Architect of Vietnam war McNamara dies

Agence France-Presse

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From 1961 to 1968, McNamara oversaw the escalation of U.S. combat efforts in the highly divisive Vietnam War that became known as one of the biggest military blunders in U.S. history -- a conflict McNamara himself came to describe as "terribly wrong."

A trained economist, he also helped turn around the Ford auto company in the post-World War II era and then used his talents to improve the World Bank's image during his long tenure as president from 1968 to 1981.

An early advocate of counter-insurgency and a primary architect of Cold War nuclear policy, McNamara was called upon at 44 by president John F. Kennedy to serve as defense secretary. But in later years, the cerebral and dominating McNamara came to regret his Vietnam role, although he remained silent until publishing his controversial 1995 memoirs "In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam."

Top U.S. officials "who participated in the decisions on Vietnam acted according to what we thought were the principles and traditions of this nation," McNamara wrote.

"We made our decisions in light of those values. Yet we were wrong, terribly wrong. We owe it to future generations to explain why."

By the time the war ended in 1975, more than 58,000 U.S. soldiers had been killed, as well as more than three million Vietnamese from the North and South and around 1.5 million Laotians and Cambodians.