Former US defence secretary dies

Robert McNamara, who served as US defence secretary during the Vietnam war and the Cuban Missile Crisis, has died aged 93.

Mr McNamara, who served under presidents John F Kennedy and Lyndon B Johnson, was also an architect of the US policy of nuclear deterrence.

After leaving the Pentagon he became president of the World Bank.

His wife Diana said he had suffered failing health for some time and died in his sleep at home in Washington DC.

Before taking up the post as Pentagon chief in 1961, Mr McNamara was the president of Ford Motor Company, turning the company around in the post World War II era.

He is most closely associated with overseeing the involvement of the US in Vietnam from 1961 to 1968.

Mr McNamara became to many anti-war critics the symbol of a failed policy that left more than 58,000 US troops dead.

Even his son, as a Stanford University student, took part in protests against the war while his father was running it.

However, in his 1995 memoirs In Retrospect: The Tragedies and Lessons of Vietnam, Mr McNamara wrote of his regret over his Vietnam role.

He described the war as "terribly wrong" owing to a combination of the anti-communist climate of the times, mistaken assumptions of foreign policy and military misjudgements.

He spoke frankly about the Vietnam war and the Cuban Missile Crisis in the 2003 documentary "The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara."

With the US in the first year of the war in Iraq, it became a popular and timely attraction and won an Oscar for best documentary feature.

As president of the World Bank, Mr McNamara devoted great energy into improving life in rural communities in developing countries.

He believed it was a more promising path to peace than the build-up of arms and armies.

After retiring in 1981, he championed the cause of nuclear disarmament.