Word: mcnamara
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...think one of the most interesting things about Robert McNamara was that he was someone who was a larger-than-life figure in the early '60s, who then continued to learn and grow and change in all kinds of ways," said David T. Ellwood '75, dean of the Kennedy School, where McNamara frequently visited and spoke after he left the Pentagon and the World Bank. "[He was] someone whose ideas were always well-considered...and who ultimately had been through a great deal, but I think in the end came to great wisdom and insight from his many experiences...
...McNamara, who endowed a Kennedy School lecture series entitled The Robert McNamara Lecture on War and Peace, died on Monday at age 93 at his home in Washington. He served as defense secretary for Presidents John F. Kennedy '40 and Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961 to 1968, during which half a million American soldiers were sent to war in the jungles of Vietnam and hundreds of thousands of tons of bombs were dropped. While McNamara had said early on that he was "pleased to be identified" with the war, his confidence in the military effort steadily deteriorated, albeit not publicly...
...privately urging Johnson to establish troop level ceilings and to halt the bombings, which McNamara had come to believe were futile. In 1967, he pressed Johnson more firmly to consider a peace settlement. Johnson, believing that McNamara was aiding a presidential bid by Robert F. Kennedy '48, announced in Nov. 1967 that McNamara would be stepping down as defense secretary to head the World Bank...
...When [McNamara] left, he was already a very sick, disheartened, and dispirited person, so much so that at his last news conference...he broke down in tears, in front of the President and the cameras," said Marvin L. Kalb, a Kennedy School professor who, as a former journalist, knew McNamara personally. "It was a sad thing to observe, for somebody who was so confident that he knew how to run the war, to leave in tears and in full awareness that he had failed...
...much of his early life, McNamara was defined by his striking intellectualism, his tireless focus and drive, and his seeming lack of personal warmth and humanity...