Word: mcnamara
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...experts claimed that it supported their own differing views. Just as Secretary of State George Shultz argued that The Day After should inspire Americans to rally around President Reagan, Astronomer Carl Sagan foresaw real danger of all life being extinguished in a state of freezing darkness. There was Robert McNamara arguing that the number of missiles must be reduced, and there was Kissinger explaining the need for tough strategic thinking. The only panelist who laid no claim to being an expert on nuclear strategy was the writer Elie Wiesel, and to Moderator Ted Koppel's question of what should...
...Kennedy Administration was his passage from a sometimes indiscriminate anti-Communist hard line to a deepening awareness of the real dangers of nuclear war. It did not help Kennedy in this passage that he assembled a staff of war-hawk anti-Communist intellectuals (McGeorge Bundy, Walt Rostow and Robert McNamara, for example) who were brilliantly nimble and self-confident and often disastrously wrong about what counted most. They could be overbearing men, and curiously disconnected from the realities of American life. Once, after Vice President Johnson talked wonderingly of all the brilliant characters Kennedy had brought into the White House...
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Maxwell Taylor and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara were dubious about the prospects for a "surgical" strike limited to the missiles. If the U.S. wanted to "knock out" all Soviet weapons capable of hitting American soil from Cuba, said McNamara, it would have to bomb "airfields, plus the aircraft... plus all potential nuclear [warhead] storage sites." The President's brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, fretted that such extensive bombing would "kill an awful lot of people," in which case it would be "almost incumbent on the Russians" to threaten a strong counterblow, perhaps...
Toward the close of the evening meeting, McNamara eloquently pleaded that the planners consider "what kind of world we live in after we've struck Cuba ... how do we stop at that point?" Instead of an air strike, McNamara began talking of a blockade, accompanied by "an ultimatum" to the Soviets, which he conceded would have dangers also. Said he: "This alternative doesn't seem to be a very acceptable one, but wait until you work on the others." That provoked grim laughter, but after many more meetings a blockade was decided on. It ultimately drew overwhelming support...
...First is that if we are to conduct an air strike against these installations, or against any part of Cuba, we must agree now that we will schedule that prior to the time these missile sites become operational," said Defense Secretary Robert McNamara. In the talks, the transcript reveals that the administration's strongest concern was whether these sites could be used to deploy missiles within a two week period. During these meetings, however, the administration agreed on action which eventually succeeded in forcing the Soviets to remove the missiles: A U.S. blockade of Cuba, and Kennedy's public...