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WASHINGTON: Former US defence secretary Robert S. McNamara, who was vilified for prosecuting America's most controversial war and then devoted himself to helping the world's poorest nations, died at home yesterday. He was 93.
His wife Diana told The Associated Press that he had been in failing health for some time and died in his sleep.
Known as a policymaker with a fixation for statistical analysis, Mr McNamara, then 44, was recruited to run the Pentagon by then President John F. Kennedy in 1961 from the presidency of Ford Motor. He became the youngest US defence secretary, and stayed seven years - the longest since the job's creation in 1947.
Mr McNamara oversaw the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion, an attempt to topple Fidel Castro's communist regime in Cuba. In 1968, he cited the mission, which ended in the killing, capture or surrender of the entire invading force, as his biggest regret in office.
But, he was fundamentally associated with the Vietnam War, the country's most disastrous foreign venture and the only American war to end in abject withdrawal rather than victory.
Recognisable to a generation of Americans for his slicked-back hairstyle and wire-rimmed eyeglasses, Mr McNamara eventually became disillusioned with the Vietnam conflict, finding himself at loggerheads with the commanders of a war that killed 58,000 US soldiers and more than three million Vietnamese.
His association with Vietnam became intensely personal. Even his son, as a university student, protested against the war while his father was running it. Once, at Harvard University, Mr McNamara had to flee a student mob through tunnels.
After leaving the Pentagon on the verge of a nervous breakdown, Mr McNamara became president of the World Bank, where he served for 12 years. He tripled its loans to developing countries and changed its emphasis from grandiose industrial projects to rural development.
After retiring in 1981, he championed the causes of nuclear disarmament and aid for the world's poorest nations.
ASSOCIATED PRESS, BLOOMBERG, REUTERS
