McNamara, Robert Strange

McNamara, Robert Strange (b. 9 June 1916). US Secretary of Defense 1961–8; President of the World Bank 1968–81 Born in San Francisco, California, he graduated from the University of California in 1937 and during World War II taught at the Harvard Business School. He joined the Ford Motor Company and rose rapidly to become its President. He resigned soon afterwards to join the administration of John F. Kennedy, despite his Republican sympathies. Repudiating the Dulles concept of brinkmanship, he advocated pragmatism and flexibility as a means to combat world Communism. He successfully gained control over Pentagon spending, axing obsolete weapons and applying strict cost-accounting methods. He visited Vietnam 1962, 1964, and 1966, when he sought to boost the US-backed Saigon government against the National Liberation Front. While supporting the early bombing offensive against North Vietnam in 1965, he came to repudiate full-scale military involvement and resigned from the Johnson administration in February 1968. He was appointed President of the World Bank, where his main concern was to ease the burden of debt repayment incurred by developing countries, many of whose economies were devastated by high oil prices in the 1970s. In 1995 he expressed deep regret at his complicity in the conduct of the Vietnam War.