THE death earlier this month of Robert McNamara, US Defence Secretary for seven years during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations in the Sixties, has again reminded us about the futility of war.

Mr McNamara not only launched the Vietnam war as a strategic pre-emptive offensive against the Soviet Union, but also vigorously pursued it with blind, heartless determination.

In the end, he recognised the long-term disastrous consequences of the US aggression and resigned in 1968.

It took him a further two decades after the end of the war to publicly acknowledge: “We were wrong, terribly wrong.”

Mr McNamara’s 1995 book, In Retrospect: the Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, should be essential reading for all potential warmongers.

History teaches that one can never win the hearts and minds of the people whom we attack.

Memo to George Bush and Tony Blair: is it too late to say mea culpa and make amends, just as Robert McNamara did in his subsequent tenure as President of the World Bank?

Dr Abdul Jaleel, Darlington