The quantitative defense secretary who led the Vietnam War and helped prevent nuclear war in the Cuban Missile Crisis
The major lesson of the Cuban missile crisis: the indefinite combination of human fallibility and nuclear weapons will destroy nations.
The eighth U.S. Secretary of Defense (1961–1968), and its longest-serving holder, leading the Pentagon under both Kennedy and Johnson for over seven years. In the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, he was the first in EXCOMM to propose a naval 'quarantine' over an airstrike and became its fiercest advocate, arguing it would show Khrushchev resolve while remaining a controlled choice that need not escalate into military conflict. Yet in Vietnam, the same quantitative analyst who championed escalation grew privately skeptical, and 27 years after leaving office he confessed in his memoir that the war was 'wrong, terribly wrong.' He later served as president of the World Bank (1968–1981), redirecting its focus from infrastructure to poverty reduction.
Career Timeline
- 1943–1946USAAF Office of Statistical Control, discharged as Lt. Col.
- 1946–1960Ford Motor Company, president (1960)
- 1961–19688th U.S. Secretary of Defense
- 1968–1981President of the World Bank