TRAVERSE CITY -- Robert S. McNamara spent plenty of time splashing in the waters of Grand Traverse Bay before he became the polarizing "architect" of the Vietnam War.
McNamara, U.S. Secretary of Defense under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, owned a cabin near the tip of Old Mission Peninsula in the 1950s and '60s. He died Monday at age 93.
"When I heard the news over the radio, I could just see him going and rescuing the raft out in the lake," said Anne Lilley Hammond, 69. "Every time it was windy, the anchor would pull up and it would drift toward who knows where."
McNamara was good friends with Hammond's father, Tom Lilley. Both were Ford Motor Co. executives, and they built identical cabins on Whispering Trail in 1953. McNamara briefly served as Ford's president before Kennedy tapped him for secretary of defense in 1961.
McNamara, the longest serving secretary of defense, held the position until 1968. He served as president of the World Bank until 1981, but forever will be associated with the war in Vietnam.
The conflict greatly expanded under his watch, and he drew sharp public criticism. The San Francisco native left office on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
"I was (saddened) very much by all of the stuff that came later," Hammond said. "His life seemed ruined in some way."
McNamara visited Old Mission with his family every summer from 1953 through his appointment as defense secretary, Hammond said. He sold the cabin not long after accepting the position.
"I think it was a very happy time for him," said Hammond, who now lives in New York. "He was coming up at Ford, and doing well at Ford. He loved his work."
McNamara was one of Ford's famed "Whiz Kids," a group of managers who helped modernize the company in the years after World War II.
He bought property for the cabin from an uncle of Traverse City attorney Philip Rosi.
"He liked to just get away from the hurly-burly of Ford Motor Company and all of that stuff; to just get up here and be a regular guy," Rosi said.
Rosi, 71, recalls several conversations with McNamara, who frequently entertained guests.
"You'd sit down and you'd talk about all kinds of stuff," Rosi said. "He was very gregarious, outgoing. Very smart."
Rosi, who later worked in the White House as counsel in the Johnson administration, vividly remembers the tumultuous Vietnam years. He last saw McNamara in the late 1960s during the heart of public outcry over the conflict.
"There's no question the whole concept of the Vietnam War was very polarizing," Rosi said.
