamara is "rationaliz-
ing" and "quantifying" Defense matters.
"He's the kind of man who wants to make
a matrix even if he can't find all the
squares," says one key McNamara aide.
McNAMARA'S TALENT is so formidable
that men like Durward G. Hall, a
Republican Congressman from Missouri,
have been moved to remark acidly that
he has the reputation of being a "brilliant
executive, manager, master planner, su-
preme coordinator, computer-user, whiz
kid and all-around superman capable of
doing no wrong." An aide rates McNa-
mara's personal input into the Defense
decision-making machine somewhat dif-
ferently. "He doesn't concentrate power
in his own hands or in the Pentagon it-
self. In fact, he eliminates the duplica-
tion of authority-which curtails power
empires by limiting them. He tries to de-
centralize decision-making as much as
possible; and his operating procedure
seems to be that 'when you delegate, you
delegate without condition; when you re-
view you review without prejudice'." Des-
pite his confidence and talents, McNa-
mara can also change his mind, the aide
adds: Six months went by after the aide
tried unsuccessfully to change McNa-
mara's mind on a policy issue, and then
one day McNamara said to him, "I've
changed my mind about that. I think
you're right."
The results of McNamara's efforts and
talents, it seems safe to say, have revo-
lutionized Defense Department operations
and American military strategy. The old
Eisenhower strategy was essentially bas-
ed on "massive retaliation" through nu-
clear power to all military and political
aggression; now, as McNamara said in
1964, "We believe in a strategy of con-
trolled and flexible response, where the
military forces of the U.S. would become
a finely-tuned instrument of national
policy, versatile enough to meet with ap-
propriate force the full spectrum of pos-
sible threats to our national security,
from guerrilla subversion to all-out nu-
clear war." Along with the theory of
"flexible response" -much of which is
unveiled in an address at the University's
commencement in 1962-McNamara adds
two more ideas: "assured penetration"
for our missiles even after a surprise at-

tack, and the "conventional option" of
troops and planes to permit "flexible
response."
McNAMARA'S OPERATIONAL reforms
have been no less significant, and
again; three major points summarize
them. First, he has reorganized the De-
fense Department by program and by
function rather than by service-which
has meant a major change from the old
Army, Navy and Air Force divisions. Sec-
ond, he has changed planning and bud-
geting to reflect the fact that defense
needs and expenditures cannot fully be
°xpressed in calendar-year terms-which
has resulted in a five-year forecast
of military requirements and costs. Fin-
ally, McNamara has introduced "cost-
effectiveness," the "'quantification" and
measurement of military effectiveness, as
a major element in Defense decision-
making-which means that each piece of
"hardware" is carefully analyzed and
compared with other possible "hardware"
combinations to see which, for a given
expenditure, is most effective.
McNamara's changes have not always
made him popular. Military officers and
members of Congress have growled and
complained in private, and have filled
the pages of newspapers and magazines
with their grievances. Gen. Nathan G.
Twining last week published a book which
severely criticizes the McNamara strategy
and implies that the country is heading
for disaster; many old-line military offi-
cers echo Twining's charges.
AND McNAMARA himself is not infall-
ible. After he and Gen. Maxwell G.
Taylor, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, returned from a trip to South
Viet Nam in October, 1963, the White
House issued a statement saying the pair
thought that "the major part of the U.S.
military task (in South Viet Nam) can
be completed by the end of 1965 . ..
McNamara himself has said that "the
only real regret I have, lookingback over
the last five years," is his advice to Presi-
dent Kennedy on-the Bay of Pigs inva-
sion. "I told President Kennedy after-
ward, 'You know damn well where I was
at the time of decision-I recommended
it.
But the image of McNamara as a
bomb-happy "Mac the Knife," according
to informed observers, is far .from the re-
ality. One assistant, declining to discuss

HENCE, AFTER more than five years
in office, McNamara can look at a
long string of reforms, accomplishments,
and achievements, many of them known
and some of them unknown. Rumors
about his future recur periodically, but
it seems safe to say that it appears he
will remain as Secretary of Defense until
the Viet Nam war gets much better or
much worse; to do otherwise, he is said
to feel, would be to shirk his responsi-
bilities.
In the exercise of those responsibilities
McNamara has gained some powerful ene-
mies. It is perhaps ironic that a former
president of the Ford Motor Co. who
became Secretary of Defense would gain
the greatest opposition from the so-called
"military-industrial complex," but that is
the way matters have worked out, from
anonymous Pentagon officers to General
Twining's recent blast. McNamara con-
cluded his interview with this correspon-
dent by conceding that a problem in run-
ning the Defense empire "is the constant
harrassment of the one who makes a
decision if that decision is opposed to
powerful parochial interests."
R UT HE ALSO SAID he disagrees with
Dwight D. Eisenhower's description,
made in his 1961 farewell address, of an
increasingly powerful and dangeous
'military-industrial complex": Is it a
growing danger? "I don't think so if one
is willing to be decisive in making a deci-
sion in the national interest group or
branch of the services." He added, "I
don't think the lobby of individual groups
is that influential. The Secretary has the
legal power to act in the national interest,
and he should do so." It is perhaps sym-
bolic that the office of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff is a floor below McNamara's in
the Pentagon.
Whether McNamara has acted in the
national interest in his reorganization of
Pentagon procedures and United States
military strategy is beyond the scope of
this report-although most observers feel
McNamara has wrought a veritable revo-
lution in these areas. But that McNamara
has broadened the context of public dis-
cussion, that he has made more meaning-
ful the concept of "national security," is
the conclusion one must make of the
"new" McNamara. And whatever hap-
pens, it does not seem extravagant to
agree with Stewart Alsop that the man
with the steel-rimmed glasses and rasp-
ing voice "seems likely to go down in his-
tory as one of the very greatest public
servants this country has produced."
THE MICHIGAN DAILY MAGAZINE

-Still from Ed Emshwiller's "Relativity"

The New American Cmn
"Underground" film-makers have beei
dium, fitting old controversies into nc
stroying barren traditions of 'objectiv
process, they have shocked, confused
aboveground public. Yet the roots of ti
back to the beginnings of the movies, s
a sudden awareness--affirmation--th
whatever they want it to be, that all th
be reconciled into new unities. See page
Social Commentary-P
What do you do when the police confisc
close your bookstore, just because every
sell is obscene? One thing you can do
band of New York poets and off-key I
a rock and roll group specializing in
grophy. Which is exactly what happei
a lower East Side group now branchinc
are wryly political, lyrically pornograph
funny, which may be why they are sucl
See page six.
Big Ten Football
All right, th'ey ask who IS going to. w
year? The ever-daring DAILY sports sta
time and the conventions of caution by
Ten finish and, for good measure, cons
Ten team. Their blithe excursion into 1
mayhem will surprise not only the press
tain East Lansing coach with a strong ti
defensive line. The predictions were r
See page two.

The Myths About McNamara
The many critics of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara
have been confounded recently by reports that contradict
the 'war-happy statistician' image they have made of him.
He has been credited with the pause in Viet Nam bombing,
early this year; he is reported to oppose military buildup in
Thailand; he has made decidedly un-military proposals on
such diverse subjects as poverty, education and the draft.
A DAILY editor combines what he has learned from Mc-
Namara's aides with what he learned from an interview
last month with the Secretary, to make a controversial pic-
ture of a controversial figure. See page four.

Back to Top

© 2024 Regents of the University of Michigan