Word: mcnamara
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...shift in strategic thinking under McNamara boils down to an increased flexibility in how the U.S. might respond to whatever an enemy does. From nuclear warfare down to a jungle skirmish, it provides for McNamara's insistence upon "options." Under Eisenhower, the basic reliance was upon total nuclear retaliation...
...McNamara presents his theories in a manner that others find not easy to argue with, for he has in his head all the facts and figures that led to the formulation of policy.* Every argument has been neatly organized, every problem "quantified," every solution tucked into a compartment to await its proper time to be applied. McNamara's speech bristles with the no-nonsense language of "controlled response," "second-strike capability" and "counterforce." Yet, despite the difficulty of refuting it, his strategy is highly controversial-and, despite his considerable abilities, Robert McNamara is a highly controversial Secretary of Defense...
Part of the U.S.-British deal was a U.S. offer to develop and sell to Britain at discount prices a nuclear-armed, 1,000-mile, air-launched missile named Skybolt. But late last year Skybolt was churned through McNamara's cost-performance computers and found wanting: as a weapon, McNamara decided, Skybolt was simply not worth the money and effort. His decision made, McNamara flew off to London to tell British Defense Minister Peter Thorneycroft the bad news. McNamara had not reckoned on the reaction. Harold Macmillan's Tory government was already on shaky political ground; its Labor...
Still unshaken and unshakable, McNamara returned to the U.S., went vacationing in California's High Sierras ("You don't know the feeling you get when you're on top of a mountain"), hopeful that the storm would soon blow over. Instead, it grew worse. President Kennedy agreed to meet Macmillan at Nassau. Kennedy ordered McNamara back from vacation to attend the sessions, which Secretary of State Dean Rusk...
...Nassau meetings, Harold Macmillan convinced Kennedy that he simply could not afford to go home emptyhanded. But what to give him? Neither Kennedy nor McNamara had any real plan, but they swiftly hammered one out. Under it, the U.S. offered to sell Polaris missiles to Britain (program's eventual cost: about $1 billion), which Britain would place under a new NATO nuclear command but could withdraw for its own use under certain unlikely circumstances...