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Robert McNamara Dies | 07/06/2009 10:40 am

Robert McNamara, Ex-Kennedy Defense Secretary, Vietnam War Architect, Dies at Age 93

Many of McNamara’s good deeds were overshadowed by mass escalation of increasingly unpopular Vietnam War.
By The Staff at wowOwow.com
Image: Wikipedia

Kennedy family confidant and former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara died in his sleep today at the age of 93.

"His age just caught up with him," his wife Diana, told Reuters. "He was not ill. He died peacefully in his sleep."

McNamara served as a key architect of the U.S. war in Vietnam — sometimes called "McNamara’s War" — which left 58,000 Americans dead. He served under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, and also advised JFK during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, when the United States and the Soviet Union were on the brink of nuclear war. McNamara also became the first outsider to become president of the family-run Ford Motor company, served as president of the World Bank, and was a nuclear arms expert. As defense secretary, he boosted the Pentagon’s nuclear arsenal and streamlined the agency.

When Kennedy took office, only 500 Americans were in the South Asian nation, but by the time McNamara left his post in 1968, there were more than 500,000. Although he and other U.S. officials portrayed the Vietnam War as a necessary anti-communism battle in the Cold War, McNamara acknowledged later that they underestimated Vietnamese nationalism and opposition to the U.S.-backed government in Saigon.

"The conflict within South Vietnam itself had all of the characteristics of a civil war, and we didn’t look upon it as largely a civil war, and we weren’t measuring our progress as one would have in what was largely a civil war," he told CNN.

McNamara is survived by three children and his second wife, whom he married in 2004.

49 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

SG3
I’m quite sorry for his families loss. As for Vietnam we should have never been a part of that.
By SG3 on 07/06/2009 10:49 am
MaggieW

He died peacefully in his sleep.  That we should all be so lucky.

The Vietnamese War.  Another open wound of the USA that will never heal.

 

By MaggieW on 07/06/2009 11:40 am
MarjorieC
Tsk, tsk, tsk… all those Democrats, all those years of death and suffering on a hunch they might be right.
By MarjorieC on 07/06/2009 1:48 pm
FP2
Tsk, tsk, tsk… all those Republicans, all those years of death and suffering in Iraq all based on a lie.
By FP2 on 07/06/2009 2:06 pm
MarjorieC
F P, the only difference between Vietnam and Iraq is the political party selling the lie and making the money. 
By MarjorieC on 07/06/2009 2:14 pm
FP2
Yep and look at the lie Georgie and the boys told. 
By FP2 on 07/06/2009 2:32 pm
MarjorieC
Equal to the sell out by the Democrats in the 60’s.  In the end, it is the soldiers in the field and the civilian population caught up in the lies, misjudgements, who-the-hell-cares, in the end.  Both parties sell wars because they profit by them.  Now Obama has opened up a new front in Afghanistan.  What’s the bullshit behind this one.  
By MarjorieC on 07/06/2009 2:59 pm
FP2
He inherited it for Georgie—and I for one do not agree with the current admin on Afghanistan. It’s another disaster waiting to happen.
By FP2 on 07/06/2009 3:55 pm
MarjorieC

F P:  He inherited it for Georgie…

All he inherited from Bush is the idea of a surge.  However, the Afghans are not the Iraqis, change and foreigners are not something they relish or put up with.  If we succeed in knocking them down, we will have to occupy their land for at least a generation, or else they will just rise up again.  That will cost us a tad bit of money, money we don’t have.  Big foolish gamble.

By MarjorieC on 07/06/2009 5:18 pm
FP2
Oh he inherited a hell of a lot more than that Marjorie—need I enumerate all the crap he did inherit?
By FP2 on 07/07/2009 7:57 am
MKP
So, Marjorie — you agree GWB and Chaney sold out the America and lied to get us into the Iraq War?   Do you think had GWB or Chaney actually served their country in the Vietnam War — they might have been less inclined to send others to be killed in a war based on lies?
By MKP on 07/07/2009 11:12 am
phyllisDoylePepe
But Marjorie, let us not forget it started with Eisenhower. Diem’s government had not lived up to the “standards of performance” on which Eisenhower had conditioned American aid. Here was another opportunity for disengagement. The implications of the French defeat, the refusal of the British to commit themselves to untied action, the pallid partnership of the NATO nations-why did not the Eisenhower Admin. put it all together and, given the President’s prestige at home, detach itself from a losing proposition? In the bureaucracy, doubtless no one did put it all together; and besides, the fear of being “soft on Communism” abided. It all ended with Nixon  after secret bombings in Cambodia and anti=war fury that rocked this country to its core. This war, which is one of the great shames of our country, cannot be blamed on democrats or republicans––it was carried out by men who thought they knew what they were doing, and ended up in disgrace.
By phyllisDoylePepe on 07/06/2009 2:07 pm
MarjorieC

Phyllis:  The reality is:  When Kennedy took office, only 500 Americans were in the South Asian nation, but by the time McNamara left his post in 1968, there were more than 500,000.

If Eisenhower made a mistake in judgement, Kennedy should have been wise enough not to build on it, and certainly Johnson should not have escalated the thing a thousand fold.  The Vietnam war is the Democrats baby — they were the leadership.  The Iraq war belongs to the Republican leadership.  So we’re one to one, now let’s see what Obama can do with that score in Afghanistan with his escalation of troops.  Again all based on the hunch that the population can be overwhelmed and remain overwhelmed.  

…it was carried out by men who thought they knew what they were doing, and ended up in disgrace.  

If you can be this forgiving of the Kennedy and Johnson blunders, why are you so condemning of George Bush who also thought he knew what he was doing — he believed in the existence of WMDs because Hussein declared he had them.
      

By MarjorieC on 07/06/2009 2:31 pm
SG3
No Marjorie George did not believe Saddam had WMD. He wanted to invade Iraq and had stated so in 1999. This was his dream war.
By SG3 on 07/06/2009 2:45 pm
MarjorieC

S G:  This was his dream war.

Dream, nightmare, whatever.  All I’m saying is that both parties are capable of created havoc based on hunches or dreams or miscalculations.  The Republicans don’t own a corner on mistakes — the Democrats have and are still selling lies to justify war.  We haven’t seen the end of it yet.  

By MarjorieC on 07/06/2009 3:06 pm