John McNaughton ( government official ) John Theodore McNaughton ( November 21 , 1921 – July 19 , 1967 ) born in Pekin , Illinois was United States Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs and Robert S . McNamara ' s closest advisor . He died in a plane crash at age 45 , less than two weeks before he would have become Secretary of the Navy . Biography . Ivory tower to the Pentagon . Tall , taut , fast - talking John McNaughton had graduated in 1948 from DePauw University . He began his career as an academic , with some confidence in his intellectual powers . Maj . Gen . Charles J . Timmes reports that when he visited McNaughton and his wife in 1964 , as his wife was attempting to describe the complexity of the political and social situation in Vietnam , McNaughton had replied that one could find the solution to any problem " by simply dissecting it into all its elements and then piecing together the resultant formula " . He had been friends with strategic theorist , and now Nobel prize winner in economics , Thomas Schelling since they administered the Marshall Plan in Paris . In 1964 , Schelling received a call to come and work at the Department of Defense as both were teaching at Harvard . He sent McNaughton , promising to advise him on weapons and strategy and McNaughton was appointed Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs . Escalation in Vietnam . Together , they outlined a bombing strategy to intimidate North Vietnam in the spring of 1964 , leading to the first phase of " Operation Rolling Thunder " ( March 2 , 1965 - October 31 , 1968 ) which took place between March 2 and 24 , 1965 . The conditions for a bombing halt , outlined in a confidential memorandum by John McNaughton to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara were that The North Vietnamese did not regard the operation as expressing a real will to win and it did not achieve its objectives . Political reality had proved more complex than the abstract models of game theory . Militarily , the bombing operation couldn ' t prevent North Vietnam from continuing its war against the South because until March 1972 , that was a guerrilla war which was not vulnerable to air attack and required few external supplies , thus negating efforts at air interdiction . In 1966 John McNaughton and his deputy Adam Yarmolinsky had to admit , in a JASON study , that the air strikes had failed . Toward " Vietnamization " ? A pragmatist , John McNaughton understood that only one aspect of the war effort was not a double - edged sword & could make the difference in the long term : the effort to turn South Vietnam into a viable political society , able to withstand the North ' s assault with U . S . help . In March 1965 , McNaughton told President Johnson that while such efforts might not McNaughton was referencing the nation - building strategy devised by the Major - General Edward Lansdale , who had become a counterinsurgency expert after defeating the Huk rebellion in the Philippines in the 1950s , Sir Robert Thompson — a British counter - insurgency expert and Roger Hilsman — a former American guerilla in Burma and the director of intelligence for the Department of State in the Kennedy administration . Edward Lansdale had made the point that the South ' s dependency had the effect to Personal life . He was married to Sarah Elizabeth “ Sally ” Fulkman ( born February 14 , 1921 ) . They had two sons , Alexander “ Alex ” and Theodore “ Ted ” ( born July 23 , 1955 ) . Death . Secretary of Defense Robert S . McNamara , confided privately that McNaughton could have been his choice to replace him as Secretary of Defense . McNaughton resigned from this post of Assistant Secretary of Defense and was to become Secretary of Navy on August 1 , 1967 after being confirmed by the United States Senate . But he died in the crash of Piedmont Airlines Flight 22 with his wife and younger son on July 19 , 1967 . Namesakes . The major bridge in Pekin , Illinois , carrying Illinois Route 9 across the Illinois River , is named after him . John T . McNaughton Park is a public park just northeast of Pekin off Illinois Route 98 .