McNamara To Quit Defence Post

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31539, 29 November 1967, Page 17

McNamara To Quit Defence Post

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) WASHINGTON, November 28. Evidence hardened today that Mr Robert McNamara would resign as Secretary of Defence to become President of the World Bank next year.

-The White House would neither confirm nor deny the reports. The Pentagon also refused to comment.

But both the “New York Times” and the “Washington Post” flatly reported that President Johnson had already picked Mr McNamara for the Work Bank post and that the nomination had been submitted privately to the 107nation bank organisation. Other sources also said the reports that Mr McNamara would go to the bank “can be taken quite seriously.” Word of the resignation caused stunned surprise in Washington. There was no official hint of Mr McNamara’s successor as chief of the Pentagon, but early speculation centred on the Deputy Secretary of Defence, Mr Paul Nitze.

Other possibilities mentioned included Mr John Connally, the President’s old friend who recently announced that he would not seek re-election as Governor of Texas; Mr Cyrus Vance, another trusted associate who recently resigned as DeputySecretary of Defence; Mr Robert Anderson, also a close associate, who is a former Secretary of the Treasury, former Secretary of the Navy and former Deputy Secretary of Defence, and Mr Harold Brown, Secretary of the Air Force. There was speculation that the President might seek a prominent Republican for the post, as protection against attack in the 1968 election campaign, or that he would perpetuate the McNamara image by naming Mr Charles Thornton, chairman of the Board of Litton Industries. The White House has consistently said there has been no major disagreement over the conduct of the war between President Johnson and Mr McNamara. There has been an impression that Mr McNamara was overruled by President Johnson in the latest decisions to add more bombing targets in North Vietnam, but even this has been denied.

In testimony before the United States Senate Preparedness Sub-Committee last summer, Mr McNamara presented a series of arguments

against substantially extending the bombing of North Vietnam, but he emphasised that the situation could change. The Joint Chiefs, and other military witnesses strongly supported expanded bombing, and the sub-committee adopted their view in its report. The chief criticism of Mr McNamara earlier was that he was too optimistic about how the war was going. However, in the last year he has carefully avoided optimistic statements, although he has left no doubt that he believed the allied forces were gradually winning. The post to which Mr McNamara has been named has world-wide prestige. He would replace Mr George Woods as president of the bank, the formal name of which is the International

Bank for Reconstruction and Development. It is a gargantuan lending institution, the primary function of which is to aid the economic development of poor countries. An American has always been president of the bank, and the United States Government has known for several months that it would have to name a successor to Mr Woods. It was expected tonight that the member Governments of the bank, respecting the tradition that United States name the president, would not object to Mr McNamara’s nomination.

However, if Mr McNamara became president of the bank his major role in the Viet-

nam war might create difficult problems for him in dealing with some of the banks’ members. Mr McNamara, who has held the defence post longer than any of his seven predecessors, has to take on his shoulders much of the weight of the United States war in Vietnam. Born on June 9, 1916, in San Francisco of Irish ancestry, the young McNamara attended the University of California and later Harvard Business School, where he studied economics. For a year he worked for a San Francisco accounting firm, then taught at Harvard Business School from 1940 to 1943.

Mr McNamara, who wears rimless glasses, was classed 4-F in the war because of his poor eyesight. He went as a civilian consultant to United States forces in Britain in 1943. On his return to the United States, he was commissioned and worked in the Defence Department, where he rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel. While still at the Pentagon, he and nine colleagues sent a prospectus to 20 top industrial concerns, offering themselves as a “package" to any company needing managerial talent.

They were signed on by the car magnate, Henry Ford, and became known as the “whiz kids” with Mr McNamara the second in command of the group. By 1960, he had risen to president of the Ford Motor Company, the first person outside the Ford family to get the title.

A little more than a month later, on January 1, 1961, he resigned to join the late President Kennedy’s Administration as Defence Secretary. On the day of his appointment, he confessed that counting his stock options in the Ford company, the job of Defence Secretary would cost him about a million dollars.

Since then, while enjoying the confidence of both President Kennedy and President Johnson, he has run into increasing criticism in Congress.

Generally regarded as a “dove” and restraining influence on some more aggressive colleagues, Mr McNamara has come under fire from both sections of Congress.