McNamara

Well, the world's population is significantly less self-serving this morning.

While McNamara tried to rehabilitate his reputation in later years, the evil he caused and the vigor in which he defended it make him of the great architects of 20th century death. His behavior was utterly amoral. His later apologies only made it worse. Both his autobiography and Errol Morris' Fog of War gave him opportunities to explain himself. But his apologies never felt from the heart. He was explaining away his actions as being part of the time. This is not 100% untrue, but the fact was that few people in the United States played a bigger role in creating that time.