---
category: "Intelligence & Government"
tags:
  - Person
  - Nuclear
  - Israel
summary: "Carl Kaysen is a distinguished political economist who served as deputy assistant to the President for national security affairs."
born: 1920-03-05
died: 2010-02-08
location: "Philadelphia, Pennsylvania"
---

Carl Kaysen is a distinguished political economist who served as deputy assistant to the President for national security affairs. He moved from the Harvard faculty to the [[National Security Council]] in 1961. Kaysen recalled that President [[John F. Kennedy]] was intellectually and emotionally committed to a halt in the spread of nuclear weapons, and that nonproliferation was a topic Kennedy would discuss for hours.[^1]

In the fall of 1966, Kaysen became the newly appointed director of the prestigious Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton. He learned that [[Lewis L. Strauss]] had used his influence to get [[Ernst David Bergmann]] a two-month appointment as a visiting fellow there. Kaysen was surprised to learn that Strauss, despite his public stance against nuclear proliferation, was privately in favor of a nuclear-armed [[Israel]].[^1]

### Footnotes

[^1]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 7, 8.