Fonsini,
Speaking about Robert McNamara, here is what President Trump's new National Security Advisor, Lt. General H.R. McMaster, had to say about him relative to the Vietnam War:
McMaster portrays Robert McNamara, a former president of the Ford Motor Company who had become Secretary of Defense, as foolish. He said that he viewed Vietnam “as another business management problem” and “forged ahead oblivious to the human and psychological complexities of war.” “McNamara and his assistants in the Department of Defense were arrogant,” McMaster wrote. “They disparaged military advice because they thought that their intelligence and analytical methods could compensate for their lack of military experience and education. Indeed military experience seemed to them a liability because military officers took too narrow a view and based their advice on antiquated notions of war.”
I suspect McNamara continued his arrogance when it came to pushing the multi-service role of the to be F-111 as a cost reduction over two separate designs, very foolish. I suppose you could call the F-35 program concept another "business management problem" going back to its very beginning.
