User:Canuckian89/United States Secretaries of Defense

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 10, 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, 70 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

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, 70 days	37,326 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, 52 days	35,482 days
7	William Perry	October 11, 1927	Living	97 years, 30 days	35,460 days
8	James R. Schlesinger	February 15, 1929	Living	95 years, 269 days	34,967 days
9	Frank Carlucci	October 18, 1930	Living	94 years, 23 days	34,357 days
10	Donald Rumsfeld	July 9, 1932	Living	92 years, 124 days	33,727 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, 135 days	31,547 days
16	William Cohen	August 28, 1940	Living	84 years, 74 days	30,755 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, 285 days	30,600 days
19	Robert Gates	September 25, 1943	Living	81 years, 46 days	29,632 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