Robert Pursley dies at CT home; Pentagon aide became critic of Vietnam War

Lt. Gen. Robert E. Pursley, a top aide to three secretaries of defense in the 1960s and early ’70s, who played a behind-the-scenes role in shaping policy as an unlikely critic of the Vietnam War — so much so that his telephones were tapped by the paranoid Nixon White House — died July 24 at his home in Stamford, Connecticut. He was 97.

His granddaughter Sarah Bowman confirmed his death.

Pursley, an Air Force figure little known outside the Defense Department, was the senior military assistant, or top uniformed aide, to defense secretaries in Democratic and Republican administrations between 1966 and 1972.

His job was effectively to be chief of staff to the defense secretary, and he served under Robert McNamara and Clark Clifford in the Lyndon B. Johnson administration and Melvin Laird d