Word: mcnamara
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...Defense Department that Robert McNamara took over in 1961 was already inching, however painfully, toward internal unity. The new Secretary substituted revolution for evolution to create an entirely new order and installed it so firmly that its main lines will most likely prove irreversible...
...principal instrument was the defense budget, which had traditionally been sliced up among the three services, with each recipient determining pretty much how its portion should be spent. McNamara replaced this with a system of allocation by function, or mission, regardless of service bureaucracy. Nine broad missions were defined, such as strategic forces and general-purpose forces, and the Army, Navy and Air Force departments were compelled to integrate their efforts whether the activity was nuclear targeting or paper-clip purchases...
...Pentagon was so unaccustomed to common effort that early in his career McNamara was called on to personally, preside over an assay of butchers' smocks to select one design for all services. He soon established the Defense Supply Agency for such activities. He also created the Defense Intelligence Agency to coordinate previously scattered intelligence efforts, and centralized other key functions. Under McNamara, the concept and practice of systems analysis were introduced. The goal: scientific evaluation of major weapons developments and other expensive projects to determine as objectively as possible the return for a proposed investment compared with that...
...these sessions he liked to cite John Kennedy's original direction to him: "Determine what forces are required and procure and support them as economically as possible." The first half of this mandate meant more spending. Even before the Viet Nam war reached major proportions, McNamara's budget was $10 billion above those of the last Eisenhower years because Kennedy was determined to establish his own military strategy-flexible response instead of John Foster Dulles' massive retaliation. Flexible response dictated that the nation must be able to meet any military challenge, whether nuclear, conventional or guerrilla...
Against such accomplishments, notably development of new missiles, aircraft and ordnance, McNamara's critics charge him with large debits. He burdened controversial proposals with a rigid approach that gained enemies in Congress. Partly for this reason, he was never able to fully implement good ideas such as reform of the National Guard and the Army Reserve...