From David Halberstam (1934–2007), American journalist and historian, The Best and the Brightest (1972):
Why did McNamara have such good figures? Why did McNamara have such good staff work and Ball such poor staff work? The next day Ball would angrily dispatch his staff to come up with the figures, to find out how McNamara had gotten them, and the staff would burrow away and occasionally find that one of the reasons that Ball did not have comparable figures was that they did not always exist. McNamara had invented them, he dissembled even within the bureaucracy, though, of course, always for a good cause. It was part of his sense of service. He believed in what he did, and thus the morality of it was assured, and everything else fell into place. It was all right to lie and dissemble for the right causes. It was part of service, loyalty to the President, not to the nation, not to colleagues, it was a very special bureaucratic-corporate definition of integrity; you could do almost anything you wanted as long as it served your superior.
Reblogged this on The way I see things … and commented:
“It was all right to lie and dissemble for the right causes. It was part of service, loyalty to the President, not to the nation, not to colleagues, it was a very special bureaucratic-corporate definition of integrity; you could do almost anything you wanted as long as it served your superior.”
Robert, hope you are well. I have a question unrelated to this post. If you have posted about this I have missed it due to work.
—Here on the shorers of Virginia the price of gas per gallon has increased quickly! From the jaw dropping $1.50 to $2 or more in just a few week. I am surprised at the increase – is this a result of anything specific in the economy or is it more of a leveling out from the drastic drop we saw over the winter?
Thank you for your time.
Lisa,
I think its mostly a catch up for the price of oil going from the high twenties per barrel to the low to mid forties. That’s about a 50 percent increase in the last three months or so. It also may reflect the cost of reformulation of the gas for summer, which many states mandate.