WI: Robert McNamara remained President of Ford

On the silos issue not all of them actually have to contain missiles. The Soviets would never know for sure what silos were loaded and which empty which would force them to spread the nuclear forces over more targets. That reduces the vulnerability of the missile force and makes the deterrent more effective, making a war less, rather than more, likely.

Did someone actually suggest building decoy silos in the 60s? I know that was part of the various Peacekeeper plans, but I haven't before heard of doing it with Minuteman. Either way, it seems to me like a good way to spend a lot of money for a very uncertain benefit. And, given that at one point SAC claimed they needed 10,000 Minutemen, I think any half-sane SecDef would need to draw a hard line somewhere.
 
You don't get it. There is no support for this. Second, the SecDef outranks them and that would be a career limiting move.

Of corse, appealing to facts and logic are pointless here. Not when there is urban legend tha tfits with your skewed views.

All it takes is this: from ComTF-77: "Captain, do you agree that our visitor has outlasted his time aboard your ship?" Captain: "Yes, Admiral, I do." Admiral: "You know what to do." The carrier skipper turns to the snot and tells him "There's a COD leaving for Subic Bay in a half-hour. Be on it, because you've been aboard my ship long enough. And I'm not allowing you to ruin the morale of the air wing by voicing remarks such as those you've just made."

The staffer is in no one's chain of command, he has no rank, and thus can be removed from the ship if the Captain so chooses. And guess what? The Captain did choose.
 
Did someone actually suggest building decoy silos in the 60s?

I'm not suggesting that they would be actual decoy silos. I'd imagine that SAC could rotate missiles between silos if they did not get the full 1,000, plus spares, they hoped for.


Yes, Phil, you caught us we made the whole thing up. No DOD staffer during Mac's time ever visited a carrier, in fact there was no carrier, or Vietnam War. Both were made up by conservatives to make McNamara look bad. All those independent sources I've heard the same story from who don't know each other are part of a huge and vast right-wing conspiracy. :rolleyes:
Mac was in fact the best SECDEF ever, I admit it. :p
 
All it takes is this: from ComTF-77: "Captain, do you agree that our visitor has outlasted his time aboard your ship?" Captain: "Yes, Admiral, I do." Admiral: "You know what to do." The carrier skipper turns to the snot and tells him "There's a COD leaving for Subic Bay in a half-hour. Be on it, because you've been aboard my ship long enough. And I'm not allowing you to ruin the morale of the air wing by voicing remarks such as those you've just made."

The staffer is in no one's chain of command, he has no rank, and thus can be removed from the ship if the Captain so chooses. And guess what? The Captain did choose.

Honestly this seem one of the myths and legends that exist in any workplace, civilian and military alike, a friend of a friend of a friend tell me that...and sorry the credibility of your 'insider' are not very high in this case as their 'love' for McNamara or McNormal is know.
Regarding his deed well i think his better concentrate on his abysmall management of the Vietnam situation than the little toys he canned...and frankly his reasoning about the missile instead of the bomber is sound even if depressing and the B-70 even if for some miracle work it will probably a be like the B-2 a really really expensive piece of tecnology whit a limited capacity of utilization because mantenaince is very problematic
 
I'm not suggesting that they would be actual decoy silos. I'd imagine that SAC could rotate missiles between silos if they did not get the full 1,000, plus spares, they hoped for.

So he should have pulled the plug on SAC's expansion plans, but waited longer to do it, so we'd have excess silos but not the missiles to fill them? :confused: Unless the scheme was suggested IOTL around that time, it seems more likely they would have either built enough missiles to fill the silos, or just abandoned the excess silos. Besides, by the time the Soviets can target our ICBMs with any degree of accuracy, we have more than enough SLBMs to ensure MAD.

I'm not a fan of McNamara, but he did some things that needed to be done. Maybe they would have been done by another SecDef - maybe not. But ending the predelegation letters, improving C3I, and expanding the SIOP were all absolutely necessary, and he deserves some credit for them.
 
