To ally and adversary alike, Robert Strange McNamara has always seemed a man of diamond-hard will and titanium physique. When his forthcoming departure from the Pentagon was announced last week, it seemed almost as if the Washington Monument had toppled from marble fatigue.
McNamara ruled the Defense Department longer and more efficiently than any of his seven predecessors, constructing the world's most powerful nuclear arsenal while fighting a limited war in Viet Nam and a seemingly limitless conflict with hard-nosed generals and fractious legislators at home. His administrative reforms became a model for...
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