July 6th 2009, saw the end of an era, as living American legend Robert McNamara breathed his last. He was 93 years old at the time of death.

An institution in himself, McNamara was the quintessential wonder-man with the Midas touch, who went from being a business executive to the nation’s defense secretary to the secretary of the World Bank, among other distinguished roles that he had played to perfection, leaving his own distinctive mark.

Born on June 9th, 1916 to British parents, Robert Strange McNamara,
had an elite educational pedigree, having been the product of the University of California, Berkeley, and the Harvard Business School. Starting out as a young business executive, he went on to become the 8th Secretary of defense of the United States of America.

He served as the Secretary of defense under not one but two great American Presidents: John F. Kennedy and Lyndon P. Johnson from the period between 1961 to 1968. His career as the defense secretary was however, not free of it’s share of trials and tribulations and the occasional lapse of judgment, as seen in retrospect.

Inspite of being crucial to America’s sucessful response to the Cuban Missile crisis, it was really his errors
in perception in the Vietnam War that would come back to haunt him, throughout the rest of his eventful life. It is often believed that his stint in the World Bank was a conscious effort to banish the destructive ghosts of his past with productive positivity.

In his extremely multi-faceted lifetime, he even dabbled in the creative media and was a part of the Oscar-winning documentary with film-maker Errol Morris, called the “The Fog of War.”