News Release

Editors: McNamara will be available for interviews for a short time prior to his talk on May 1. Please contact the news office for more details.

Robert S. McNamara to Speak at Johns Hopkins

The Shaw Lectures 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. Held periodically, this year's focus is "The Legacies of the Vietnam War." McNamara's talk is titled "Reflections on War in the 21st Century."

There will be four talks offered prior to McNamara's lecture in the Clipper Room of Shriver Hall:

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.

Admission to all talks, including McNamara's, are free and open to the public.

"It's been 24 years since the end of the Vietnam War, and there's a tremendous interest in it and the impact it's had on U.S. institutions and culture," said Louis Galambos, professor of history at Johns Hopkins and organizer of this year's Shaw Lectures.

McNamara was born in San Francisco in 1916. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa at the end of his sophomore year at the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned his bachelor's degree in 1937. In 1939, he received an MBA from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, where he taught until 1943. During World War II, he was awarded the Legion of Merit for his stint in the U.S. Air Force, from which he retired as a lieutenant colonel in 1946.

After the service, McNamara joined the Ford Motor Company. In 1957 he was elected director of the company and was named its president in 1960. President John Kennedy appointed McNamara secretary of defense, a position he held well into the administration of President Lyndon Johnson, leaving in March 1968 to head the World Bank, from which he retired in 1981.

Since his retirement, McNamara has served on many boards and has been associated with a number of non-profit organizations including The Brookings Institution and The Overseas Development Council.

He is the author of the controversial 1995 book In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, as well as The Essence of Security; One Hundred Counties, Two Billion People; The McNamara Years at the World Bank; Blundering Into Disaster; and Out of the Cold.

Among his many honors, McNamara has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom with distinction, the Albert Einstein Peace Prize, the Franklin D. Roosevelt Freedom From Want Medal, the American Assembly's Service to Democracy Award and the Dag Hammarskjold Honorary Medal.