The Best and the Brightest

"[President] Kennedy understood the gaps in [Robert] McNamara; even if he was brilliant, he was not wise. When Kennedy told him to bring back an answer on a question, McNamara would work diligently, come back, and present the answer to the question. If Kennedy noted that this was not the answer he wanted, McNamara would disappear and come back with the right answer this time... Kenny O'Donnell, who had become one of McNamara's more constant critics within the government and who would later argue vociferously with Bobby Kennedy that most of the mistakes of the Kennedy era had stemmed from McNamara...

It is not a particularly happy chapter in his life, he did not serve himself nor the country well, he was, there's no kinder or gentler word for it, a fool."