family? >> don't know. i actually have a degree in chemical engineering from carnegie-mellon and i worked in that field for several years before coming into the book industry but i am far from being able to go into that. i'm not sure what my future holds. >> al schuman is a co owner of the trover books shop. .. >> robert mcnamara defense secretary during the johnson and kennedy administrations appeared on booknotes in 1995 to discuss his book, 'in retrospect" the tragedy and lessons of vietnam. according to mr. mcnamera u.s. policy was based on the domino theory in which the loss of vietnam would initiate a collapse of nations including the united states. robert mcnamera died on july 6, 2009. this booknotes is a two-hour program. c-span: robert mcnamara, when was the first time you can ever remember thinking about public service? >> guest: i hadn't anticipated that question. very early, i think. in the book, you may have noticed, there's a pictorial section, and i was under contract to do 16 pages of pictures. my wife always took care of photographs and things, and so when i began to work -- she died 14 years ago and i have absolutely zero order in my home with respect to pictures, so i took two or three days out to try to find pictures that i thought they might be interested. i wanted to start with a picture of me as an eagle scout, and you may think that's absurd, but that's there for the reason that scouting began to set my values, in addition to exposing me to the mountains, which had become an obsession. but scouting began to set my values. i, as you can see, i have the eagle scout badge on. one of the merit badges -- we had to earn 21 merits -- one of them was in civics, and i learned in the civics merit badge, in a broad sense, it's the responsibility of every citizen to serve. so to answer your question, if it doesn't sound absurd to your audience, i began to think of public service, in various forms, when i was 12 or 13 years old. but then perhaps the time i really began to focus on it was in -- well, by the way, i volunteered for world war ii, and i don't say that to gain any credit. please don't misunderstand me. i had two deferments. i had an educational deferment because i was teaching at harvard in an officer candidate school, and i had a family deferment because i had a 1-year-old child. but i volunteered, not -- i don't want any glory for it. that's what i think citizens should do. they have an obligation to serve their country. then it came, more closely hit home because in, i suppose -- i've forgotten the exact year -- but the mid-1950s, when i was an officer of ford motor company, i was asked if i would consider an assistant secretaryship in the air force. at that particular time, it didn't sound to me as though i could contribute anything. it wasn't a position of any great responsibility, so i said no. but it was very much on my mind, and i said to marg, "would you be willing to think about moving, giving up ford motor company and moving to public service?" and she said, "look, you believe, i believe in that. that's what we'll do." c-span: where'd you grow up? >> guest: i grew up in california. i was born in san francisco, and i grew up there. in the book -- and i want to, i hope we can develop this theme later. but you asked me where i grew up. i grew up in san francisco. my earliest memory is of a city exploding with joy. the date was november 11, 1918, armistice day. i was 2 years old. the city was san francisco. it was celebrating, obviously, the end of world war i, which we'd won. but more fundamentally, it was celebrating the belief that that was a war to end all wars. that was president woodrow wilson's view. that was the view of many, many americans. we were totally wrong! this is the bloodiest century in history. we, the human race, will have killed a 160 million other human beings. in any event, i grew up in san francisco and, you know, in a wonderful environment. i went to first grade there in a school that i could walk to. there'd been a slight baby boom in world war i, and by the time i got into the first grade in about 1922, there weren't any classrooms in the normal school buildings; they were full. so i literally went to school in a shack, a wooden shack, but we had a fantastic teacher. in the first grade she gave the class a test every month, and she reseated the class based on the results of that test. and there were vertical rows like this, and i worked my tail off to be in the first seat in the left-hand row. and i can remember this as though it were yesterday, and my competition were chinese, japanese and jews. there were a lot of wasps in the class, but i didn't worry about them. it was the chinese, japanese and jews i worried about, and i worked my tail off five days a week to beat them. on saturday and sunday, i went and i played with my neighborhood classmates. they went to their ethnic schools. they learned their language, they learned their