Former corporate whiz kid Robert McNamara was the controversial Secretary of Defense in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, during the height of the Vietnam War. Augmented by archival footage and cabinet conversation recordings, Errol Morris gives the conflicted McNamara a platform on which he attempts to confront his and the U.S. government's actions in Southeast Asia in light of the horrors of modern warfare, the end of ideology and the punitive judgment of history.

Genres

Cast

Robert McNamara

Self

Errol Morris

Self (uncredited)

Fidel Castro

Self (archive footage) (uncredited)

Barry Goldwater

Self (archive footage) (uncredited)

John F. Kennedy

Self (archive footage) (uncredited)

Nikita Khrushchev

Self (archive footage) (uncredited)

Richard Nixon

Self (archive footage) (uncredited)

Harry Reasoner

Self (archive footage) (uncredited)

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Self (voice) (archive footage) (uncredited)

Woodrow Wilson

Self (archive footage) (uncredited)