Quote

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.

Robert McNamara

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Robert McNamara
Age: 92 †
Born: 1916
Born: September 6
Died: 2009
Died: July 6
Banker
Economist
Former United States Secretary Of Defense
Military Personnel
Politician
Writer
San Francisco County
California
McNamara
Robert Strange McNamara
Robert S. McNamara
Nation
Pounds
Hotly
Week
Merit
Injuring
Issues
Seriously
Disputed
Pretty
Tiny
Merits
Greatest
Issue
Superpower
Nations
Killing
Pound
Trying
Picture
Backward
World
Whose
Submission

More quotes by Robert McNamara

Image
Short of nuclear war itself, population growth is the gravest issue the world faces. If we do not act, the problem will be solved by famine, riots, insurrection and war.
Robert McNamara
Image
Neither conscience nor sanity itself suggests that the United States is, should or could be the global gendarme.
Robert McNamara
Image
It would be our policy to use nuclear weapons wherever we felt it necessary to protect our forces and achieve our objectives.
Robert McNamara
Image
Poor planning or poor execution of plans is simply to let some force other than reason shape reality.
Robert McNamara
Image
The war in Vietnam is going well and will succeed.
Robert McNamara
Image
Action should be founded on contemplation, and those of us who act don't put enough time, don't give enough emphasis, to contemplation.
Robert McNamara
Image
I don't object to its being called McNamara's war. I think it is a very important war and I am pleased to be identified with it and do whatever I can to win it.
Robert McNamara
Image
It was a perfectly beautiful night, as fall nights are in Washington. I walked out of the president's Oval Office, and as I walked out, I thought I might never live to see another Saturday night.
Robert McNamara
Image
We do not have the God-given right to shape every nation in our image or as we choose.
Robert McNamara
Image
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.
Robert McNamara
Image
Management is the gate through which social and economic and political change, indeed change in every direction, is diffused though society.
Robert McNamara
Image
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.
Robert McNamara
Image
The indefinite combination of human fallibility and nuclear weapons will lead to the destruction of nations.
Robert McNamara
Image
All those involved in the firebombing of Tokyo .. were war criminals interviews recorded in the movie The Fog of War.. the firebombing of Tokyo occurred before the atom bombs.. 100,000 civilians died in one night from American bombs.. 500,000 altogether over several days say some.
Robert McNamara
Image
At my age, 85, I'm at age where I can look back and derive some conclusions about my actions. My rule has been try to learn, try to understand what happened. Develop the lessons and pass them on.
Robert McNamara
Image
We see what we want to believe.
Robert McNamara
Image
What makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?
Robert McNamara
Image
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.
Robert McNamara
Image
General, you don't have a war plan! All you have is a kind of horrible spasm!
Robert McNamara
Image
I formed the hypothesis that each of us could have achieved our objectives without the terrible loss of life. And I wanted to test that by going to Vietnam.
Robert McNamara