The RAND Corporation Summary and Analysis

The RAND corporation became a home to many distinguished scientists in the 1950s. Along with von Neumann, at one time, the institute had almost every great mathematician, physicist, and economist in America and the free world working there. The RAND corporation was originally suggested by Douglas Aircraft company as a research and development institute where the US government could fund important research on military technology and strategy. RAND was eventually created as a kind of hybrid business government institution, something similar to what became known as a "think tank." Eventually, RAND secured funding from the Air Force under Curtis LeMay and began to amass a collection of the world's top experts in a variety of topics. RAND became famous for "thinking about the unthinkable"; that is, applying their considerable intellectual talents to thinking about problems that would...