Strange, Sir Robert, 1721-92, English engraver. The outstanding historical engraver of his day, he became a member of the academies of Rome, Florence, Bologna, and France and was the only English engraver whose portrait was painted on the ceiling of the Vatican print room. His most distinguished works are Van Dyck's Charles I with His Horse and Charles I in His Robes. For his engraving of West's Apotheosis of the Royal Children he was knighted in 1787.

McNamara, Robert Strange, 1916-, U.S. Secretary of Defense (1961-68), b. San Francisco. He taught (1940-43) business administration at Harvard, served in World War II, and was (1946-60) an executive of the Ford Motor Company, where he was responsible for many of the managerial and product changes that enabled the company to regain its high rank among the nation's corporations. In Nov., 1960, he became the first president of the corporation who was not a member of the Ford family, but he resigned shortly afterward to become (Jan., 1961) President Kennedy's secretary of defense. McNamara introduced modern management techniques in the Defense Dept. and asserted civilian control over the defense establishment. He also shifted U.S. military strategy away from heavy reliance on nuclear weaponry and strengthened conventional fighting capacity. Although he at first supported escalation of the Vietnam War, growing doubts about the war led McNamara to resign from the cabinet. From 1968 to 1981 he was president of the World Bank. McNamara wrote The Essence of Security (1968), One Hundred Countries, Two Billion People (1973), and The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam (1995).

(born June 9, 1916, San Francisco, Calif., U.S.) U.S. secretary of defense (1961–68). He graduated from the University of California at Berkeley (1937), earned a graduate degree at the Harvard Business School (1939), and later joined the Harvard faculty. He developed logistical and statistical systems for the military during World War II. After the war, he was one of the “Whiz Kids” hired to revitalize the Ford Motor Company, and in 1960 he became the first president of the company who was not a member of the Ford family. In 1961 he was appointed secretary of defense by John F. Kennedy. Though initially a supporter of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, by 1967 he advocated peace negotiations; his opposition to the bombing of North Vietnam caused him to lose influence with Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson. He resigned in 1968 to become president of the World Bank (1968–81).

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