Thaindian News

Robert S. McNamara, the controversial Pentagon Chief, who instigated the Vietnam war despite speculations regarding whether the war was worth fighting for or not took his last breath on Monday. He was 93. McNamara died at 5.30 a.m. at his home, his wife Diana reportedly told AP (Associated Press). He had been suffering from several health related problems for quite some time.

The drubbing of America in Vietnam was later revealed by McNamara, three decades later.

Americans termed the Vietnam war as “McNamara’s War”. “We of the Kennedy and the Johnson administrations acted according to what we thought was right. But we were wrong. We were terribly wrong,” McNamara had stated earlier in 1995, the year his best selling memoir appeared.

McNamara, has been largely identified as a forceful public optimist. He believed that the American intervention in Vietnam will help the South Vietnamese to stand by themselves. This decision of his proved to be wrong and was protested world wide. Even his fellow Americans were against the “Vietnam invasion of America”. The war resulted in more than 58,000 death of U.S. soldiers.

A student of Statistical Analysis, McNamara was recruited to run the Pentagon by President John F Kennedy in the year 1961. He served for the defense for almost seven years, longer than any one else in business. Anti-war critics ridiculed him as “an out of touch technocrat” and also made fun of his middle name suggesting it as “Strange”.

In the Kennedy regime, McNamara was a main man behind the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of April 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis 18 months later. The death of McNamara brings an end to the much controversial ridden life of the ex Pentagon Chief.