8th
July
2009
Robert McNamara: Before Vietnam, There Was Ford
posted in Car News Articles |
“He wore granny glasses, and he put out a granny car.” That’s how one auto writer, quoted in Robert Lacey’s excellent 1986 book, Ford, summed up Robert S. McNamara’s tenure at Ford Motor Company, during which he launched the plain-jane Ford Falcon compact to compete with Chevy’s Corvair and Chrysler’s Valiant. As is so often the case with McNamara, who died Monday in Washington, aged 93, it was a neat soundbite, but nowhere near the whole story.
McNamara was of course best known as a controversial Secretary of Defense in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, where he oversaw the escalation of America’s involvement in the Vietnam War. But before Vietnam, there was the Ford Motor Company.
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