Last edited:
Fictious? Just because there's no online source doesn't mean it didn't happen. In case you don't get it, the Admiral is in charge of TF-77, and the Captain is in charge of the ship. And both officers can order anyone visiting off the ship at any time. Which they did. And, if this snot had tried making the same argument to the squadron COs aboard the flagship, guess what? They'd be in a mood to have him hung from the yardarm. Why? They and their guys are the ones going in over the beach every day, into some very tough defenses, and knowing there are guys willing to risk their own hides to pull them out from either death (bad) or captivity (worse) makes you feel better when you're going out.

And from a google book on military quotations: the Admiral who uttered these words was RADM Daniel V. Gallery, who captured the U-505 in 1944:

" The Pentagon Whiz Kids are, I think, conscientious, patriotic people who are experts at calculating odds, figuring cost-effectiveness and squeezing the last cent out of contract negotiations. But they are heavy handed butchers in dealing with that delicate, vital thing called "morale". This is the stuff that makes ships like the Enterprise, puts flags on top of Iwo Jima and wins wars. "

Rear Admiral Daniel V. Gallery:
Eight Bells and All's Well, 1965

And pick up a copy of the book by Nicholson and Tilman while you're at it. I have a copy, and it does describe the opposition by said Whiz Kids to CSAR operations over NVN. Anyone who advocated such a course of action fully deserved then, and does now, to get kicked off the ship. At least one of the carrier skippers in The Hook article (not online-sorry, but lots of historical sources are not in the e-verse) says the story about ComTF-77 kicking the Whiz Kid off the ship is quite true. It should be: the man was the skipper of the carrier in question (Kitty Hawk). As far as I'm concerned, the Whiz Kid attitude to fighting a war should be disposed of.

I agree, there is no real reason to doubt it. I would need a good source conflicting the admirals testimony to disbelieve and I didn't have a burning hatred of Bob McNamara.
 
To expant on the carrier incident I mentioned earlier I have managed to get the following information from a contact who knows more:

"The "best and brightest" back in Washington did little to solve the problem either. Cost-analysis devotees during the McNamara years occasionally pointed out the financial discrepancy in risking even low-priced assets such as H-2's and A-I's in rescue attempts. After all, they calculated, there were always more aviators than airplanes, so why expose additional aircraft and crews to increased risk just to fetch back one flier who got himself bagged."
To be honest that sounds entirely plausible, someone did do the calculation but no-one ever said it on a carrier, it even ties in with the Admirals quote. Sure someone saying it in an meeting room rather than a carrier deck is not as good as story, but that's what we have urban myths for.

I do I get the impression it does sum up McNamara though; he applied cost-benefit to pretty much everything. The problem with that approach is it's good for some issues (the B-70), awful for others (the picking up pilots example) as some things, like pilot morale, are incalculable. Not as in 'Too large to be calculated' but in the literal 'something you cannot calculate', how do you put a meaningful number on morale?

Maybe if he'd stayed at Ford and just rented out the whizkids for various analyses which the DoD would then sanity check before using? Not sure how plausible that is though.
 
Exactly--the calculations were undoubtedly done. That sort of calculation pre-dates MacNamara, though. The pilots claiming that unnamed "whiz kids" made that statements sounds like exaggeration or selective editing on their part. If the folks were there when that was actually said, they would be able to name folks, not just give vague labels.


The irony is that soldiers do this sort of calculation all the time. They ask if the objective is worth the cost.
To be honest that sounds entirely plausible, someone did do the calculation but no-one ever said it on a carrier, it even ties in with the Admirals quote. Sure someone saying it in an meeting room rather than a carrier deck is not as good as story, but that's what we have urban myths for.

