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Book takes a deep look at McNamara

A telltale sign that Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara no longer believed in the Vietnam War came not from anything he said publicly, but how he said it.

Harold Brown, who served under McNamara at the Pentagon as director of defense research and engineering and later as secretary of the Air Force, came to recognize the mannerisms McNamara would display when voicing public support for policies with which he privately disagreed.

McNamara would “lean forward and pull his socks up,” Brown said Tuesday.

“Bob became skeptical about the Vietnam War well before he stopped talking about how great it was going,” added Brown, who later served as secretary of defense under President Jimmy Carter....

Read entire article at WaPo