Robert McNamara, Vietnam-era Defense Secretary, Has Died

Robert McNamara, who led the Pentagon through many of the turbulent years of the Vietnam War and was blamed by many critics for the way that war was fought, has died, according to The Washington Post.

In later years, McNamara came to agree with those who said it was a misguided war.

"We of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations acted according to what we thought were the principles and traditions of our country. But we were wrong. We were terribly wrong," he told The Associated Press in 1995.

Update at 9:11 a.m. ET. NPR's Jack Zahora prepared this audio obituary of McNamara:

Update at 8:59 a.m. ET: The Associated Press now reports it has confirmed the news with McNamara's wife. The wire service adds that he died this morning around 5:30 a.m. ET.

Update at 8:46 a.m. ET. According to the Defense Department's biography of McNamara:

— He was born June 9, 1916, which would make him 93 years old.

— His time as secretary of Defense began with the arrival of the Kennedy administration on Jan. 21, 1961, and ended on Feb. 29, 1968.

— "His book, In Retrospect, published in 1995, presented an account and analysis of the Vietnam War that dwelt heavily on the mistakes to which he was a prime party and conveyed his strong sense of guilt and regret."

A 2003 documentary by Errol Morris, The Fog of War, gave McNamara another chance to explain his actions.