I do I get the impression it does sum up McNamara though; he applied cost-benefit to pretty much everything. The problem with that approach is it's good for some issues (the B-70), awful for others (the picking up pilots example) as some things, like pilot morale, are incalculable. Not as in 'Too large to be calculated' but in the literal 'something you cannot calculate', how do you put a meaningful number on morale?

Maybe if he'd stayed at Ford and just rented out the whizkids for various analyses which the DoD would then sanity check before using? Not sure how plausible that is though.
 
Last edited:
A DOD staffer has no authority aboard ship-nor does anyone above him. They're not in the chain of command, so if the Skipper (and the Admiral) want the staffer off the ship, they can do so. Just because he's a DOD staffer doesn't mean he has any authority aboard ship-nor does anyone above him. He may complain about shabby treatment when he gets back to the Pentagon, but the Navy will back up the Task Force Commander and the carrier captain-especially if they despise the whole Whiz Kid approach to fighting anyway (as they did).

I personally know three Naval Aviators, and this story is common knowledge in the Naval Aviation community, even today. It's used as an example of how NOT to run a war (among many other pieces of crap MacNamara had done during SEA).

And I'll take the carrier skipper's version of events any day. He was there, in Flag country with COMTF77 and the other carrier skippers and their CAGs.
 
Gee, Matt, I checked with some navy types I know and they said this is the sort of BS that folks always repeat and you would have to be a fool to believe this sort of story. Basically, they agreed with what I said--it's something blown out of proportion and embroidered upon to fit their beliefs. Even the version that is posted that cites a book does not take place on a ship.

As I said, if you want to believe urban legends and rumors, that is no surprise to me. Rather, it is consistent with your posting history.

Further, if the DoD sends his representative to a meeting--because the even the unverified published account that features unnamed whiz kid types at an unspecified meeting did not have the meeting take place on a ship--and the military is rude to the DoD, then the officers are in for a world of hurt career wise. I heard that from a bunch jag corps types I know.

So if you want to believe your Hollywood type version of reality, keep on, Matt. That's all I expect of you.



A DOD staffer has no authority aboard ship-nor does anyone above him. They're not in the chain of command, so if the Skipper (and the Admiral) want the staffer off the ship, they can do so. Just because he's a DOD staffer doesn't mean he has any authority aboard ship-nor does anyone above him. He may complain about shabby treatment when he gets back to the Pentagon, but the Navy will back up the Task Force Commander and the carrier captain-especially if they despise the whole Whiz Kid approach to fighting anyway (as they did).

I personally know three Naval Aviators, and this story is common knowledge in the Naval Aviation community, even today. It's used as an example of how NOT to run a war (among many other pieces of crap MacNamara had done during SEA).

And I'll take the carrier skipper's version of events any day. He was there, in Flag country with COMTF77 and the other carrier skippers and their CAGs.
 
Last edited:
If you don't want to believe the story, that's up to you. But I'll take the word of Kitty Hawk's skipper any day-he's the one who wrote the piece for The Hook magazine in the early '90s. And personally, the Skipper did the right thing in kicking that snot off his ship. Because, if that Whiz Kid had gotten into a ready room with his "advice", who knows what would've happened.....and he probably would have been thrown overboard by angry pilots.

And take this into account from someone over on the HPCA board:

"Lots of odd little incidents happen that don't show anyone in a positive light, but which it's in the interests of all involved not to take further - hence no reliable sources. That doesn't mean that they didn't happen. Once the incident has been through a few filters, distorting each time, it's quite possible that 'said something ridiculous and almost got thrown overboard' turned into 'occasionally pointed out'. Generally, wherever there's smoke there's fire, but a small fire can make an awful lot more smoke than a big one."

Anyone who suggests such a cost-benefit approach to CSAR today is the one who should get a court-martial if in the service, or fired from DOD if a civilian. Knowing three Naval Aviators-and one of 'em does fly CSAR for a profession-and they know full well if they go down, there are some gutsy men and women who will put their own hides on the line to pull them from either death (a bad situation) or captivity (a very bad situation). And that's something that helps you when you do go over the beach. Which is something the Whiz Kid approach never took into account.
 
