Abstract Robert McNamara was acknowledged by all to be brilliant and hyper-rational and secretly revealed to be emotional and altruistic, yet he recommended massive US military action in Vietnam. Then he quickly decided the war could not be won, yet he continued to support it in policy decisions. The Taubman book explores this contradiction and offers a psychological biography as well. Such a personality study is fascinating, but it is not clear that it is warranted by McNamara's individual role in the policy.
Richard K. Betts (2025) studied this question.