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Whiz Kids (Department Of Defense)
Whiz Kids was a name given to a group of experts from RAND Corporation with which Robert McNamara surrounded himself in order to turn around the management of the United States Department of Defense (DoD) in the 1960s. The purpose was to shape a modern defense strategy in the Nuclear Age by bringing in economic analysis, operations research, game theory, computing, as well as implementing modern management systems to coordinate the huge dimension of operations of the DoD with methods such as the Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System (PPBS). They were called the Whiz Kids recalling the group at Ford Motor Company that McNamara was part of a decade earlier. The group included (among others): * Harold Brown * Alain Enthoven * Steven Fenster * Patrick Gross * William Kaufmann * Jan Lodal * Howard Margolis * Frank Nicolai * Merton Joseph Peck * Charles O. Rossotti * Henry Rowen * John H. Rubel * Ivan Selin * Pierre Sprey * David Staiger * Adam Yarmolinsky * Richard Z ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RAND
The RAND Corporation (from the phrase "research and development") is an American nonprofit global policy think tank created in 1948 by Douglas Aircraft Company to offer research and analysis to the United States Armed Forces. It is financed by the U.S. government and private endowment, corporations, universities and private individuals. The company assists other governments, international organizations, private companies and foundations with a host of defense and non-defense issues, including healthcare. RAND aims for interdisciplinary and quantitative problem solving by translating theoretical concepts from formal economics and the physical sciences into novel applications in other areas, using applied science and operations research. Overview RAND has approximately 1,850 employees. Its American locations include: Santa Monica, California (headquarters); Arlington, Virginia; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Boston, Massachusetts. The RAND Gulf States Policy Institute has an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Howard Margolis
Howard Margolis (1932 – April 29, 2009) was an American social scientist. He earned a BA in Government from Harvard University in 1953 and a PhD in Political Science from MIT in 1979. From 1990 to 2009, he was on the faculty of the University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ... and taught as well at the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy Studies. His work on social theory focuses on individual choice and judgments shaping aggregate social outcomes and involved mathematical modeling. Margolis also published extensively on cognition, public policy, and the history of science. Bibliography * Margolis, Howard (2007). ''Cognition and Extended Rational Choice.'' New York: Routledge. * Margolis, Howard (2002). ''It Started with Copernicus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cold War History Of The United States
Cold is the presence of low temperature, especially in the atmosphere. In common usage, cold is often a subjective perception. A lower bound to temperature is absolute zero, defined as 0.00K on the Kelvin scale, an absolute thermodynamic temperature scale. This corresponds to on the Celsius scale, on the Fahrenheit scale, and on the Rankine scale. Since temperature relates to the thermal energy held by an object or a sample of matter, which is the kinetic energy of the random motion of the particle constituents of matter, an object will have less thermal energy when it is colder and more when it is hotter. If it were possible to cool a system to absolute zero, all motion of the particles in a sample of matter would cease and they would be at complete rest in the classical sense. The object could be described as having zero thermal energy. Microscopically in the description of quantum mechanics, however, matter still has zero-point energy even at absolute zero, because ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Nicholson
Thomas Nicolson or Nicholson may refer to: * Thomas Nicolson of Carnock (died 1646), commissioner for Stirlingshire * Sir Thomas Nicolson, 6th Baronet (died 1693), of the Nicolson baronets * Thomas Nicolson (bishop) (1645–1718), Roman Catholic bishop * Thomas Nicolson, 4th Lord Napier (1669–1688), Scottish peer * Sir Thomas Nicolson, 1st Baronet (died 1728), of the Nicolson baronets * Thomas Nicholson (architect) (1823–1895), British architect * Thomas Nicholson (cricketer) (1876–1939), English cricketer * Tom Nicolson Thomas Rae Nicolson (3 October 1879 – 18 April 1951) from Tighnabruaich was a British track and field athlete who competed in the 1908 Summer Olympics and in the 1920 Summer Olympics. In 1908 he finished fourth in the hammer throw competition ... (1879–1951), British track and field athlete * Thomas Nicholson (educator), American health educator and drug policy specialist See also * Nickolson Thomas (born 1982), Trinidadian footballer {{ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Zeckhauser
Richard Jay Zeckhauser (born 1940) is an American economist and the Frank P. Ramsey Professor of Political Economy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He holds a BA (''summa cum laude'') and a PhD in economics from Harvard University. Early in his career, he was one of the " whiz kids" assembled by Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara to apply cutting-edge analysis to Cold War military strategy. He is married to Sally H. Zeckhauser. He is the author or co-author of many books and over 300 peer-reviewed articles. His most significant works focus on risk management, decision sciences, investment, and policy-making under uncertainty. Zeckhauser introduced the term "ignorance" into decision-making under uncertainty, as in: there's "risk", "uncertainty", and outright "ignorance". His most recent book, with Peter Schuck, is ''Targeting in Social Programs.'' The book examines how and why to deploy scarce public resources to solve public problems. While he holds n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adam Yarmolinsky
