Taken from From Dealey Plaza to Gulf of Tonkin by John Crandell:
Random thoughts on the leadup to Lyndon's Big Lie (The first of a three-part dissection of LBJ).
Statistics were ever the bottom line with Robert Strange McNamara. Numbers were his only mantra. Once installed at the Pentagon early in 1961 he brought in his "Whiz Kids" and having received carte blanche from JFK, began a top-to-bottom review of the entire defense program. His deadline ran right into the brick wall of normative operations in the five rings of the five-sided Pentagon. His management techniques gained in formulating firebombing of cities in World War II, in college studies, and rising through the ranks at Ford, Inc. quickly were short-circuited by military bureaucracy. Added power granted by Kennedy allowed him to push aside and largely ignore the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In White House meetings, they would never volunteer a word of advice unless asked and their mute reticence irked Kennedy.... Read More
