In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam

by Robert S. McNamara

I had no patience with the myth that the Defense Department could not be managed. It was an extraordinarily large organization, but the notion that it was some sort of ungovernable force was absurd. I had spent fifteen years as a manager identifying problems and forcing organizations—often against their will—to think deeply and realistically about alternative courses of action and their consequences. My team and I were determined to guide the department in such a way as to achieve the objective the president had set: security for the nation at the lowest possible cost. As I told a TV interviewer a month after starting the job: “The role of a public manager is very similar to the role of a private manager; in each case he has the option of following one of two major alternative courses of action. He can either act as a judge or a leader….I have always believed in and endeavored to follow the active leadership role as opposed to the passive judicial role.”