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.

Robert McNamara
as Self

Errol Morris
as Self (uncredited)

Fidel Castro
as Self (archive footage) (uncredited)

Barry Goldwater
as Self (archive footage) (uncredited)

John F. Kennedy
as Self (archive footage) (uncredited)

Nikita Khrushchev
as Self (archive footage) (uncredited)

Curtis LeMay
as Self (archive footage) (uncredited)

Richard Nixon
as Self (archive footage) (uncredited)

Harry Reasoner
as Self (archive footage) (uncredited)

Franklin D. Roosevelt
as Self (voice) (archive footage) (uncredited)
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Whether you love him or hate him, agree with him or disagree with him... it's a stunningly compelling conversation....