Sherman Kent (December 6, 1903 – March 11, 1986), was a

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

history professor who, during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and through 17 years of

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

-era service in the

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

, pioneered many of the methods of

intelligence analysis Intelligence analysis is the application of individual and collective cognitive methods to weigh data and test hypotheses within a secret socio-cultural context. The descriptions are drawn from what may only be available in the form of deliberate ...

. He is often described as ''"the father of intelligence analysis".''

Early life and education

Kent was the son of U.S. Congressman

William Kent William Kent (c. 1685 – 12 April 1748) was an English architect, landscape architect, painter and furniture designer of the early 18th century. He began his career as a painter, and became Principal Painter in Ordinary or court painter, but ...

and women's rights activist

Elizabeth Thacher Kent Elizabeth Thacher Kent (September 22, 1868 – August 14, 1952) was an environmentalist and women's rights activist. Together with her husband, U.S. Congressman William Kent, she helped create the Muir Woods National Monument by donating land to t ...

, and the brother of

Roger Kent Roger is a given name, usually masculine, and a surname. The given name is derived from the Old French personal names ' and '. These names are of Germanic origin, derived from the elements ', ''χrōþi'' ("fame", "renown", "honour") and ', ' ...

and

Adaline Kent Adaline Dutton Kent or Adaline Kent Howard, (August 7, 1900 – March 24, 1957) was an American sculptor from California. She created abstract sculptures with forms inspired by the natural landscape. Early life and education Kent was born on ...

. His grandfather was Yale professor

Thomas Anthony Thacher Thomas Anthony Thacher (January 11, 1815 – April 7, 1886) was an American classicist and college administrator. Early life Thomas A. Thacher was born in Hartford, Connecticut, the son of Anne (née Parks) and Peter Thacher. His first America ...

, and he was great-great grandson of American founding father

Roger Sherman Roger Sherman (April 19, 1721 – July 23, 1793) was an American statesman, lawyer, and a Founding Father of the United States. He is the only person to sign four of the great state papers of the United States related to the founding: the Cont ...

. He was a graduate of

The Thacher School The Thacher School is an elite private co-educational boarding school in Ojai, California. Founded in 1889 as a boys' school, it is now the oldest co-educational boarding school in California. Girls were first admitted in 1977. The first co-ed gra ...

(founded by his uncle Sherman Day Thacher) and

where he studied

European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD 500), the Middle Ages (AD 500 to AD 1500), and the modern era (since AD 1500). The first early ...

with the intention of spending his career as an academic. After graduating in 1926, he spent several years teaching and doing research but joined the

Office of Strategic Services The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the intelligence agency of the United States during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines for all branc ...

(OSS) with the outbreak of the war in Europe in 1942.

Career

Sherman Kent first served within the Research and Analysis Branch of the OSS as Chief of the Europe-Africa Division. In this capacity, he oversaw much of the process which would now be considered

intelligence preparation of the battlespace Battlespace or battle-space is a term used to signify a unified military strategy to integrate and combine armed forces for the military theatre of operations, including air, information, land, sea, cyber and outer space to achieve military g ...

in support of planning for

Operation Torch Operation Torch (8 November 1942 – Run for Tunis, 16 November 1942) was an Allies of World War II, Allied invasion of French North Africa during the Second World War. Torch was a compromise operation that met the British objective of secu ...

, the 1942 Allied invasion of North Africa. (An irreverent wit, Kent once proposed for the heraldic emblem of the often-zany OSS, "A horse's ass rampant on a Boston Social Register".) After a post-war stint at the

National War College The National War College (NWC) of the United States is a school in the National Defense University. It is housed in Roosevelt Hall on Fort Lesley J. McNair, Washington, D.C., the third-oldest Army post still active. History The National War Colle ...

, he returned to Yale for three years, during which time he penned his classic work, ''Strategic Intelligence for American World Policy''. In November 1950, during the crisis that followed, the Chinese

Communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

incursion in the

Korean War , date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...

, which prompted a build-up and reorganization of the American Intelligence Community, he was called to

Washington, DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan ...

