The death of former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara at 93 on Monday almost brings to an end the question of high-level, living Americans' responsibility for the Vietnam War.

Since the war came to an end in 1975 it has become fashionable to some extent to cast Mr. McNamara as the scapegoat for it. It was certainly true that he was the principal figure carrying out what the United States did there during the seven years from 1961 to 1968 that he served as defense secretary, first to President John F. Kennedy and then to President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Mr. McNamara made things worse for himself by going into a retrospective mode during his latter years in which he indicated that, first, he had had reservations about the war from the start. Second, he had concluded that the United States could not win the war. Third, he had never conveyed those conclusions to Mr. Johnson as president. During the time that he held office, thousands of Americans and Vietnamese died in the conflict.

Mr. McNamara also had a proud streak to him that cast him as the hatchet man of the war. His evident ability and his background and noted efficiency as president of Ford Motor Co. before Mr. Kennedy chose him as defense secretary almost automatically fingered him for high -- first, favorable, then unfavorable -- attention as the war proceeded.

What this analysis of his life leaves out is that in the end, five American presidents, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford, signed on to the war there during their terms. If there were any purpose served in assigning responsibility for the folly of American leadership in dragging the country through this ordeal, it could as easily be assigned to those five presidents and, in the latter years of the affair, to National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger as to Mr. McNamara.

There is a slight tendency on the part of Americans to give presidents, including Mr. Kennedy, a pass in such matters if someone as visible as Mr. McNamara or Mr. Kissinger is around to hang the blame on, but the buck does stop on the president's desk, as President Harry Truman said.

In the end, at the point of his death, it can be said that Mr. McNamara presided at the Defense Department over a period in which the United States did not cover itself with glory, at least in Vietnam. However, does anyone think now that the United States could have won the war? If Mr. McNamara had refused to pursue it, Mr. Johnson would have found someone else to. Does Mr. McNamara get credit for not letting the Vietnam War -- as it was being lost -- expand into a broader world war, possibly involving nuclear weapons, with China or the Soviet Union, as it might have done? It was Mr. Kissinger in the event who expanded the war from Vietnam into neighboring Cambodia.

Given what the Vietnam War meant to Americans and to the rest of the world, it is impossible to say that Mr. McNamara had a successful career, even though he tried mightily to redeem himself as president of the World Bank, doing good, for 13 years. However, nor should he carry a disproportionate burden of the guilt for the failure that the Vietnam War represented.

First Published: July 8, 2009, 4:00 a.m.