Editing Robert McNamara (section)

====First Vietnam proposals and 1962 fact finding mission====
{{main|Taylor-Rostow Report}}
In October 1961, when General [[Maxwell Taylor]] and [[Counselor of the United States Department of State|State Department Counselor]] [[Walt Whitman Rostow]] advised sending 8,000 American combat troops to South Vietnam, McNamara rejected that recommendation as inadequate, stating that 8,000 troops would "probably not tip the scales decisively", instead recommending to Kennedy that he send six divisions to South Vietnam.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=253}} Kennedy rejected that advice.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=253}} 

In May 1962, McNamara paid his first visit to South Vietnam, where he told the press "every quantitative measurement...shows that we are winning the war".{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=254}} Led by General [[Paul D. Harkins]], the officers of the [[Military Assistance Command, Vietnam]] (MACV) altered a map that showed too much of South Vietnam under [[Viet Cong]] (VC) control, and massaged the statistics to make the VC appear weaker than they were.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=174}} McNamara's "quantitative" style based upon much number-crunching by computers about trends in Vietnam [[#McNamara fallacy|missed the human dimension]].{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=254}} Aspects of the war such as popular views and attitudes in South Vietnam, and South Vietnamese president [[Ngô Đình Diệm]]'s "divide and rule" strategy of having multiple government departments compete against one another as a way of staying in power were missed by McNamara's "quantitative" approach as there was no way that computers could calculate these aspects of the war.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=254}}

In 1962, McNamara supported a plan for mass spraying of the rice fields with [[herbicide]]s in the Phu Yen mountains to starve the VC out, but this was stopped when [[Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs]] [[W. Averell Harriman]] pointed out to Kennedy that the ensuing famine would kill thousands of innocent people.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=1963}} In late 1962, McNamara ordered planners to assume the withdraw of American advisers from South Vietnam in 1964 as, according to Pentagon calculations, the war should be won by then.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=267}} At the time, McNamara told Kennedy: "There is a new feeling of confidence that victory is possible".{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=268}}