WHIZZES, OLDER & WISER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00498R000200020146-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 23, 2007
• Sequence Number: 146
• Publication Date: January 16, 1981
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2007/03/23: CIA-RDP99-0049100200
McNainara's Brash
Young Men,' Reunited
'At 32, Ivan Selin, possessor of two
PhDs, was an assistant secretary of.'
defense. He was, in effect, "vice presi-
dent for planning and analysis of the
biggest corporation in the world."
He was,a,"whiz.kid," a New York
public school" graduate who ` went to
Yale at 15,on scholarship, a civilian
brought in under Robert S. McNama-
ra's program for new management at
the Pentagon. He was 28 when he
came to Washington, like the other
"whiz kids" young, ambitious, ,eager
to introduce the rational, - orderly,
"systems 'analysis" approach ' to' the
sprawling, unwieldy Defense Depart-
ment. "It was a very exciting time, i
really was. We were all young-w
didn't know yet that we couldn't turn
the world around."q:l
Today, at 43, Satin is the c
of a business he and four other form
whiz kids set 'up-11. years ago. All five
are worth over, a million dollars 'ea
and their business is very success
A lot of the former. whiz kids are very
successful,''and last night about 80 0
them held a reunion, the first since'
their glory days as brash young men'
scurrying down the long corridors ?of
the -Pentagon. Whey, came in from= as
far away as Seattle and San Francisco
and Houston to attend the .reunion,
g bering old.m"y3 t`~'nA+
intellectual in the :.1964x, ; Sehn sai
"There was.a largestore of good,peo
ple to choose from and a lot of impor k
tant work being.done.".x4;
It becameless fashionable when.the
wain jn-iYietnam-=which;; these. whiz
,kidssay.the d*Iittle to`:do:.with
THE WASHINGTON POST
16 January 1981
began- commandeering -the. headlines
and the passions of . the American
public. But for a time "systems analy-
sis" was a new religion, and its disci-
ples were fired with the energy of true
`At the time, "systems analysis" was
considered revolutionary, because it
changed the way of deciding how the
money 1 was allocated, and what ` pro-
grams were worth keeping, starting or,
enhancing. It was an- effort to antici-
pate.answers to questions that hadn't
been.asked, or help decide what ques-
tions should. be asked, in part by-
breaking large problems into compo
nent-: parts. "Systems analysis was;
controversial because it was an inde-'
pendent :view, across all the services!
.-.7 said'Adm. Thor Hanson, who'
was a Navy officer dispatched to the
whiz kids team. The brass of the
Navy, Army, Air Force and Marines
had been used to divvying up they
budget through the customary system!
of horsetrading and politicking, and
suddenly there were young civilians
talking about "cost-benefit ratios,"
"program analysis," "inputs" and so
forth.
'.A ,."The idea was to bring cost effec
tiyeness to the Pentagon," said Alain
Enthoven, considered to be the "intel
lectual father" of systems analysis,
who is now a professor at Stanford
University. "We try to illuminate the'
.:problems for the people who have to;
make the decisions ... It's not corn
puters, it's not quantifying things and'
it's nota substitute for judgment."
- On one level, it was a conflict be-'
tween experience and data, between.
'the belief that things could be mea-
sured, factored, added up and com-
pared, and the imprecise urges of in-j
tuition and habit. "In the whole his
tory . of warfare, people associated;
with a particular type of arms always;
think that kind of arms is the best,
Enthoven said. "The French knights,
in the 14th century'
,:were convinced'
that the knight on horseback was the,
ultimate- weapon. ? They thought the:
English longbow was threatening be
i. cause it was different."
"We were saying 'Why?,' said Ber-
nard Rostker, now director of the Se-
lective Service Commission. "A gen-,'j
. and Alain would say,:`Why'
The whiz kids, wrote Theodore H.
White in a 1963 article,: were "inter--
ested inwar as a system of intellectual
propositions, most at home with chalk
and a blackboard." They were the-
succeeding generation to, the "quiz
kids" that McNamara led to the Ford
.Motor Co: in 1947-people he worked
with teaching "statistical control" to
the Army Air' Forces during World
War II, who were able,: by some ac-
counts, to rescue the company from a.
post-war crisis. When McNamara was
appointed' to Defense he had been:
president of Ford for barely six weeks.
In. his first years at the Defense De
parfinent he became known as the
"lfurhan. IBM machine," a man who.
within six weeks of taking, office
issued a list of 96 questions he wanted
answered, with the name of the per-
son responsible for the answer and.
the deadlines. for it. His staff once cal-
culated that he made 629 major deci-
sions in one month.
