THE WORLDS OF HERMAN KAHN: The Intuitive Science of Thermonuclear War

Herman Kahn is perhaps best known (to those who know of him at all) as the model for Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove. In fact, this physicist turned defense analyst achieved notoriety in the 1950s and '60s by articulating a vision of what a postnuclear-war world might look like, arguing that since it might be possible to survive a nuclear war, it was essential to plan to do just that. Ghamari-Tabrizi is superb at providing, in compelling narrative, the cultural context for Kahn, his work and some of his more outlandish statements. As Ghamari-Tabrizi describes him, Kahn, first at RAND and then at the Hudson Institute (the think tank he founded in 1961), dared to talk about all aspects of nuclear warfare and ways of keeping the nuclear peace, at a time when his approach to such topics was taboo. He was vilified for his beliefs and, as the author so capably demonstrates, he seemed to love every second of it. Ghamari-Tabrizi integrates popular culture, such as the parodies of Tom Lehrer, with the dramatic shift in military culture as civilian defense analysts and game theorists began to increase their influence at the Pentagon at the expense of the more traditional military personnel. Throughout, we are reminded how little the U.S. actually knew about what the Soviets were doing and thinking—and how "uncertainty becomes the wellspring of extravagant threat scenarios." Ghamari-Tabrizi provides a fascinating look at a complex man—at once "visionary" and "quixotic"—who was thinking, as the author says, about the unthinkable. 43 b&w photos not seen by PW . (Apr.)