Gilpatric joined the new Kennedy administration in 1961 as part of the wave of Kennedy appointments. His appointment was unusual: he was one of the few Pentagon leaders handpicked by the new President. Fearing that the new Secretary of Defense, Robert S. McNamara, was inexperienced in Washington's ways, Kennedy chose Gilpatric to add experience to his Defense team. McNamara was known as a "whiz kid", a Midwestern industrial production "wunderkind". But Kennedy sensed that McNamara would need a strong lieutenant who was savvy in the ways of Washington.