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User:Canuckian89/United States Secretaries of Defense

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This is a list of United States Secretaries of Defense in order of longevity. There are currently twenty-two Secretaries on the list and ten living Secretaries. The list is in descending order and is correct as of November 29, 2024. The oldest Secretary is Robert McNamara (1916 - 2009), who died at the age of 93 years, 27 days. The oldest living Secretary is Melvin R. Laird. He is currently 102 years, 89 days old and has held the title of oldest living Secretary since July 6, 2009.

To account for the different number of leap days within the life of each Secretary, two measures of longevity are given. The first is the number of whole years the Secretary lived, and the number of days past their last birthday. The second lists the total number of days lived by the Secretary.

List

[edit]
Rank
Secretary
Date of Birth
Date of Death
Longevity
(Years, Days)
Longevity
(Days)
1 Robert McNamara June 9, 1916 July 6, 2009 93 years, 27 days 33,995 days
2 Clark Clifford December 25, 1906 October 10, 1998 91 years, 289 days 33,527 days
3 Robert A. Lovett September 14, 1895 May 7, 1986 90 years, 235 days 33,107 days
4 Melvin R. Laird September 1, 1922 Living 102 years, 89 days 37,345 days
5 Caspar Weinberger August 18, 1917 March 28, 2006 88 years, 222 days 32,364 days
6 Harold Brown September 19, 1927 Living 97 years, 71 days 35,501 days
7 William Perry October 11, 1927 Living 97 years, 49 days 35,479 days
8 James R. Schlesinger February 15, 1929 Living 95 years, 288 days 34,986 days
9 Frank Carlucci October 18, 1930 Living 94 years, 42 days 34,376 days
10 Donald Rumsfeld July 9, 1932 Living 92 years, 143 days 33,746 days
11 Elliot Richardson July 20, 1920 December 31, 1999 79 years, 164 days 29,018 days
12 George Marshall December 31, 1880 October 16, 1959 78 years, 289 days 28,777 days
13 Thomas S. Gates April 10, 1906 March 25, 1983 76 years, 349 days 28,108 days
14 Louis A. Johnson January 10, 1891 April 24, 1966 75 years, 104 days 27,497 days
15 Leon Panetta June 28, 1938 Living 86 years, 154 days 31,566 days
16 William Cohen August 28, 1940 Living 84 years, 93 days 30,774 days
17 Charles E. Wilson July 18, 1890 September 26, 1961 71 years, 70 days 26,002 days
18 Richard B. Cheney January 30, 1941 Living 83 years, 304 days 30,619 days
19 Robert Gates September 25, 1943 Living 81 years, 65 days 29,651 days
20 Neil H. McElroy October 30, 1904 November 30, 1972 68 years, 31 days 24,868 days
21 James Forrestal February 15, 1892 May 22, 1949 57 years, 96 days 20,915 days
22 Les Aspin July 21, 1938 May 21, 1995 56 years, 304 days 20,758 days
Secretaries of Defense 22
Living 10
Deceased 12