Using archival footage, United States Cabinet conversation recordings, and an interview of the then eighty-five-year-old Robert McNamara, "The Fog of War" depicts his life, from his birth during the First World War remembering the time American troops returned from Europe, to his service as an air force officer in World War II, to joining Ford Motor Company as one of the Whiz Kids, rising to become the company's president, before serving as Secretary of Defense for presidents Kennedy and Johnson (including his involvement in the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Vietnam War).