Description
Book SynopsisWhen President Kennedy appointed Robert McNamara Secretary of Defense in January, 1961 and McNamara called on Charles Hitch to join him, a new era of defense policy leadership was clearly at hand. Great problems of organization had emerged along with vast increases in American responsibility for the security of the free world in the post-war era of rapidly changing military technology. Defense department unification and other controversial questions of organization of the defense establishment assumed new dimensions with the advent of the new techniques of planning and analysis. Hitch discusses, from the rare perspective of an analytically gifted insider, how the Department of Defense achieved balanced programs and more effective forces through the firm application of the new management techniques without sweeping changes of organization structure. Important challenges still lie ahead. As Hitch says: The objectives, the organization, and the management techniques of national defense ar
