The title derives from the military concept of the "fog of war", which refers to the difficulty of making decisions in the midst of conflict.

[3] In 2019, it was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Born in San Francisco during World War I, McNamara says his earliest memory is of American troops returning from Europe.

Coming from humble origins, he graduated from University of California, Berkeley, where he met his first wife, Margaret Craig, and Harvard Business School, where he went on to teach.

As Secretary of Defense, McNamara was a controversial figure, and in the film he discusses, in particular, his involvement in the Cuban Missile Crisis and the escalation of the Vietnam War.

Berkeley, director Errol Morris said the documentary had its origins in his interest in McNamara's 2001 book, Wilson's Ghost: Reducing the Risk of Conflict, Killing, and Catastrophe in the 21st Century (written with James G.

The use of this device is intended to approximate an actual interaction between the two, while encouraging the subject to make direct eye contact with the camera and, therefore, the audience.

Morris is uncanny in his ability to bring life to the abstract, and here he uses graphics, charts, moving titles and visual effects in counterpoint to what McNamara is saying.

He discusses a moment during the Cuban Missile Crisis when he and Kennedy were trying to keep the United States out of war, but General Curtis LeMay wanted to invade Cuba.

"[11] Llewellyn Thompson, a former US ambassador to Moscow who knew Khrushchev personally, urged Kennedy to respond to the soft message, as he believed Khrushchev would be willing to remove the missiles if, afterward, he could draw attention away from the fact that he had failed to establish nuclear weapons in Cuba by taking credit for saving Cuba from being invaded by the US.

He flew in some of the first B-29s, which, it was hoped, would be able to destroy targets much more efficiently and effectively than earlier bombers, and was responsible for analyzing bombing operations and making recommendations for improvements.

McNamara worked at Ford in an executive position and commissioned studies on subjects like buyer demographics, the causes of accidents, and ways to make cars safer.

Sony Pictures Classics allowed proceeds from limited screenings of the film to benefit Clear Path International's work with victims of the Vietnam War.