Documentary Viewing Guide

The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara

This Academy Award winning documentary focused on former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara and his role in the Cold War. McNamara, who had attended University of California at Berkeley and Harvard Graduate School, and later became an adviser to the then Army Air Force, an Army officer himself during World War Two, and the first president of the Ford Motor Company not related to Henry Ford, was offered the position of Secretary of Defense in late 1960 by President Kennedy, a deal McNamara ultimately accepted despite having only spent a few weeks in his new post as president of Ford. The style of the documentary was primarily interview based; McNamara would speak about one of the lessons mentioned in the title of the film, or respond to a question, this response often taking the form of a voice-over as supplementary information was displayed through pictures and video. We will be utilizing some techniques used in The Fog of War in our documentary. Firsthand accounts of events and historical commentary will be accompanied by related imagery.