born Feb. 15, 1922, Bayonne, N.J., U.S.
died July 7, 1983, Chappaqua, N.Y.
U.S. physicist and strategist.
He studied at the California Institute of Technology and joined the RAND Corp., where he studied the application to military strategy of new analytic techniques such as game theory , operations research , and systems analysis. He won public notice with On Thermonuclear War (1960), in which he contended that thermonuclear war differs only in degree from conventional war and ought to be analyzed and planned in the same way. In 1961 he established the Hudson Institute for research into matters of national security and public policy.