Carl Kaysen

Who was Carl Kaysen?

Carl Kaysen was an American academic, policy advisor and international security specialist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and co-chair of the Committee on International Security Studies at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the father of Girl, Interrupted author Susanna Kaysen. He was married for 50 years to Annette Neutra until her death in 1990. In 1994, he married Ruth Butler.

Carl Kaysen worked for President John F. Kennedy as Deputy National Security Advisor, and was directly under National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy. Kaysen took over the position from Walt Rostow in 1961 and concentrated on the key issues of the Kennedy Administration such as nuclear weapons, foreign trade, international economic policy and international security policy.

On President Kennedy's orders, Kaysen prepared a report on how to utilize the US nuclear arsenal to preemptively destroy the Soviet Union’s nuclear capacity and its ability to retaliate with nuclear weapons.

Kaysen was also a good friend of long-serving Greek Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou, whom he had met at Harvard.