Who is Robert McNamara from The Best and the Brightest and what is their importance?

Robert McNamara was the Secretary of Defense in the Kennedy administration. He had previously been a high level executive at Ford Motor Company. Kennedy offered him the jobs of Defense or Treasury. Since he found finance to be boring, he accepted the position at Defense. His views were liberal on most of the issues with the exception of labor. His technique of analysis and management relied heavily on statistics.