---
name: "Robert McNamara"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/robert-mcnamara"
fi1m_id: "robert-mcnamara"
imdb_id: "nm0573726"
tmdb_id: 73985
wikidata_id: "Q191999"
roles: []
born: "9 June 1916"
died: "6 July 2009"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 1
average_over: 1
updated: "2026-09-24T01:04:58.929940+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Robert McNamara

## Identity

Robert McNamara

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/robert-mcnamara
- **Type:** Person
- **Fi1m ID:** robert-mcnamara
- **IMDb ID:** nm0573726
- **TMDB ID:** 73985
- **Wikidata ID:** Q191999
- **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_McNamara, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q191999, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0573726/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/73985

Actor. Born 9 June 1916 in San Francisco, California, USA. Died 6 July 2009.

## Details

- **Born:** 9 June 1916, San Francisco, California, USA
- **Died:** 6 July 2009
- **Also known as:** Robert S. McNamara, Robert Strange McNamara
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_McNamara, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q191999, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0573726/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/73985

## Streaming the US now

- **Amazon Prime Video:** [*The Fog of War*](https://film.one/film/the-fog-of-war.md) (84)

For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country.

## Fi1m on Robert McNamara

> Robert McNamara's directness makes him an absorbing documentary subject, but his fluency can make difficult questions easier to forget. We recommend *The Fog of War* with a firm reservation about how much control it gives him.

Robert McNamara looks straight into the camera in *The Fog of War* (2003), giving us time to study him as well as follow his account. Cinematographers Peter Donahue and Robert Chappell keep that encounter absorbing, with little relief from his direct address. Steve Hardy and Ted Bafaloukos keep the production design unobtrusive; there is nothing much to distract us from the man explaining himself. The attention is warranted, though being given a good view of a speaker does not settle how much we should trust him.

His principal film appearance came late, when Errol Morris filmed roughly twenty hours of conversations with him in his mid-eighties. That extended attention suits someone who can make a complicated recollection intelligible and keep us listening. Morris arranges the material into eleven lessons, a structure that gives McNamara considerable room to explain his thinking. We find him compelling, but the film sometimes gives an eloquent explanation more credit than it has earned. The weakness is in the encounter itself: he has considerable control over how his account reaches us.

The most useful collaborators are editors Doug Abel, Chyld King and Karen Schmeer, who move between the interview, archive footage and recorded conversations without making the film feel like an illustrated lecture. They let us hear other voices alongside the recollections, interrupting McNamara's opportunity to explain everything himself. We were unsettled by those recordings because hearing the people involved speak made the decisions under discussion feel less safely remote. This is where the film gives us most reason to listen beyond its principal speaker.

Philip Glass's solemn score sustains that unease, though it sometimes adds more gravity than the material needs. The music works best when it leaves room to listen; McNamara's explanation is already enough to keep us occupied. His ability to hold our attention is the reason to watch, and also the reason Morris needs those interruptions from the archive. See *The Fog of War* for the sustained encounter with an articulate man, and keep asking the questions his fluency can make us forget.

## Biography

Robert Strange McNamara was an American business executive and government official. He served as the eighth United States Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1968 under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.

He appears as himself in the 2003 documentary *The Fog of War*, directed by Errol Morris, which draws on interviews with McNamara reflecting on his career and the nature of war. Archive footage of him features in later productions including *The Vietnam War* (2017) and *The Most Dangerous Man in America* (2009).

*Sources: imdb.com, en.wikipedia.org, britannica.com.*

## On Fi1m (1)

- *The Fog of War* (2003), Fi1m 84, as Self — [page](https://film.one/film/the-fog-of-war.md)

## Gallery

- ![Robert McNamara](https://film.one/media/person/98317/gallery-b9283474eb1b.jpg) Robert McNamara — DoD photo by Oscar Porter, U.S. Army., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2b/Robert_McNamara_official_portrait.jpg/1280px-Robert_McNamara_official_portrait.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Black and white photograph print of Carl Albert posing with Robert S. McNamara and an unidentified man.](https://film.one/media/person/98317/gallery-124d48e94487.jpg) Black and white photograph print of Carl Albert posing with Robert S. McNamara and an unidentified man. — CarlAlbertArchives, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dd/CAC_CC_001_18_24_0000_2314.jpg/1280px-CAC_CC_001_18_24_0000_2314.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Black and white photograph print of John W. McCormack, Robert S. McNamara, Carl Albert, and others seated at a dinner table in the Joe Martin Room. March 30, 19 (1967)](https://film.one/media/person/98317/gallery-ddaf084ef056.jpg) Black and white photograph print of John W. McCormack, Robert S. McNamara, Carl Albert, and others seated at a dinner table in the Joe Martin Room. March 30, 19 (1967) — Carl Albert Research and Studies Center, Congressional Collection, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/81/CAC_CC_001_18_32_0000_3155.jpg/1280px-CAC_CC_001_18_32_0000_3155.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Black and white photograph print of George Mahon, Robert S. McNamara, Carl Albert, and others at a luncheon in the Joe Martin Room. March 30 1967.](https://film.one/media/person/98317/gallery-05319c08ad13.jpg) Black and white photograph print of George Mahon, Robert S. McNamara, Carl Albert, and others at a luncheon in the Joe Martin Room. March 30 1967. — Carl Albert Research and Studies Center, Congressional Collection, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d1/CAC_CC_001_18_32_0000_3156.jpg/1280px-CAC_CC_001_18_32_0000_3156.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Robert McNamara](https://film.one/media/person/98317/gallery-b008749680db.jpg) Robert McNamara — Image via TMDB
- ![Robert McNamara](https://film.one/media/person/98317/gallery-46c1ce410cb6.jpg) Robert McNamara — Image via TMDB
- ![Black and white photograph print of Hale Boggs, George Mahon, Robert S. McNamara, Carl Albert, and others at a luncheon in the Joe Martin Room. March 30 1967.](https://film.one/media/person/98317/gallery-216a6138af10.jpg) Black and white photograph print of Hale Boggs, George Mahon, Robert S. McNamara, Carl Albert, and others at a luncheon in the Joe Martin Room. March 30 1967. — Carl Albert Research and Studies Center, Congressional Collection, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d8/CAC_CC_001_18_32_0000_3157.jpg/1280px-CAC_CC_001_18_32_0000_3157.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Black and white photograph print of Carl Albert, Gerald R. Ford, and others seated at a dinner table at a luncheon in the Joe Martin Room. March 30, 1967](https://film.one/media/person/98317/gallery-3ff51dcb031e.jpg) Black and white photograph print of Carl Albert, Gerald R. Ford, and others seated at a dinner table at a luncheon in the Joe Martin Room. March 30, 1967 — Carl Albert Research and Studies Center, Congressional Collection, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9a/CAC_CC_001_18_32_0000_3158c.jpg/1280px-CAC_CC_001_18_32_0000_3158c.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)

## Also known for

- *The Vietnam War* (2017), Self - Politician (archive footage)
- *American Experience* (1988), Self (archive footage)
- *The Most Dangerous Man in America* (2009), Self (archive footage)

## Awards

### Other awards — 4 won

- The Hillman Prize for Book Journalism 1987: The Hillman Prize for Book Journalism (won)
- Four Freedoms Award – Freedom from Want 1983: Four Freedoms Award – Freedom from Want (won)
- Medal of honor Dag Hammarskjold 1983: Medal of honor Dag Hammarskjold (won)
- Presidential Medal of Freedom 1968: Presidential Medal of Freedom (won)

*From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.*

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/robert-mcnamara