Early life

Francis Terry McNamara was born in Troy, New York on November 2, 1927 to John F. McNamara, Sr. and Ellin F. Fennelly. His mother was a career civil servant with the State of New York. In 1944 during World War II, an underaged Mr. McNamara convinced a Navy recruiter to sign him up, and he spent the latter part of the war in the submarine service, being discharged in 1946. After the War, he entered Russell Sage College

Russell Sage College

Russell Sage College is a women's college located in Troy, New York, approximately north of New York City in the Capital District. It is one of the three colleges that make up The Sage Colleges...

 in Troy, New York. His education was interrupted when he was called back on active duty with the Navy during the Korean War

Korean War

The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...

, from 1950 to 1951. Returning to college after Korea, McNamara graduated from Russell Sage College in 1953 with a B.A. From 1954 to 1955 he was with the State Bank of Albany, Albany, N.Y., and from 1955 to 1956, he served as a management intern with the United States Army at Watervliet, N.Y.

Foreign Service Career

Mr. McNamara joined the Foreign Service in 1956. An experienced Africanist, he served at seven African posts beginning in 1957 with his assignment to the U.S. Embassy at Salisbury

Harare

Harare before 1982 known as Salisbury) is the largest city and capital of Zimbabwe. It has an estimated population of 1,600,000, with 2,800,000 in its metropolitan area . Administratively, Harare is an independent city equivalent to a province. It is Zimbabwe's largest city and its...

, Rhodesia

Rhodesia

Rhodesia , officially the Republic of Rhodesia from 1970, was an unrecognised state located in southern Africa that existed between 1965 and 1979 following its Unilateral Declaration of Independence from the United Kingdom on 11 November 1965...

 and was ambassador to three of them: Gabon

Gabon

Gabon , officially the Gabonese Republic is a state in west central Africa sharing borders with Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north, and with the Republic of the Congo curving around the east and south. The Gulf of Guinea, an arm of the Atlantic Ocean is to the west...

, São Tomé and Príncipe

São Tomé and Príncipe

São Tomé and Príncipe, officially the Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe, is a Portuguese-speaking island nation in the Gulf of Guinea, off the western equatorial coast of Central Africa. It consists of two islands: São Tomé and Príncipe, located about apart and about , respectively, off...

 (concurrently with his assignment to Gabon), and Cape Verde

Cape Verde

The Republic of Cape Verde is an island country, spanning an archipelago of 10 islands located in the central Atlantic Ocean, 570 kilometres off the coast of Western Africa...

. In 1967 and 1968 was an economic officer in the Bureau of African Affairs in the Department. His other African postings were Zaire

Zaire

The Republic of Zaire was the name of the present Democratic Republic of the Congo between 27 October 1971 and 17 May 1997. The name of Zaire derives from the , itself an adaptation of the Kongo word nzere or nzadi, or "the river that swallows all rivers".-Self-proclaimed Father of the Nation:In...

, Tanzania

Tanzania

The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...

 and Benin

Benin

Benin , officially the Republic of Benin, is a country in West Africa. It borders Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east and Burkina Faso and Niger to the north. Its small southern coastline on the Bight of Benin is where a majority of the population is located...

, where he was Deputy Chief of Mission from 1972 until 1974. Mr. McNamara held a variety of posts outside of Africa, as well. He served as Consul General at Quebec

Quebec

Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....

 from 1975 to 1979, and Deputy Chief of Mission

Deputy Chief of Mission

A Deputy Chief of Mission , is the number-two diplomat assigned to an embassy or other diplomatic mission. He or she is usually considered the second-in-command or top lieutenant to the Head of Mission...

 at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut

Beirut

Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...

, from 1985 to 1987. In 1980 and 1981, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs.

Mr. McNamara was posted to Vietnam

Vietnam

Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...

 three times during the Vietnam War

Vietnam War

The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

, serving as provincial adviser with the CORDS program

Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support

CORDS was a pacification program of the United States military in the Vietnam War.- Development of the Program :...

 in I Corps

I Corps (South Vietnam)

The I Corps Tactical Zone was a corps of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam , the army of the nation state of South Vietnam that existed from 1955 to 1975. It was one of four corps which the ARVN oversaw. This was the northernmost region of South Vietnam, bordering North Vietnam...

, first principal officer at Danang, and Consul General at Can Tho. Following the American evacuation of Vietnam in April, 1975, Mr. McNamara was Associate Director of the Task Force for Resettlement of Indochinese Refugees in the Department before taking his assignment to Quebec.

Mr. McNamara earned a masters degree from George Washington University in 1972, and he is an alumnus of the Naval War College and the Armed Forces Staff College. He has also served as a foreign affairs fellow with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and a senior research fellow at the National Defense University.

Mr. McNamara retired in 1993 after 37 years of service.

Publications

Mr. McNamara's assignment to Can Tho, Vietnam was the basis for "Escape with Honor: My Last Hours In Vietnam", written with former British diplomat Adrian Hill (Washington, D.C., Brassey's Memories of War Series, 1997). It is a vivid account of the final days of the U.S. Consulate at Can Tho, and Mr. McNamara's harrowing evacuation of his U.S. and Vietnamese employees and dependents by boat down the Bassac River

Bassac River

The Bassac River is a distributary of the Tonle Sap and Mekong River. The river starts in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and flows southerly, crossing the border into Vietnam near Châu Đốc....

on April 29–30, 1975 during the American evacuation of South Vietnam.

Mr. McNamara's publications also include "The French in Black Africa" (Washington: National Defense University Press, 1989), a standard work in English on France's unusually close relations with its former African colonies.