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Body by Ford. In 1943 McNamara quit Harvard and joined the Army Air Forces as a captain, wound up at war's end as member of a ten-man team of specialists in statistical control. They hired themselves out to Ford in a body and were dubbed the "Whiz Kids." Whizzier than most of the others was Kid McNamara. Ford named him company controller in 1949, group vice president (for all cars and trucks) in 1957, president in 1960.
In the power-driven world of autoland. McNamara stood out like an old-fashioned running board. He avoided the after-hours society of other carmakers, bought a $50,000 English Tudor home at Ann Arbor, the seat of the University of Michigan. There the McNamaras cultivated friends on the faculty, held informal book-club seminars, developed a taste for sauteed rattlesnake meat, followed the arts, spent their vacations mountain climbing, hiking and skiing. Once, after studiously reading a how-to book on golf, he gave it a swing, fared so badly that he chucked the whole thing. His mechanical ability was about as good as his golf. One humid morning, when his Ford refused to start, he yelled for his wife, who simply raised the hood, dried off the damp spark plugs. "Try it now," said she. It worked, and so, that day, did Bob McNamara.
Safety Bug. An elder in the Presbyterian Church, McNamara practiced his ethics in his business life as well as in family affairs. He resolutely refused business gifts, insisted on renting cars on business trips out of town. He bugged Ford officials on safety in the days of the big-horsepower competition, forbade his people to attend or to support auto racing. He refused to follow company requests that he urge subordinates to support the Republican Party, but won his demand that employees be encouraged to back the party of their choice (he supported both, calls himself an independent, voted for Kennedy in '60).
At Ford, McNamara was a veritable Thunderbird-dog, always questioning, always jacking up his associates, always pressing for improvements. He wrote memos on the back of his church bulletin during Sunday services, shot them out to his people the next day. To many Ford-men, McNamara was nothing short of a genius ("The friendly computer" recalls one associate); to others, he was an opportunistic thinking machine without a soul. Before he left Ford for Washington, he had become a millionaire (1960 income: $410,000).
Bull Run? When Kennedy offered McNamara the defense job, McNamara studied the situation with his characteristic detachment—"just as he does everything," says his wife Marg. "He would say: 'A—which would be best for Marg and the children? B—would I be of more value here or in Washington?' C, D, and so on—considerations from all angles." When he joined the breakfast procession of potential appointees at Kennedy's Georgetown house, McNamara told the President elect: "I talked over the defense job with Tom Gates [Ike's Defense Secretary], and after seeing what it's all about, I am convinced I can handle it." Replied Kennedy with a smile: "I talked over the presidency with Eisenhower, and after hearing what it's all about, I'm convinced I can handle it." With that, the new Defense Secretary was hired.