Former Ford Motor Company Prez Dead at 93

To anyone who owns a Ford Falcon or Edsel:

Former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara has died.
McNamara, 93, died at home in his sleep Monday morning, his wife Diana told The Associated Press. She said he had been in failing health for some time.
Known as a policymaker with a fixation for statistical analysis, McNamara was president of the Ford Motor Co. when President John F. Kennedy asked him to head the Pentagon in 1961.
McNamara worked for seven years as the defense secretary in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, longer than any other person in that post. He headed the war department during the build-up of forces in Vietnam.
He is considered the architect of the concept of "mutual assured destruction," a key feature of the nuclear arms race during the Cold War.

 

The man behind the Ford Falcon.

 

Also, the "brains" behind LBJ's horrible decisions in the war in Vietnam in the '60s. No great loss here, I'm afraid.

 

Sorry to hear of his passing. He may have been a brilliant man, but he should have known better to step into the poop known as politics. Should have stayed in private industry where he may have done more and better things.

 

Tech week?

 

And Kyle was sad

 

"Whiz Kid" McNamara was knee-deep in Ford after the end of WWII when he was brought in with a group of other Army Air Force logistics officers that were geek-deep in scientific management. He worked his way up to Prez of FoMoCo in the fall of '60, along the way he also pushed for the 4-seat T-bird as far back as Jan '55 because the two-seaters didn't turn a profit. A quintisessntial "bean counter" and as noted above not a "car guy" like his successors such as Arjay Miller and Lee Iaccoca.

What many don't know is that he was originally approached by JFK to be Secretary of the Treasury, but for some reason Sec'y of Defense was where he went. His stint with the World Bank may have been his attempt for atoning for 'Nam, but nobody can get past his responsibility for what happened in '61-'68.

Cold and calculating...great qualities for a leader.

 

LeMay was the hero and the guy who knew how to fight a war; I had tonight's Savage Nation on and what little was said about McNamara wasn't nice. Way off topic so I won't get into it here, but I agree on the no loss side of things.

 

In about 1970, Henry Ford II told Time:

"I think the glamour of the automobile is decreasing, people are looking at it now as a machine to get from place to place to do something else."

I've often wondered whether McNamara was responsible for that shift in attitudes, or whether he just saw it ten years before his contemporaries.

Regardless, I'm disappointed he'll never sign my glovebox door now. Though I doubt he approved of dolling up the Falcon in the the Futura.

-Dave

 

He had nothing to do with the Edsel. That was a done deal before he took over.

 

I hope he now will injoy all the blood on his hands. only after 30 years did he say I may have made a mistake. SOB ,

 

BINGO!
The world can do without shit like him.