"I must say I don't object to its being called McNamara's War. I think it is a very important war and I am pleased to be identified with it and do whatever I can to win it."

“I would rather have a wrong decision made than no decision at all.”

“Management is the gate through which social and economic and political change, indeed change in every direction, is diffused through society.”

“Neither conscience nor sanity itself suggests, that the United States is, or should or could be the global gendarme.”

“It would be our policy to use nuclear weapons wherever we felt it, necessary to protect our forces and achieve our objectives.”

“You can never substitute emotion for reason. I still would allow a place for intuition in this process, but not emotion. They say I am a power gabber. But knowledge is power, and I am giving them knowledge, so they will have more power. Can't they see that?”