The Best and the Brightest: Kennedy-Johnson Administrations (Modern Library)

by David Halberstam

McNamara believed in car safety and thought it was important, yet he never really pushed it until 1956 when Ford was flat beaten by Chevy; Ford was in the last year of a three-year cycle and Chevy had a hot new car, a sharp new style, a V-8 engine, and Ford was dead and they all knew it. Since the Ford people realized that there was little in the way of options, they decided to sell safety; it was not often, one of them said, that you got to be on the side of both God and profits. It was McNamara’s idea and decision. He had long been concerned about safety and wanted to bring it in; yet it was also a last-minute decision and a desperate one. They added some safety latches, a deep-dish steering wheel, crash padding in front, and called in J. Walter Thompson to do the campaign. The theme was that Ford was safe and safety was good for you, something that sounds mild to the uninitiated but which was revolutionary at the time. When the cars came out, Chevy was, predictably, a great success; the Ford was a bust and McNamara’s job even seemed to be on the line. Then he caught the flu and went to Florida for a rest. While he was gone some of the General Motors executives and some of their old friends at Ford tried a coup against McNamara. Apparently high GM officials called Henry and said—look, this is serious, you’re ruining the auto industry, you’re selling death, the image you’re projecting is violent and ugly (cars, after all, were for pleasure and brought happiness. On the te...