Robert S.McNamara 1916-2009

Robert McNamara was Secretary of Defense during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. He was involved in the Cuban Missile Crisis and he was a key architect of early U.S. policy in Vietnam and supported the U.S. military involvement. But as the war escalated yet failed to bring results, and as resistance to the war mounted at home, McNamara began to push for a negotiated solution. In 1968, after opposing further bombing of North Vietnam, he lost influence in the Johnson administration and left to become president of the World Bank