William L. Whitson — the record, the ARPA assignment, the requirement

The information about my grandfather, William Whitson, is seriously incomplete. Most of his work at RAND in the 1970s was classified, but he worked on strategy projects relating to China when Nixon went there, specifically to counter the soviets. BTW, note that almost everything grandpa did was highly classified - it required sectional clearance with classification letters that are themselves classified. They remain classified to this day - nuclear weapons, intercontinental ballistic missiles, ARPA Net - were all highly classified. He was the VP/GM of the division of what became Martin Marrieta (It was Martin aerospace or something in the early 60s) that actually built the Titan II. I have the original plastic models of the Titan II that my grandfather kept as momentos - it was my inheritance. After he successfully developed the Titan II, he left and became Chancellor of the Clarkson Institute of Technology - then Clarkson College. He saved that small college, and transformed it into an elite center of engineering excellence.

Grandpa most definitely oversaw ARPANet project, which was the genesis of TCP/IP. It was a decentralized network designed to withstand nuclear annihilation, and still enable a retaliatory strike by the Titan II Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles that he built years earlier. He led the project that devised MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) in the 1950s, as deputy director of the Johns Hopkins Operations Research Lab, where he was the founding President of the Operations Research Society of America.

Correction: my grandfather was transferred from a classified defense project to organize and launch ARPA. Thus, he was the first acting Director of ARPA, because he was assigned to create it the same way Oppenheimer was assigned to create the Los Alamos part of the Manhattan project.

As for the ARPANet thing, the Titan II missile silos were the second strike part of our nuclear arsenal. They were the ones that needed to launch the missiles after a first strike by the soviets. So, while the details are classified, he defined the requirements, because he led the project that came up with MAD at Johns Hopkins, using game theory and simulations, and was involved in designing the launch control systems. After he left Clarkson, he went to DC, and was Deputy Chief Scientist at the Pentagon - I lived in DC, and have been there probably 100 times. My grandmother told me, and I read his papers. It was him.

BTW, Grandpa Bill did consulting work for RAND in the 70s until his death. Everyone in his line of work did. My grandmother worked for the World Bank, and they travelled around the world many times - Africa, South East Asia, Europe, everywhere. He had to have counterintelligence teams clear every trip to a 'designated country' because he knew too much, and was at risk of being kidnapped. They went to Yugoslavia once in the 70s - very difficult to get approved, but since Tito wanted loans from the World Bank, and grandma was there, they let them in. Probably a cover story for some sort of secret diplomacy, but the world may never know. Sue Simon would know - my grandparent's surrogate daughter, and Bill Simon's daughter would know if anyone does.

William W. Whitson was someone else. I know he did work for RAND, both in DC and in Santa Monica. They did work on military, nuclear, space, and geopolitics. Basically, anything that needs big brains. I know that he was very interested in geopolitics, and you need to simulate it for military strategy engagements. The chinese got the bomb in the 60s, so they needed a strategic plan. Grandpa was involved.