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Last broadcast on Sun, 12 Jul 2009, 20:30 on BBC Radio 4 (see all broadcasts).
Robert McNamara
Former US Secretary of Defence who has died aged 93
As American defence secretary between 1961 and 1968, Robert McNamara was the strategist who guided the hands of both John F Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson in Vietnam. The conflict in south-east Asia became known as McNamara’s War.
But in later life Robert McNamara was haunted by his role as the architect of an unwinnable war abroad, one that divided the people at home. He expressed regrets in a 1992 memoir and remorse in the 2003 Oscar winning film The Fog of War in which he concludes that he’d got it wrong in Vietnam.
Robert McNamara served as a military analyst during World War Two, a role which involved planning the firestorm bombing raids on Japan. After the war he rose through the ranks of the Ford Motor company, and in 1960 became its first ever President from outside the Ford family. But within weeks he’d received a call from another President – the newly elected John F Kennedy, who persuaded McNamara to become his Secretary of Defence.
John Wilson talks to Dr Henry Kissinger, Theodore Sorensen, who was John F Kennedy’s chief adviser and speechwriter, Robert Dallek, biographer of John F Kennedy and the Oscar winning director Errol Morris.
Robert McNamara was born 9 June 1916 and died 6 July 2009.
Allen Klein
Music manager who has died aged 77
Allen Klein was a New York accountant who struck deals for The Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Klein was born in Newark, New Jersey, the youngest child of Hungarian Jewish immigrants. After his mother died two years later, Allen and two of his three sisters were taken from the care of their grandmother and placed by their father in Newark's Hebrew Orphanage and Sheltering Home.
After working with several fledgling artists in the States in the 1950’s, Klein helped soul singer Sam Cooke win a lump sum back-payment from his label RCA. Klein renegotiated deals for artists who’d previously been offered tiny royalty payments by their record companies, but many of these dealings turned acrimonious and litigation followed.
Allen Klein was regarded by many Beatles fans as the man who caused their band to split.
John Wilson talks to Tony Calder, former manager of the Rolling Stones and to music critic Peter Guralnick.
Allen Klein was born 18 December 1931 and died 4 July 4 2009.
Bela Kiraly
Hungarian soldier who has died aged 97
Bela Kiraly was a respected military historian whose books and lectures were fed by first hand experience of conflict. Kiraly was a Hungarian resistance fighter during World War II, who was forced to surrender to the Red Army. After the war, a purge of the military saw Kiraly sentenced to death for treason. The charge was changed to life imprisonment and Kiraly spent five years in jail. He was released just before the shortlived Hungarian uprising of 1956, and was appointed commander in chief of the revolutionary guard.
John Wilson talks to Bela Kiraly‘s friend George Gomori.
Bela Kiraly was born 14 April 1912 and died 4 July 2009.
Broadcasts
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Fri 10 Jul 200916:00
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Sun 12 Jul 200920:30
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