Robert McNamara was the brains behind some of the biggest f***-ups in U.S. history.
Perhaps this is the man who can teach us how to avoid another?
“The Fog of War” is in the running for my upcoming list of “Best Documentaries on War”.
Thanks to movie maker (and Daily Doc subscriber) Brian Savelson for moving this up in my queue.
Trailer for “The Fog of War”
Watch “The Fog of War”
You can rent “The Fog of War” ($3.99 last I checked) on Apple TV, Amazon, Fandango and Microsoft.
You can also rent it on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU1bzm-BW0o (I find that streaming guides like JustWatch often don’t list YouTube as a place to watch documentaries). They should.
You can find most of the latest streaming options at https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/the-fog-of-war
Ratings:
- My Rating: 95/100
- IMDB Rating: 8.1/10
- Rotten Tomatoes Ratings: 93/100 (Users); 96/100 (Critics)
Release Date: December 19, 2003
My Review of “The Fog of War”
The trailer (in Robert McNamara’s words) says it all:
“I think the human race needs to think more about killing. How much evil must we do in order to do good?”
War is chaos. And McNamara helped shape it.
Errol Morris’s “The Fog of War” captures him reflecting on decisions about WWII firestorms, nuclear war and Vietnam.
Morris uses McNamara’s 11 lessons as a framework. Each is a chilling insight into war’s messy realities.
Morris, known for “The Thin Blue Line,” “Leaving the Earth,” “Vernon, Florida,” , “A Brief History of Time,” “Fast, Cheap & Out of Control,” “Tabloid,” and “Standard Operating Procedure,” is a master of tough questions.
You Can’t Make This Sh*t Up”
- McNamara Was Into Safety Early On — At Ford Motor Company in the 1950s, his cost-cutting made millions, earning him the nickname “Whiz Kid.” He advocated for safety features like seat belts at a time when car manufacturers resisted such additions, thinking they would hurt sales by making cars seem dangerous.
- McNamara recalls General Curtis LeMay’s bluntness. “If we’d lost the war, we’d all be tried as war criminals,” LeMay said. McNamara doesn’t argue.
The Numbers Obsession (including killing “millions”).
McNamara’s obsession with efficiency shaped his career. At Ford, he slashed costs with ruthless precision.
During WWII, as a young statistician, he analyzed bombing campaigns.
The results were horrifying. Incendiary bombs killed 100,000 civilians in Tokyo in one night.
Entire neighborhoods were erased. McNamara calculated that U.S. air raids burned 67 Japanese cities, killing millions.
Logic Meets War
In Vietnam, McNamara applied his data-driven mindset. He used body counts to measure success. His strategies reduced human lives to numbers.
The doc shows this chillingly.
McNamara later admits, “It wasn’t just numbers. It was people.”
His logic failed him. The Viet Cong’s resilience, U.S. public anger, and the war’s moral cost were ignored.
McNamara acknowledges some mistakes but stops short of taking full blame.
The Cold War’s Brink
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, McNamara’s advice helped avoid nuclear war.
He emphasized empathy—“understanding your enemy”—to defuse the standoff.
Morris shows this with declassified tapes and haunting visuals. The world was a hair’s breadth from disaster.
Morris’s Method
The doc is razor-sharp. Morris uses an Interrotron camera to pull you into McNamara’s world. His face, full of regret and pride, fills the frame.
His sharp editing and eerie Philip Glass score make this doc unforgettable.
Lesser-Known Insights About McNamara
- In college, McNamara mapped the shortest paths between college classes to save time.
- During WWII, McNamara helped make bombing raids more efficient using statistical analysis. He determined that flying planes at lower altitudes would be more effective, even though conventional wisdom said otherwise.
- McNamara revealed that during the Cuban Missile Crisis, we came much closer to nuclear war than the public realized at the time. He learned years later that there were Soviet submarines with nuclear torpedoes near the American blockade.
- He had the shortest tenure of any Ford president – just over a month – before being called to serve in Kennedy’s cabinet. He was making around $400,000 a year at Ford (a huge sum for 1960) but took the government job at a much lower salary because he felt called to public service.
Wrap Up
“The Fog of War” is a brutal look at leadership and morality. McNamara’s brilliance and flaws are on full display. He emerges as a man both haunted by and proud of his legacy.
This isn’t just history. It’s a gut-punch reminder of war’s human cost. Watch it. Question everything.
“The Fog of War” is the best documentary on war in the U.S. that I know of.
Thanks for reading!
Rob Kelly, Chief Maniac, Daily Doc