Robert McNamara Nuclear Quotations

It would be our policy to use nuclear weapons wherever we felt it necessary to protect our forces and achieve our objectives.

Before any substantial commitment to defend India against China is given, we should recognize that in order to carry out that commitment against any substantial Chinese attack we would have to use nuclear weapons.

I would characterize current US nuclear weapons policy as immoral, illegal, militarily unnecessary, and dreadfully dangerous

It is true that at the time [1962] we had a strategic nuclear force of approximately five thousand warheads compared to the Soviet's three hundred.

The indefinite combination of human fallibility and nuclear weapons will lead to the destruction of nations.

They'll be no learning period with nuclear weapons. Make one mistake and you're going to destroy nations.

Elimination of nuclear weapons, so naive, so simplistic, and so idealistic as to be quixotic? Some may think so. But as human beings, citizens of nations with power to influence events in the world, can we be at peace with ourselves if we strive for less? I think not.