Thinker of the Unthinkable

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Herman Kahn: 1922-1983

From a mind that was at once brooding and sparkling, eclectic and intense, ideas poured forth that were able to shock a nation and yet influence its policies. Treating nuclear war as unthinkable, he said, made it all the more probable, and the U.S. must prepare to survive one. He predicted the boom of Japan's economy well before the Datsun invasion; more recently he warned of problems that lie ahead for that island nation. For the U.S., he saw a new golden age during the next two decades marked by disappearing poverty, an upsurge of productivity and an abundance of resources. Even his book titles— Thinking About the Unthinkable (1962), The Japanese Challenge (1979), The Coming Boom (1982)—were destined to pass into the lexicon of policy debates.

Herman Kahn, who died last week at his home in Chappaqua, N.Y., of a heart attack at 61, was a mathematician, physicist, economist, weapons analyst and historian. But above all he was a provocateur in the sedate world of ideas, a futurist who attempted, in his own words, "to cope with history before it happens." He was a pioneer in using scientific and mathematical tools to project the future. With his 300-lb. bulk and a florid face framed by a tailored white beard, Kahn had a commanding presence that seemed to complement a mental and verbal vigor bordering on arrogance. He briefed, and at times berated, every President starting with Harry Truman, and at his first hour-long meeting with Ronald Reagan in 1981, he permitted the new President to get in only a few words. "The main thing we do is change attitudes," Kahn told TIME Correspondent Joelle Attinger shortly before his death. "We're trying to educate policymakers."

Kahn was born in Bayonne, N.J., graduated from U.C.L.A. in 1945 and three years later joined the Rand Corp., the California think tank that helps the Pentagon develop defense strategies. He rejected the prevailing nuclear doctrine, Mutual Assured Destruction, which postulates that the devastation accompanying a nuclear exchange will deter the use of such weapons. Instead, he urged preparation for fighting limited nuclear wars.

In 1961 Kahn left Rand to help form his own think tank, the Hudson Institute, on bucolic acreage north of New York City. He kept his umbilical cord of contracts with the Pentagon; approximately half of the institute's $3.6 million annual budget comes from Government contracts. But he also branched out to ponder other societal problems. Among the studies being pursued: prospects for electronic transmission of mail, ways to win a war in El Salvador, alternatives to the federal income tax, the strength of the Soviet navy. On a typical day, Kahn moved from seminars to informal discussions spouting such iconoclastic judgments as "The nuclear freeze is immoral" and "The welfare economy is the last refuge of the scoundrel." Such orotund pronouncements often infuriated critics, who charged that Kahn was more interested in glib provocation than reflective analysis.