[Arratherimi]

WASHINGTON – Robert S. McNamara, the cerebral secretary of defense vilified for his role in escalating the Vietnam War, a disastrous conflict he later denounced as "terribly wrong," died Monday. He was 93. Not a white knight in the fight for good, his death nonetheless brought a tear to the corner of my eye.

If you had asked an objective historian in 1964 "who is the most important man in the world", he would have answered: Robert McNamara.

(Or maybe he would have answered: Ho Chi Minh.)