history, they learned their culture, they learned their values, and they came back on monday determined to beat that damn irish. i'm happy to say they rarely did. c-span: what were your parents about? what were they like? >> guest: well, my parents, my father was irish. as a matter of fact, many, if not most, of my uncles and aunts, his sisters and brothers on my father's side, were actually born in ireland. my father was much older than my mother, and his father and mother and many of his sisters and brothers -- it was a rather large family -- had been forced out of ireland beyond the potato famine. the potato famine, as i recall, was 1845-48. and i think they came, as i remember it, in the 1850s to massachusetts, and then the full family went to california. then my father crossed the isthmus of panama on his way to california on muleback in -- i've forgotten when -- 1863 or something like that. he never went beyond the eighth grade. my mother never went beyond high school. this was one of the reasons i was expected to, i'll call it, achieve. i was expected to learn, to take advantage of the opportunities that were open to me that they hadn't had an opportunity to take advantage of, and this was a tremendous stimulus to me. c-span: you ended up going to the university of california-berkeley, and you talk in the book about you wanted to find the least expensive and the best. >> guest: i was going to -- well, that's not quite correct. c-span: it's close. >> guest: you're almost right, but let me put it slightly differently. in a sense, the best was thought to be stanford at the time. it wasn't the best, but that was the common view, and i think it was thought to be the best because it was quite expensive. so i applied for stanford, and it was one of the few universities in the country at that time that had entrance exams. today it's quite common; then it was very uncommon. i took the entrance exam and passed it, and it was only then i understood how much it cost. there was no chance of me going to stanford. there wasn't any chance of me going anywhere unless it was almost free. and as it happened, i went to the best or certainly one of the two or three best universities in the entire world, the university of california at berkeley. it cost me $52 a year. i could not have gone to college had it not been for that. and today that university is under tremendous stress because of proposition 13 in california. they're denying it the funds that they need to maintain excellence. people have said to me many times in the last 20, 30, 40 years, "you've been in business. you, why do you think the state of california has been the preeminent state in this country in terms of, i'll call it, industrial advance? silicon valley, for example. why is that?" there's one major reason. it's the educational system, the public educational system. the schools i went to and the university and that university system trained the people that in large measure contributed to the social and economic advance of that state in the last half century, and they're beginning to lose that preeminence because of financial limitations. c-span: what did you study? >> guest: i really had, in a sense, three majors. the primary major was economics. but in a sense, the two more important majors were philosophy and mathematics, and i say more important because i think -- i came from a family that almost never read a book, and i had a rather narrow focus of the world and ideas when i went to the university of california. it opened up for me the world -- values. this is what particularly the philosophy courses did -- moral values, ethical values. i was exposed to history, politics, international relations. it was an eye-opener, and i've never forgotten it. c-span: let me jump, if you don't mind, to this photograph right here. >> guest: that's a photograph of what were called the whiz kids. there were 10 of us. we had served in the army together. this is long story, and i don't know how far you want to get into it. we'd served in the army together, and we were led by one man, tex thornton, this man. you just can't believe this story. he went in as a second lieutenant. robert lovett, who had been an investment banker in new york, had become assistant secretary of the army. there was no air force at that time. there was what was called the army air corps, and robert lovett had become assistant secretary of the army for air. he came in there and they had -- i've forgotten the figures, but these are rough orders of magnitude -- they had maybe a thousand airplanes and maybe 1,500, 1,700 officers, almost all pilots. you recall roosevelt, one of the things he did was say, "we've got to produce 50,000 airplanes a year." you know, we're going to fight germany and possibly later japan, and we had, i'll call it, a thousand airplanes. so lovett began to work on that, and the first thing he found, an investment banker, he found there was nothing to work with. nobody