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."

McNamara vs. Iacocca (Ford v Ferrari)

As an aside thought but while reading David Halberstam's The Best and the Brightest I couldn't help but make an observation. Halberstam wrote:

But after he left, Lee Iacocca, who would eventually succeed him said that Bob McNamara had damn near ruined Ford by pushing that Falcon, too simple a car, with too small a profit for the company. Iacocca symbolized exactly the opposite of McNamara in the auto world... Lee brought in the Mustang, a car designed for the American consumer in just the way McNamara's cars were not.

It occurred to me that in the Matt Damon, Christian Bale movie Ford v Ferrari neither McNamara or Lee Iacocca is portrayed although Henry Ford II plays a significant role. Guess if either McNamara or Iacocca was portrayed it might have taken the film down a significant rabbit hole that was not central to the plot.

By the way - I enjoyed both the book and the movie.

EDIT: Mea culpa! Iacocca was portrayed in the movie. I just overlooked him several times. My bad.