Peter Gallagher

McNa­mara was the star—the ani­ma­teur—of one of the best doc­u­men­taries ever about the chal­lenges and drama of pub­lic pol­icy (not just the con­duct of war): Errol Mor­ris’ The Fog of War. His per­for­mance in this film—the objec­tive and seri­ous way he seemed to ana­lyze his own pol­icy choices and motives, and the human­ity that, it appears, grew from tak­ing respon­si­bil­ity for those choices as well as from his own incli­na­tions— makes this a remark­able pub­lic record.

Inci­den­tally, check-out the ter­rific Flash ani­ma­tion at the Fog of War site for an account of McNamara’s own life in his own words. Superbly done!

McNamara’s life and con­tri­bu­tions are sum­ma­rized in a nicely com­posed Finan­cial Times obit­u­ary pub­lished today.