Who was the worse Secretary of Defense?

[ButterflyBlood]

?

[BlooInBloo]

1. (facepalm)

[IntravenousDemilo]

2. It might be fun if you put a whole bunch of SecDefs in the poll and not just the two.

There have been any number of shitheels in the position.

[Sebastian Doyle]

3. Rummy the Dummy

But only because he was given TWO chances to fuck it up. He was both the youngest Defense Secretary ever (under Ford) and the oldest ever (under Chimpy) and both times endangered this country's security based on lies he cooked up with Darth Cheney. Though the truth about them exaggerating the Soviet threat in the 1970's wouldn't be known until much later (basically the Russians shot their wad even before they went into Afghanistan, and weren't any real threat to the US after about 1975)

[Wetzelbill]

4. for all of McNamara's faults

which mostly were Vietnam related, he had to deal with some serious Cold War issues and performed very well. He may have been part of a disastrous policy regarding Vietnam, but I doubt many Defense Secretaries would have been much different in that situation. And even though his efforts were very much part of an overall team, I doubt many Defense Secretaries would have been as productive and rational as he was during various incidences like the Cuban Missile Crisis and the 1967 war between Israel and it's neighboring states. I think he was Def Sec at a time when we almost went to nuclear war something like 6 times. I can't say Rumsfeld or Defense Secretaries like Cheney, Bill Cohen, Bill Perry, Les Aspin, Caspar Weinberger, Frank Carlucci etc would have performed as well, in fact, most of them definitely would not. McNamara is at once probably the best Sec Def ever and one of the worst.

[Journeyman]

5. James Forrestal (September 1947-March 1949) . . .

helped define the intellectual rationale for "containment;" set the stage for the nation's capture by the military-industrial complex; hotly contested international cooperation on nuclear weaponry; descended precipitously into paranoia; committed suicide two months after resigning the office he helped establish.

[H2O Man]

8. Good call.

He was largely "removed" from the public's consciousness shortly after his death, and too few people are aware of his impact today.

[opihimoimoi]

6. Rummy the Dummy...??? But of course.....he was the worst...he is a criminal.. torturor

[Democracyinkind]

7. Rumsfeld and McNamara were basically the same person, like Forrestall and many others too

WIth McNamara and Rumsfeld, I really feel like they are the same. they even look totally the same.

Let's see if Rumsfeld stays tru to the similarities and comes to realize what a poor fuck he was, like McNamara and Forrestal did when they got older.... WIth Rummy, I don't see that coming.

I'd have to add Cheney and Weinberger to the all time low of SecoD.