This is John Batchel, a conversation with the author, Tevi Troy, reviewing a new book about

Robert McNamara, the Defense Chief for the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and before that,

a man on the go, a very well-educated and extremely bright young man who becomes, during the war,

a human AI taking care of ordinance for the U.S. Air Force,

where it is, how much they've got, how much they need, what's the best use? We do that with machines now,

but Robert McNamara could do it in his head. Now we go to the Kennedy administration, and he's asked by the president to become Secretary of Defense, and therein lies the tale of the rise and fall and guilt of Bob McNamara.

Here's Tebby Troy to explain how far Robert McNamara would go to please his president.

This is tennis at hyana sport.

More of this tonight.

So the Kennedys grew up with wealth and at the highest part, they had a tennis court.

They expected people to be able to play that kind of, you know, it seems more of a, I guess,

a waspy high-class sport then.

Now it's more, I would say, as sport of the people today.

But at the time, if you came to high on a sport, you were expected to play tennis.

And some of the Kennedy women, including Jackie Kennedy talked about crying because of the Kennedy women

and were so competitive in how they played tennis.

So tennis was the sport of the Kennedys just like golf had been the sport in the Eisenhower administration.

And McNamara takes tennis lessons so that he's good enough to be able to play with the Kennedy crew.

And there's a guy named Ali Ritsenberg, who's a legendary tennis coach in the D.C. area.

And he gives lessons to McNamara twice a week at 7 a.m. on the dot.

And McNamara shows up at 6.58 every day in his defense department car.

And not every day, but every day that the lessons are offered and he

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