Who was the American business executive and the eighth Secretary of Defense, who surrounded himself with the group of experts called Whiz Kids?
Whiz Kids (Department of Defense) Whiz Kids was a name given to a group of experts from RAND Corporation with which Robert McNamara surrounded himself in order to turn around the management of the United States Department of Defense (DoD) in the 1960s. The purpose was to shape a modern defense strategy in the Nuclear Age by bringing in economic analysis, operations research, game theory, computing, as well as implementing modern management systems to coordinate the huge dimension of operations of the DoD with methods such as the Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System (PPBS). They were called the Whiz Kids recalling the group at Ford Motor Company that McNamara was part of a decade earlier. The group included (among others):
Princeton Project The Princeton Project on National Security is a multi-year, bipartisan initiative to develop a sustainable and effective national security strategy for the United States of America. Under the stewardship of honorary co-chairs George P. Shultz and Anthony Lake, the Princeton Project brings together leading thinkers on national security from government, academia, business, and the non-profit sector to analyze key issues and develop innovative responses to a range of national security threats.