Fog of War

Fog of War was an enlightening, well directed biographical documentary on the life of Robert McNamara, focusing primarily on his time as Secretary of Defense under JFK and LBJ. Prior to watching Fog of War, I had never heard of Robert McNamara and had only seen one movie by Errol Morris. Briefly, Robert McNamara was the highest paid and youngest Assistant Professor at Harvard in 1940, the first president of Ford Motor Company who was not a Ford at the age of 44, the Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1968, and President of the World Bank from 1968 to 1981. By the end of the movie I had a deep respect for McNamara and a real understanding of this monumental figure (I also had 4 more Errol Morris movies added to my queue on blockbuster.com). The movie's interviews were insightful, the editing effective, and the narrative both compelling and well-structured. Rent this movie and watch it; it's worth 2 hours of your life.

Here's a link to info on Robert McNamara: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_McNamara#Secretary_of_Defense.

Here's the quote where the title of the movie came from: The term "fog of war" is ascribed to the Prussian military analyst Carl von Clausewitz, who wrote: "The great uncertainty of all data in war is a peculiar difficulty, because all action must, to a certain extent, be planned in a mere twilight, which in addition not infrequently — like the effect of a fog or moonshine — gives to things exaggerated dimensions and unnatural appearance."

Here's a funny story from the movie: According to McNamara, before he became President of Ford Motor Company, when a production executive was fired, nothing was said to him. The executive would go home for the weekend, the furniture in his office would be chopped up, and when he returned to his office the following Monday to find his office furniture in that state, he knew that he was fired.