After briefly serving as Ford's president, McNamara accepted an appointment as secretary of defense in the Kennedy administration. McNamara became a close adviser to Kennedy and advocated the use of a blockade during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Robert S. McNamara, who died on Monday at 93, will be remembered for the war in Vietnam. He is less recalled as the father of the Ford Falcon compact, introduced 50 years ago this fall. He advanced rapidly through a series of top-level management positions to the presidency of Ford on 9 November 1960–one day after Kennedy's election. The first company head selected outside the. The next year, on this day in 1960, Ford promoted Robert McNamara to president of the company. He became the first person from outside the Ford family to hold the position since the company’s founding when John S. Gray held the title. It took 14 years, but McNamara, displaying superhuman organizational smarts, became president of Ford in 1960. He had already demonstrated marked intuitiveness for a non-car guy, approving Ford’s smirked-at foray into safety marketing during the middle Fifties. Mr. McNamara came to Ford late in 1945 as an expert in new methods of accounting and statistical control. Biography of Robert S. McNamara, U.S. secretary of defense (1961–68) who played a major role in the U.S. military involvement in the Vietnam War. He receives credit for most all the 1960 Ford designs except the new 1960 Ford Falcon. This is where Robert McNamara enters the picture, as he oversaw Elwood Engel and John Najjar, both. His leadership was critical in remaking the organization along modern lines and on November 9, 1960, one day after John F. Kennedy won the presidential election, he was made president of Ford. The appointment of Robert McNamara as the president of Ford Motor Company in 1960 marked a significant turning point in the company's history. Historians have often viewed this event as a symbol of modernization and a shift away from family-owned business practices.