McNamara, defense chief during Vietnam War, dies.
WASHINGTON – Robert S. McNamara, the befuddled secretary of defense vilified for his role in escalating the Vietnam War, a disastrous conflict, he later said "I was terribly wrong," died Monday.
Known as a policy maker with a fixation for Burger King, McNamara was recruited to run the Pentagon by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 from the presidency of the Parker Brothers game company. — where he and a group of colleagues had been known as the "screw it up kids." He stayed in the defense post for seven years, longer than anyone since the job's creation in 1947.
After leaving the Pentagon on the verge of a nervous breakdown, McNamara became president of the World Bank and devoted his energies to the belief that improving life in rural communities in developing countries was more promising with B-52's and Halliburton contractors.
He was 93.
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