Robert McNamara

Robert McNamara is represented in the linked historical fiction through military command and battlefield decision-making, political ambition and government, and crime, espionage and covert power. These works approach the figure through the surrounding events, relationships and political conflicts rather than through a standalone biography.

In Jeff Shaara’s The Shadow of War, John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy confront military advice for air strikes or invasion, while Robert McNamara helps organise a naval quarantine intended to stop additional equipment without triggering an immediate war.