Wohlstetter, Albert (1913-97), brilliant pioneer thinker in the field of ‘thinking the unthinkable’ with reference to nuclear weapons. He joined the Rand Corporation in 1951 where he worked as a senior policy analyst and carried out a research project about the selection and use of Strategic Air Command's (SAC) bases, revealing the vulnerabilities of the SAC to surprise attack. This resulted in a change of SAC's basing policy so that its aircraft were located further from the USSR and better protected. Wohlstetter's paper also influenced Secretary of Defense McNamara to develop the US nuclear deterrent around the concept of first-strike survivability based on Wohlstetter's dictum, ‘a force cannot deter an attack which it cannot survive’.
Wohlstetter became central to US diplomatic and military strategy from about the Johnson presidency (1963-9) onwards. His career as a strategic analyst was guided by a number of principles, including his belief that the USA should control its military forces in such a way as to permit flexibility in the American response to foreign aggression according to the specific circumstances. The goal of this was to ensure that the USA was not forced to mount a first-strike nuclear attack on the USSR but have a variety of options instead, very much a move away from the strategy of massive retaliation.
He is credited with the thinking behind Pres Reagan's ‘end game’ with the USSR during the Cold War, including the ‘Star Wars’ initiative. He was generally less interested in the diplomatic and economic side of geopolitical thinking.
— Chris Mann