knew how many airplanes they had, what condition they were in, what the plans were for the future, so he thought he had to begin to get some information. somebody mentioned to him there was some second lieutenant who had been working in one of the departments in washington as a civilian but who was, i believe, in the reserve. he could be called up to duty. they said, "he knows something about data and information and facts and statistics. why don't you get a hold of him?" so lovett got hold of thornton, and thornton built the whole thing. it became known as statistical control, and that was the foundation of the management system for managing what became a tremendous operation, the u.s. army air corps. c-span: fill in the blanks on the whiz kids at ford. >> guest: let me say one further thing about that photograph. hold it up again just one second. there are 10 individuals in that photograph, and i'll tell you a little bit about them in a moment. but of the 10, two committed suicide, two became presidents of ford -- me and r. j. miller. he, by the way, was, in effect, fired, and we can talk more about him later. he's a fantastic person, and after he was fired, henry ford wanted him to stay on. he said, "of course i want you to stay on vice-chairman of the board." r.j., to his credit, said, "no way." henry said, "well, at least you'll stay on the board." he did, and for 40 years after that, r.j. was the most influential director. ♪ who's watching... (announcer) it's right here. it's easy. ♪ i always feel like somebody's watching me. ♪ it's the money you could be saving with geico. and ryan you ho ward, in his hometown. monday at 8 on espn. >> "espnews," has you covered with, all-star game news conferences, beginning on monday, 11:00 a.m. bring you the starting-pitchers and the managers, prior to the game, in st. louis, that's monday, 11 eastern, here on espn. >> sanchez says yes. 2-2 pitch. curveball. struck him out looking. the giants race onto the field. the jump on the back of 26 year old, sanchez. he has become the first giants pitcher, in 33 years, to pitch a no-hitter. >> the scene in san francisco, where sanchez became the first pitcher, in baseball, this sea son to throw a no-hitter. i'm curious to know, what you saw differently from him, last night. >> firstly, i mean, this was unexpected, but, the reality is, he did the -- the little things, which is something that he had not been doing for a quite awhile. get ahead of the hitters. he had 7 walks, and five strikeouts, against the diamondbacks. that's not what you're looking for. get ahead of the hitters. he was ahead. especially, with that dramatic curveball. i've been so impressed with the ability to throw that long extended yakker. but, he's been hot and cold, with throwing strikes. last night, big difference. great with his curveball. and great defense. and you have to have luck. another sanchez, that was able to throw a no-hitter for the marlins, that did the surprising thing, too. same way. getting ahead of hitters, and throwing a lot of strikes. >> scoring runs is something that san francisco got. it has been an issue, with the giants, this season. but, that rotation, is so good. how far can they take that team? >> take them at least to the "promise land" of not winning this division, but to the wildcard. no doubt, from the beginning, i thought, yes, they'll struggle. but, what a great rotation. when you get into their bullpen. whenever you have a kane. lincecum, just missed a no-hitter, the night of about. now you have matt cain. so, this is, crazy, as far as what they can throw at you. now, offensively, they have to get a bat. and it looks like sanchez, might be a guy that they're very hot after. >> zito can get it on track. >> another guy. >> three good lefties. >> two games to play, cubs are one game under .500. >> my cubs. >> lou said after yesterday's loss, it's just one game. what does lou know that we don't? >> what he knows is that this is a marathon. and, thankfully, there's enough clogged up, in the central division, that the opportunity, to make a run of still available. one of the keys that maybe he knows that we don't know, ramirez, is back in the lineup. today, he's knocked in an r.b.i. and less than a week. this is a catalist. you add lee, to the mixture, now he's turned it on. my concern comes in harden. that's the guy, that i'm not -- figuring out why he's been struggling so much. but he has. he needs to get it right, to have the 1-2. >> lineup that has struggled so much this season. soriano, and soto, and list goes on. >> mets sent church for francoeur. what else do the mets need to do? >> well, by the way, that really is an interesting trade because, it's a rare inside the season, inside your own division. they were like, tau our guy and we'll take your your guy. and see if they can wake up. health means wealth and how long do you wait for reyes and delgado. and the most important player, beltran, most