Robert S. McNamara, former Secretary of Defense who served John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson during the Vietnam War from 1961-1968, died in his sleep early Monday morning in Washington D.C. He was 93.
Prior to his government service, he became the first ‘non Ford’ to be named President of Ford Motor Company in 1960. Following his tenure as a Republican in two Democrat administrations, he was awarded both the Medal of Freedom and the Distinguished Service Medal for his efforts.
McNamara served as President of the World Bank from 1968 until 1981, and was responsible for the development of the discipline known today as policy analysis.
In 1993, respected Washington journalist Deborah Shapley penned a 615-page biography of Robert McNamara entitled Promise and Power: the Life and Times of Robert McNamara. The writer made it clear that she admired certain aspects of the man and the public servant, but she strongly contends that he manipulated the truth of the Vietnam War. She said, “For better or worse McNamara shaped much of today’s world — and imprisoned himself.”
The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara was a 2003 documentary that consisted of interviews with McNamara and included vintage war footage. The intimate dialogue and his personal candor won the powerful project an Academy Award for Documentary Feature.
In recent years, he was a life trustee of the Board of Trustees of the California Institute of Technology and was an honorary trustee for the Brookings Institution.
McNamara married Margaret Craig, his teenage sweetheart, in 1940. They had two daughters and a son. Margaret McNamara died of cancer in 1981. Following the death of his wife, he had a long time relationship with Katharine Graham, who died in 2001.
View McNamara interview clip and Vietnam photos from the documentary The Fog of War below.