Cuban missile crisis advisor McNamara died

Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara died this morning at the age of 93.

McNamara will most likely be remembered for his role in the buildup and failure of the Vietnam War. Though he would later admit that it was "terribly wrong" to have pursued military action in Vietnam beyond 1963, McNamara’s management and focus on statistics ignored the massive humanitarian cost of the war. "McNamara treated everybody like they were a spare part on a Ford," said the executive director for policy and government affairs for Vietnam Veterans of America who alluded to McNamara’s previous experience as a former Ford executive.

In terms of Latin America, McNamara was hugely influential in shaping a U.S.-Cuba policy that has changed little over the past four decades:

The former secretary of defense was among John Kennedy’s closest advisers during the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis 18 months later.

Those events shaped U.S. policy by hardening an adversarial relationship with Cuba, setting up a 47-year embargo.

Like many leaders in the Cold War, McNamara was obsessed with fighting communism and deterring nuclear war. The invasion and Missile Crisis represented the good and bad of that policy.

From 1968 to 1981 McNamara served as head of the World Bank where he “increased the bank's loans to developing countries and changed its focus from large-scale industrial projects to development in rural communities.”

The following is an excerpt from the brilliant 2003 documentary “The Fog of War”:

Online Sources- Al Jazeera English, YouTube, NPR, Miami Herald, Guardian UK, DC Blog