Adam Yarmolinsky (November 17, 1922 – January 5, 2000) was an American academic, educator and author, as well as a political appointee who served in numerous capacities in the Kennedy, Johnson and Carter administrations. Besides serving in the White House, he also held posts in the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. He was an aide to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara at the Pentagon, where Yarmolinsky was an early critic of American policies in the Vietnam war. Biography Yarmolinsky attended the Fieldston School in Riverdale and then graduated from Harvard College where he was editorial director of the ''Harvard Crimson''. He enlisted in the US Army Air Forces during World War II and rose to the rank of sergeant. Yarmolinsky took a law degree from Yale Law School in 1948. He served as a law clerk to Chief Judge Charles E. Clark of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, based in New York, and later as a clerk to Supreme Court Justice Stanley F. Reed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Staiger
David (; , "beloved one") (traditional spelling), , ''Dāwūd''; grc-koi, Δαυΐδ, Dauíd; la, Davidus, David; gez , ዳዊት, ''Dawit''; xcl, Դաւիթ, ''Dawitʿ''; cu, Давíдъ, ''Davidŭ''; possibly meaning "beloved one". was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the third king of the United Kingdom of Israel. In the Books of Samuel, he is described as a young shepherd and harpist who gains fame by slaying Goliath, a champion of the Philistines, in southern Canaan. David becomes a favourite of Saul, the first king of Israel; he also forges a notably close friendship with Jonathan, a son of Saul. However, under the paranoia that David is seeking to usurp the throne, Saul attempts to kill David, forcing the latter to go into hiding and effectively operate as a fugitive for several years. After Saul and Jonathan are both killed in battle against the Philistines, a 30-year-old David is anointed king over all of Israel and Judah. Following his rise to power, David c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pierre Sprey
Pierre Michel Sprey was a record producer and a defense analyst. Working with John Boyd and Thomas P. Christie at the Pentagon, he was associated with the self-dubbed 'Fighter Mafia', which advocated the use of energy–maneuverability theory in fighter jet design. Sprey was born in Nice, France in 1937, and raised in New York.. Sprey was admitted to Yale university at the age of fifteen and graduated after four year with a double major in French literature and Mechanical Engineering. He later continued his education at Cornell University where he studied mathematical statistics and operations research. He subsequently worked at Grumman Aircraft as a consulting statistician on space and commercial transportation projects. From 1966 to 1970 he was a special assistant at the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Defense analyst, criticism of the F-15 During the 1960s, Pierre Sprey was associated with a group of defense analysts who called themselves the 'Fighter Mafia'. He was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ivan Selin
Ivan Selin (born March 11, 1937) is an American businessman, and former Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Under Secretary of State for Management. Selin is a Fulbright Scholar and graduate of Yale University (PhD, Electrical Engineering, 1960) and University of Paris (Doctor of Science, Mathematics, 1962). He was born in New York City. Early career From 1960 to 1965, Selin was a research engineer at the RAND Corporation, working on national security issues and statistical communication theory. In 1965, Selin went to work for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, one of Robert S. McNamara's Whiz Kids. From 1965 to 1970, Selin worked for McNamara, becoming Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Systems Analysis by the end of that period. While serving in this capacity, Selin represented the Office of the Secretary of Defense at the commissioning of the . He received the Department of Defense Distinguished Civilian Service Medal in 1970. In 1970, Selin and s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John H
John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second Epistle of John, often shortened to 2 John * Third Epistle of John, often shortened to 3 John People * John the Baptist (died c. AD 30), regarded as a prophet and the forerunner of Jesus Christ * John the Apostle (lived c. AD 30), one of the twelve apostles of Jesus * John the Evangelist, assigned author of the Fourth Gospel, once identified with the Apostle * John of Patmos, also known as John the Divine or John the Revelator, the author of the Book of Revelation, once identified with the Apostle * John the Presbyter, a figure either identified with or distinguished from the Apostle, the Evangelist and John of Patmos Other people with the given name Religious figures * John, father of Andrew the Apostle and Saint Peter * Pope Jo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Rowen
Henry Stanislaus Rowen (October 11, 1925 – November 12, 2015) was an American national security expert, economist, and academician. Early years Rowen was born in Boston in 1925. He attended M.I.T. and graduated with a bachelor's in industrial management in 1949. He went on to Oxford University and earned his master's degree in economics in 1955. Career Rowen started his career as an economist for the RAND Corporation, a Santa Monica, California think-tank, where he worked between 1950-1953, and again between 1955-1960. Between 1965-1966, Rowen was the Assistant Director of the U.S. Bureau of the Budget. From 1967-1972, he was the president of RAND Corporation. From 1981-1983, he was the chairman of the National Intelligence Council. Between 1989-1991, Rowen served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs at the U.S. Department of Defense, under Dick Cheney. From 2001–2004 he served on the Secretary of Defense Policy Advisory Board. Between ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles O
Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English and French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*karilaz'' (in Latin alphabet), whose meaning was "free man". The Old English descendant of this word was '' Ċearl'' or ''Ċeorl'', as the name of King Cearl of Mercia, that disappeared after the Norman conquest of England. The name was notably borne by Charlemagne (Charles the Great), and was at the time Latinized as ''Karolus'' (as in ''Vita Karoli Magni''), later also as '' Carolus''. Some Germanic languages, for example Dutch and German, have retained the word in two separate senses. In the particular case of Dutch, ''Karel'' refers to the given name, whereas the noun ''kerel'' means "a bloke, fellow, man". Etymology The name's etymology is a Common Germanic noun ''*karilaz'' meaning "free man", which survives in English as churl (< Old English ''ċeorl''), which developed its depr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