Anyone who suggests such a cost-benefit approach to CSAR today is the one who should get a court-martial if in the service, or fired from DOD if a civilian.
That's a very bad idea, you don't want to declare the wrong type of thinking as a sackable offence. It's a sure fire way to make sure nothing changes and people keep their mouths shut about genuine problems out of fear of saying the wrong thing. I'm not for a moment suggesting that approach to S&R is right (it isn't) but killing off ideas using the threat of unemployment is not healthy.

Ideally you'd want some actual experience and the hard numbers in any decision, of course that's a damned hard balance to strike but it's what you should be aiming for. Just dismissing either out of hand will lead to problems.
 
Mid '66 to early '67. Kitty Hawk had two cruises to SEA in this time frame, and the incident is said to have happened aboard that ship. Back then, turnarounds between combat cruises were pretty short: five months.

Killing off a bad idea by sacking or court-martialing someone is what the actual operators would want in the ideal world (and I'd be inclined to agree with that). In all likelihood, said person who made the suggestion would wind up in a dead-end job with two chances for promotion: none, and when hell freezes over. But the people who depend on CSAR would be justifiably outraged at the mere suggestion this snot made, and to call them "boiling mad" would be an understatement. They're the ones going in over the beach day after day, and having people willing and able to put their own hides on the line to keep them from death or captivity is a very comforting thought when you are going into hostile territory. Even so, in NVN, only 45% of downed aircrews were rescued. In Laos, it was 61%, and in SVN, 70%. (this is all service branches, btw)
 
Anyone who suggests such a cost-benefit approach to CSAR today is the one who should get a court-martial if in the service, or fired from DOD if a civilian. Knowing three Naval Aviators-and one of 'em does fly CSAR for a profession-and they know full well if they go down, there are some gutsy men and women who will put their own hides on the line to pull them from either death (a bad situation) or captivity (a very bad situation). And that's something that helps you when you do go over the beach. Which is something the Whiz Kid approach never took into account.

Matt, i tell you one think it can be rude, unsensitive, unpolite, you can hate it but in the end is a legitimate question and someone must ask it.
And before someone sent me an enraged response, i worked in resque and i totally disagree with the concept of abandon someone at his destiniy...but nevertheless is still damned appropriate question expecially from the 'whiz kid' pow, as someone of external from the brotherhood of the armed forces who simple and unemotionally see how for saving one people we probably risk five men (not counting the material).
 

Sandman396

Banned
Killing off a bad idea by sacking or court-martialing someone is what the actual operators would want in the ideal world (and I'd be inclined to agree with that).

You hold "operators" in too high an esteem in general.

I agree that in this instance the idea was bad but not every idea that "operators" deem to be bad is actually bad.

From experience I would give them a 50-50 success rate ( and I am being generous at that ).
 
While I think we can agree to disagree about whether the incident took place, or not, what I will say is that a captain on his own ship can order any guest to leave at any time. A visiting DOD staffer is a guest, he/she emphatically does not outrank the captain, or an admiral.

If you wonder where I got that I asked someone who has been a DOD staffer and has visited a carrier.
 
The Whiz Kids were not known for their concern about the possible consequences of some of their "suggestions." And if COMTF77 wanted this individual in question kicked off his flagship, and the captain agreed, that's that. This guy is on the next COD to Subic Bay or Da Nang-no questions asked.

One other thing from the admin over on the HPCA board: he's been a DOD staffer aboard a warship, and he didn't outrank ANYONE. He was a guest aboard ship. And he could've been removed at any time. Not to mention that the Whiz Kids had a pretty contemptous attitude to those who wore the uniform. Even ten years after that sorry time in DOD, they were still dealing with the legacy.
 
Last edited:
Top