"That McNamara's role was major, the he was by default usurping the role of the Secretary of State, did not faze him. He was intelligent, forceful, courageous, decent, everything in fact but wise...
If it just been a matter of getting the right goods to the right villages, we would have won; unfortunately, what we were selling was not what they were buying. This man, whose only real experience had been in dealing with the second largest automotive empire in the world, producing huge Western vehicles, was the last man to understand and measure the problems of a people looking for their political freedom."
In the words of President Lyndon Johnson, "I forgot he had only been president of Ford for one week."