Robert S. McNamara, the Vietnam-era U.S. secretary of defense, will be the featured speaker for the Albert Shaw Lectures to be held Friday, May 1, on the Homewood campus. McNamara's talk, titled "Reflections on War in the 21st Century," will be at 5 p.m.

The Shaw Lectures series, held periodically, was endowed in the early years of this century to bring to Hopkins leading historians for a serious consideration of various aspects of an important and timely topic in diplomatic history and U.S. foreign relations. This year's focus is "The Legacy of the Vietnam War."

Four other talks on the subject will precede McNamara's lecture. They will be given by Charles E. Neu, a Brown University historian; Robert K. Brigham, a history professor at Vassar College; Brian Balogh, an associate professor of 20th-century political history at the University of Virginia; and George C. Herring, a military historian at the University of Kentucky. McNamara, Neu, Brigham and Herring, and others recently traveled to Vietnam to talk with current leaders about the war and the future of the country.

For a schedule of talks, see the weekly calendar.