, to assist

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

historian

William L. Langer William Leonard Langer (March 16, 1896 – December 26, 1977) was an American historian, intelligence analyst and policy advisor. He served as chairman of the history department at Harvard University. He was on leave during World War II as h ...

, with whom he had worked in OSS, to form a new CIA Office of National Estimates (ONE). He succeeded Langer as chief of ONE in 1952, serving in that position for the next fifteen years under four Directors of Central Intelligence in four presidential administrations. ONE was "a small organization, consisting of a Board of National Estimates of between five and twelve senior experts, a professional staff of 25–30 regional and functional specialists, and a support staff." Until it was dissolved, six years after Kent's retirement, in a

Watergate The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon from 1972 to 1974 that led to Nixon's resignation. The scandal stemmed from the Nixon administration's continual ...

-era CIA reorganization, ONE prepared more than 1,500 speculative

National Intelligence Estimate National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) are United States federal government documents that are the authoritative assessment of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) on intelligence related to a particular national security issue. NIEs are pr ...

s for the President and top foreign policy-makers. Kent led ONE through years of challenge and crisis, including McCarthy-era accusations against one of Kent's young aides, future presidential advisor

William Bundy William Putnam Bundy (September 24, 1917 – October 6, 2000) was an American attorney and intelligence expert, an analyst with the CIA. Bundy served as a foreign affairs advisor to both presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. He ha ...

, and "predictive failures" during the

Cuban Missile Crisis The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis (of 1962) ( es, Crisis de Octubre) in Cuba, the Caribbean Crisis () in Russia, or the Missile Scare, was a 35-day (16 October – 20 November 1962) confrontation between the United S ...

and other Cold War "flaps". Kent's unique and enduring role within the US intelligence community was to formalize analytical "tradecraft" and methodologies, while encouraging creation of a ''"literature of intelligence"'' to provide a formal mechanism for the transfer of knowledge and experiences between generations of analysts.

Death and legacy

Sherman Kent retired from the CIA in 1967 and died in 1986. In 2000, the CIA established a school in Kent's name dedicated to the pursuit of professionalism in the art and science of

Publications

History

* ''Electoral Procedure Under Louis Philippe'' (Yale University Press, 1937) * ''Writing History'' (NY, 1941; 1967) * ''Election of 1827 in France'' (Harvard University Press, 1975)

Intelligence

* ''Strategic Intelligence for American World Policy'' (Princeton University Press, 1949; 1966)
''Words of Estimative Probability'' (CIA, 1964)

:* ttps://catalog.archives.gov/id/7267738 ''The Law and Custom of the National Intelligence Estimate'' (CIA, 1965):
''The Making of an NIE'' (CIA, 1967)
:

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Autobiography

* ''A Boy and a Pig, But Mostly Horses'' (NY, 1974) ("Recounts the adventures of three boys during the summer they spend working on a Nevada ranch in the 1920s") * *''Letters'' (also listed as ''Buffalo Letters''): ''Sherman Kent to His Family, 1936–1965'' ( .d., but "for Christmas 1990" mentioned in Acknowledgements; n.p., probably Washington D. C. (private publication for family members edited by Margaret Gourd-Barrett, published by Kent's widow, illustrated by Kent) * ''Reminiscences of a Varied Life'' (San Rafael, CA, 1991)

References

Biographic sources

Harold P. Ford, "A Tribute to Sherman Kent" in Studies in Intelligence (CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1980)
* Steury, Donald Paul, ed. "Sherman Kent and the Board of National Estimates: Collected Essays" (CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1994)

External links

* *

Political Graveyard The Political Graveyard is a website and database that catalogues information on more than 277,000 American political figures and political families, along with other information. The name comes from the website's inclusion of burial locations of ...

(Lawrence Kestenbaum) :* :* :* *

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...

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Sherman Kent and the Board of National Estimates

Sherman Kent Photo

The Need for an Intelligence Literature
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:* :* :* :* :* :* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kent, Sherman 1903 births 1986 deaths Analysts of the Central Intelligence Agency Yale University faculty 20th-century American historians 20th-century American male writers The Thacher School alumni Yale University alumni Kent family of California Recipients of the President's Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service American male non-fiction writers