Foil for the Critics

Robert Strange McNamara's many critics charge, among other things, that he is stiff-necked, highhanded and deficient in humor. On the last count, at least, the Secretary of Defense recently refuted his detractors. In rueful acknowledgment of his much criticized role in forcing the aluminum industry to rescind its price increases, McNamara showed up at a Washington party wearing a hat fashioned of aluminum foil. It bore the legend "Join Alcoa."

Back to Edsels. To a less robust spirit, a job in private industry might seem preferable to the contention that swirls around McNamara. Editorial writers and columnists in recent weeks have assailed him for real or imagined offenses ranging all the way from the charge that he rejected "peace feelers" from Hanoi to the cry that he has unrealistically opposed U.S. bombing raids on the North Vietnamese indus trial heartland. Accusing him of sapping Pentagon morale, Barry Goldwater sniffed: "I would like to see him go back to making Edsels." Though the Ford Motor Company prized his talents sufficiently to pay McNamara more than $400,000 a year as its president in 1960, Armed Forces Management, a privately published magazine that has supported him in the past, argues in its current issue that he is not running the Pentagon very well any more.

In another nit-picking controversy, the Defense Department came under fire last week for entrusting nuclear weapons to West German and other NATO bomber groups. This has been acknowledged U.S. practice for five years, but the headlines--and the Pentagon's tight-lipped initial reaction--made it seem as if Russia had reason for its propaganda claim that the U.S. has secretly provided Germany with nuclear arms. In fact, the weapons are innocuous without their triggering devices, which are kept under strict U.S. control.

His War No More. McNamara, who can also display a short-fused temper, has aroused congressional ire more by his manner than his policies. "Generally Congressmen respect him," says a congressional committee aide. "But his greatest single weakness is that he knows nothing about people." Despite congressional attempts to block his reorganization of the Army Reserve and National Guard and to limit his author ity to close obsolete military installations, Congress had barely adjourned when McNamara went ahead with plans to eliminate 751 Army Reserve units and abandon more bases.

Last week he headed for London to confer with Prime Minister Harold Wil son about NATO nuclear policy, then went to Paris to meet with nine NATO representatives on the same controversial subject (see ESSAY). Later flying on to Saigon, he planned to review the American military buildup. Oddly enough, now that the U.S. is beginning to turn the corner in Viet Nam, almost no one speaks of the conflict any longer as "McNamara's War."

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