The Pentagon whiz kids were gen-
erally civilians, although the military
had their people, like Hanson, as-
signed to systems analysis work. The
boss, Enthoven, became - a deputy
assistant secretary of defense, which
is the federal government way of giv-
ing something status. Many. of the
systems analysis people (the reunion
sponsors located- about 400 who.,
worked at the Pentagon between 1962;
and 1968) were, like Selin, veterans of
the Rand Corp., economists and engi-
neers, and generally they were achiev
ers without prestigious family back
grounds to grease their way.
"This was before Vietnam blew up
into a big thing," said Selin. .' .::.;The'
alumni. who were invited, to, last
night's reunion at the Fort- McNair
Officers Club included men successful
inf;business, politics, government, the
military and academia: Harold Brown
became secretary of defense.. Stans-
field Turner became director of the}
CIA, Les Aspin became a. representa-
tive from Wisconsin. Thor Hansom is
a three-star admiral and director of
the staff for- the Joint Chiefs ,f Staff.
-Donald. Rice: is president of . the. Rand
Corp. Staser Holcomb is an admiral-
and the head of program planning for
the -Navy. Wayne Smith is a partner
in Coopers and Lybrand. Steven Fen-
ster is a partner at Lehman Brothers.:
Robert McNamara is president of the'
;, i mm.paank until he: rRet
.. JA ues i Jgnne
 Approved For Release 2007/03/23: CIA-RDP99-00498R000200020146-0
"Most. of them say they ? didn't have
much to do with the war in Vietnam.
They were trying to keep the' peace-,
time operations going.
"There's an - insufficient sense of
guilt;'..' said Selin. "We were around,
.we were in' the Pentagon, everything:
we did was fine, but why weren't we:
more aggressive when such a terrible'
thing was going on, in getting involved
in that? You'll. find it's not a terribly
introspective, guilt-laden group. It's
an upwardly mobile, generally quite.
.".
successful set of people_.-...
McNamara,-'who', sent a- telegram
haying he could not attend last night's
reunion because of his wife's illness,
won't .=discuss:.,; those . times. Once
lauded, as an example of the best that,
:-America could produce;' his " star
ninished as the debacle- in South-'
east Asia. became 'apparent. He was.
criticized for dryly spewing; out facts
and'". figures.:; . "McNamara . Get
Hun n," read a placard in one of the
early antiwar marches.
you want to say he didn'f tnr-
stand Vietnam, verywell-weIl ~ no-
body else .did,. either," said Enthoven.
"Unfortunately,', a lot of other people
were able to rewrite history and make
him out to be the bad 'guy." Later, in,
,remarks to 'the ? group,. Enthoven'
called McNamara "one of the greatest
'public servants this nation has ever
seen . . . I feel great pride :whenever I.
hear. that magical name or' when I am'
introdu ed `as"having been-associated
with hii. It'slike saying `He was with
King ,Henry,.atAgii court."'' -_ -
The whiz kids are familiar with the
charge that they were so self-right-.
eous about the wizardry of numbers'
that they ignored people. "It was a
missionary job.. You have to be some-
what overzealous when you're starting;
a new religion. I -hate 'to -use this!
phrase--but now`: they're all`Chris-'
tians, n'Qw-we're *teaching them'theol= .
ogy as opposed'.to: bringing monothe
am to the natives,"_ said Selin.. , ,
uneven life after McNamara left. The
Nixon White House reduced its.
status. 'Nixon. said .he: wanted. to`get;
rid . of the whiz-kid , tyrpe of govern
ment," said Jan Lodal, one-of Selii7's':?
partners. "And then Kissinger t'irriect
around. and hired three of -us' during
the next eight years to be his`assis'tarit'.
for program analysis." Now' the bffice-
in the Pentagon is called "P.A.E., for
program analysis and evaluation;"
and is secure "for at least the nett
four days," said alumnus 'RiisseR-
Murray, who heads the office "as'an
assistant secretary of defense:
The ideas and ways' of. doing-things.
' - have left a lasting legacy,. say the for-
mer whiz kids. "We helped -to build a
permanent and substantial raising-of-
the intellectual quality of dialog&ie
the group: `` . `'.? . We have gone. on 'tty
contribute to society in many varied'
ways," he said, listing the, political;;
the group sitting in front -of- him-
"Still, there just hasn't been anything;
quite.like it." And then he recalled' a.
few verses from Shakespeare's
"Henry V;" those that begin,,, "Old:
men forget; yet all shall be. forgot, But
he'll- remember with advantages' wha't
feats he did. .. "The speech contiii
ues, of course, "We few, we`happy-
few, we band of brothers." ='w^
"We had the feeling we were,worl.
ing really hard, doing useful, in some
cases -revolutionary things," -said
Selin. "In no other alternate life,,only,
this particular universe, would peop
to:da such. responsible things
very proud of what we did.'
 Approved For Release 2007/03/23: CIA-RDP99-00498R000200020146-0
,Frornaleft, Alain Enthouen, &ansfield.Turner and Ivan Selin; by Harry Naltchayan- a as ington ost!