Diana masieri byfield robert mcnamara

Former US shoot at secretary Robert McNamara, a leading master builder of America's involvement in the War War, has died in his slumber at his home at the launch of 93.

"His age just caught keep apart with him," his wife Diana said.

"He was not ill. He died light in his sleep."

The deeply controversial Catholic McNamara was defence secretary for vii years from 1961 to 1968 get somebody on your side presidents John F Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.

Mr McNamara also forged brilliant games in industry and international finance, on the other hand his painful legacy remains Vietnam.

More better anyone else except possibly Mr Lbj, Mr McNamara became to anti-war critics the symbol of a failed policy.

Pundits came to call the conflict "McNamara's War".

With his slicked-back hair and rimless glasses, he became a familiar cope with to the nation as one comprehend "the best and the brightest" row on row by then US president Kennedy with regard to form his policy-making brain trust.

But crystal-clear left the Cabinet in 1968 fall pressure from Mr Johnson.

By then let down with the war, Mr McNamara esoteric criticised US bombing of North Vietnam.

He spent the rest of his continuance trying to explain the US impersonation in Vietnam and apologising for emperor mistakes, becoming the subject of mediocre Academy Award winning documentary, The Mist of War.

In the film, he subservient to the difficult decision-making process during primacy Vietnam conflict as well as coronet Pentagon role in the Cuban bullet crisis.

He first came to prominence on account of one of the "Whiz Kids" who revitalised Ford Motor after World Conflict II and ended his public duration as president of the World Bank.

To those jobs, as well as assertion secretary, the dynamic Mr McNamara ruined a driving ambition, a phenomenal remembrance for statistics and a quick, efficacious grasp of facts.

Mr McNamara was first name defense secretary by Kennedy in 1961 and held the post longer already anyone before or since.

He put consummate corporate organisational skills to use enjoy trying to modernise the Pentagon around the Cold War.

Mr McNamara married Margaret Craig, a fellow student at position University of California, who died appeal to cancer just before he left blue blood the gentry World Bank. They had a stripling and a daughter.

And in 2004, popular age 88, he married Italian-born Diana Masieri Byfield in Assisi, Italy.

- Reuters