KAHN, Herman Bernard

(b. 15 February 1922 in Bayonne, New Jersey; d. 7 July 1983 in Chappaqua, New York), brilliant military strategist, lecturer, author, and founder of the Hudson Institute (a conservative think tank), whose pioneering futuristic views in the 1960s made him the most prominent, as well as the most controversial, strategist of that decade.

Kahn was the son of Jewish immigrants Abraham Kahn, a clothing manufacturer, and Yetta Koslowsky, a homemaker, who divorced when Kahn was very young. Kahn, along with his mother, two brothers, and a sister, lived in New York City and at times had to depend on public assistance to survive. In 1935 Kahn and his family moved to Los Angeles. Kahn worked long hours to help support the family. He graduated from Fairfax High School in 1940 and entered the University of Southern California prior to serving in Burma with the U.S. Army Signal Corps from 1943 to 1945. After his discharge in 1945, he resumed his studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), graduating with a B.A. in physics later that year.

Kahn's first jobs were in the aviation industry and as a teaching assistant at UCLA. During this time he also attended the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, earning a M.S. in 1948. Kahn was a physicist with the RAND Institute, a think tank for the U.S. Air Force, from 1948 to 1960. There he developed expertise in military strategy by studying the critical relations between weapons and tactics, and conducting lectures for military and civilian leaders. Early in his career at RAND, Kahn stated, "They were doing what I always wanted—making integrated studies of important questions and pontificating on a range of issues." Kahn also pursued his interests in economic and political issues by participating as a roving consultant in special-interest projects. As a child Kahn loved science fiction, and at RAND he enjoyed using his skills in applied mathematics to solve game theories of strategic warfare. While at RAND, Kahn met mathematician Rosalie Jane Heilner. They married on 31 March 1953; the couple had two children.

As an expert on the problems of weapons design and a proponent of applying games theory to strategic warfare, Kahn urged the United States to accept a strong civil defense program, both for protection and as a deterrent to war. He expressed his views in On Thermonuclear War (1961), which was based on a series of lectures given at Princeton. In the early 1960s, nuclear war was not a topic of discussion, and heated controversy and debate surrounded the book because it was the first to describe openly the likely effects of nuclear war. Kahn emphatically insisted, "nuclear war is not only a possibility, but a probability." He claimed arms control and military preparation were necessary to survive the arms race. The book received praise for being "instructive and absorbing" and became a landmark in literature on military strategy. It also suffered criticism for "minimizing the dangers of nuclear war" and as a "moral tract on mass murder." The book stimulated public interest in its scenarios concerning survival, thus earning Kahn the title "father of deterrence theory" in the United States. Some critics viewed the 1964 film Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb as a satire of Kahn and On Thermonuclear War.

In September 1961, the controversial Kahn resigned from RAND and founded the Hudson Institute in White Plains, New York, which later moved to Croton-on-Hudson. Kahn served as its chairman and director of research. The institute's mission was to bridge the gap between politicians and academicians about nuclear strategy and other public policy issues and thus possibly influence policy decisions involving national security and international order. Kahn began speaking nationwide about the dangers of war and his political revulsion about participating in wars. In 1962, with the publication of his second book on nuclear war, Thinking About the Unthinkable, Kahn speculated about nuclear disaster and tried to dismiss any concerns that he was advocating the use of nuclear weapons. His views on wars were that "to act intelligently we must learn as much as we can about the risks. We may thereby be able better to avoid nuclear war."

A strong supporter of the Kennedy administration's civil defense measures, Kahn's third book, On Escalation: Metaphors and Scenarios (1965), focused on a broader framework within which to understand and manage conflict situations. Kahn showed the many distinct steps to the escalation of war, and explained what the United States must look for to determine our position on the "escalation ladder" and how we can act to prevent thermonuclear war. He also emphasized that maintaining a strong bargaining position is the central factor in a nuclear strategy.

Although many are controversial, his numerous lectures, articles, and classified documents (some still not available to the public) gained Kahn fame as a brilliant military strategist. His three books made this self-described "free-thinking intellectual" not only a figure of national prominence, but also a misunderstood intellectual outcast.

Later in the 1960s, Kahn turned his attention from thermonuclear war to economics and politics. His Year 2000 (1967), although making some outlandish predictions, discussed future developments relevant to business and international economics. Kahn was the first futurist to predict a boom in the Japanese economy and its emergence as the model for economic and business development.

Labeled as a curious and very outgoing man, Kahn's commanding presence, three hundred pounds, florid face, and tailored white beard often mesmerized those to whom he lectured for hours without notes, interspersing his comments with anecdotes and jokes. His presentations were often entertaining and always informative. It is said that Kahn briefed every president from Harry S. Truman to Ronald W. Reagan. Kahn died of a heart attack at his home in Chappaqua and is buried in Fair Ridge Cemetery there.

Kahn was an important figure in the development of futurology in the 1960s. He explored realms of thought on defense strategy into which few others dared to enter during that decade. A misunderstood futurist, lover of life, personable genius, achiever of the impossible, by openly expressing and presenting his thoughts in a convincing manner, Kahn's futuristic thinking clearly has come to influence how we view what is "impossible" and what is "certain."

An early biographical sketch on Kahn is in Current Biography 1962 (1963), Charles Moritz, ed. Biographical information and a listing of his publications and summary of his major publications appear in Susan M. Trosky, ed., Contemporary Authors, vol. 83, New Revision Series (2000). The Cold War, 1945–1991 (1992), Benjamin Frankel, ed., gives a brief biographical sketch and contains summaries of Kahn's first three books. Other sources offering critiques and appraisals of his works include Richard Kostelanetz, Master Minds: Portraits of Contemporary American Artists and Intellectuals (1969), and Robert Holmes, On War and Morality (1989). W. Basil McDermott, "Thinking About Herman Kahn," Conflict Resolution 15, no. 1 (Mar. 1971), offers an excellent analysis of Kahn's works and his views on a variety of subjects. Obituaries are in the New York Times (8 July 1983), and the Futurist 17 (Oct. 1983): 61–65.

Joyce K. Thornton