dynamnick, how long do you have to wait for that? bun positive, a guy that might be back before them, wagner, might be back. imagine a wagner, and k-rod. >> with putz, if he gets back. >> health has been terrible. >> first trade between the mets and braves in 23 years. >> who are sellers? >> the bad teams, right off the bat. nats, a couple couple couple of. with nick johnson, and dunn. and fairly, can be had. but, i look at k.c., gil meche, doesn't want to leave but that's interesting. you can look at other teams like the o's. offensively, i love luke scott and i like huff. two guys that can add some power to your offense. >> every team needs roy halladay. no one would turn him down. who stands the best chance to get him? >> another team that snuck in, that's the cardinals. rumored to be, hot and heavy for doc. take a lot of franchise players, prospects, also, some starting-pitching. i think the price is hefty. but, st. louis, and the key team, is the philadelphia phillies, if they do sign pedro martinez. >> empty out your farm system. >> you can catch him on "baseball tonight," 9:30 eastern on espn. >> thank you. >> coming up, the showdown, is near. lesnar, and frank when your engine's running clean... you feel it. ...and pennzoil motor oil actively cleans out up to 15 percent of sludge the first time you use it. so feel the clean. not just oil, pennzoil. i like to know exactly where you stand at all times. yeah, it works for us. yeah. hey, if they ranked "sportscenter" anchors, where do you think i'd be ranked? - i don't know. - come on. i'd rather not get into it. come on, pick a number between one and 10. well... i'm not sure you'll be in the top 10. i'm in the top 10, roger. >> kevin and mitchell back. u.f.c. titles on the line, lesnar, will look to avenge his defeat, at the hands of frank mir. and, saint pierre, will take on a visibility. preview later. jazz have 7 days to match the offer sheet, that blazers8d presented. if utah doesn't match it, portland gets a player, 14-9, last season. and utah said to be shopping boozer. >> summer league play from vegas raptors and pistons. that's first-round pick day, picking up the board and throwing it down. how about the follow-up by washington? he had 13-6 and then, defensive-end, washington, big-time block. fourth-quarter. coming back. former rutgers star? pistons win by four. >> "what 2 watch 4" tonight. final first-round match, united states facing haiti. stars and stripes have not secured a second spot, but a draw will suffice to advance as the group b. winners. >> still to come, pujols and the cards trying to stay hot, and pettitte, and the yankees are what will today bring? ♪ how will it surprise you? ♪ with wonder? or worry? what we know is this day... we'll come through for you. we're your 17,000 state farm agents. and to us, nothing's more important than being there. ♪ wow, sweet minivan! ( revs engine ) ha ha! whoo! ( thunderclap ) that's a minivané to you! ♪ it's raining! with the great taste of a mcdonald's mccafé mocha, a better day is possible. freshly ground espresso, real steamed milk, and decadent chocolate. go ahead, mccafé your day. ♪ ba da ba ba ba coming up in the next half- hour, brian roberts will look ahead to the second half of the season with amber theoharis. adam jones is getting ready for the all-star game in st. louis. jeremy guthrie couldn't pitch tonight with a viral infection. we'll preview the game, the orioles and the jays game two, coming up next on masn. if the land of pleasant living, welcome to an evening of orioles baseball, game two of the three game series. "o's xtra" pregame on masn 2 brought to you by at&t. toronto counters with ricky romero who is 7-3 with a 2.96 e.r.a. welcome to camden yards, as the orioles get ready to face the toronto blue jays in game two. jeremy guthrie out with a viral infection was able to start over the weekend. rich hill was taken out of the starting rotation. >> rich has really had a tough time, he struggled over his last three or four starts. that's really not like him, because he really has too good stuff. his curveball is one of the best curveballs i've seen in the american league all season long, but he's got to come up with something else other than that curveball because too many hitters are sitting on his fastball. they just wait for him to just take, you can't throw five curveballs in a row, so they're waiting for that one pitch to come by and it really doesn't have enough movement on him to get him out of trouble. when he comes up with something that's a big change in speed, we're going to have us one of the better left-handers in the american league. >> should be interesting. for more on tonight's game let's check in with amber theoharis. >> tom, i know there's still two games left before the all- star break, but we're already looking towards the second half of the season. the big question will be will the orioles play better. the hope is that they will, and there'