Paul Young Hammond

Feb. 24, 1929 ~ Mar. 9, 2012
Paul Y. Hammond, prominent in 20th Century national security policy studies, whose writings proposed a fundamentally different direction to cold war and foreign policymaking in order to avoid critical flaws in the prevailing approach, and who enjoyed a 50-year academic career at the University of Pittsburgh, Yale, Harvard, Columbia, the RAND Corporation (where he was head of the Social Sciences Department and Director of the Strategic Studies Program), Johns Hopkins, the U.S. Naval Academy, and Berkeley, died on Friday in Salt Lake City, Utah. He was 83. The cause was complications from Parkinson's Disease.
Professor Hammond studied under William Yandel Elliott, McGeorge Bundy, Carl Friedrich, Sam Beer and others at the Harvard Government Department in the early 1950s, receiving his Ph.D. in 1953. He quickly established himself as one of the new wave of scholars who understood the game-changing implications of nuclear weapons for national security planning and foreign policy.
His special contribution was to challenge the dominant view that a country's nuclear strategy and foreign policy could be understood as a single "rational" actor's calculations. Instead, pointing out the dangers this view poses for global and national security, he pioneered a more subtle understanding of how domestic politics and bureaucratic behavior shape a President's and a country's nuclear arms options and all other aspects of military and foreign policy. In a series of scholarly works, he examined post-World War II planning in Germany, the creation of the post-war U.S. national security system, development of specific major weapons systems, and the emergence of new military organizations, such as NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), that embody both military and civilian objectives. His most prominent books, Organizing for Defense, and Cold War and Détente, as well as his many other public and classified studies, all fully reflect his view that national security policymaking can only be understood in the context of the domestic and organizational framework in which it is developed and implemented. His insights on inter-service rivalry in the 1940s and his study of NSC-68 were classics that greatly enhanced the understanding of bureaucratic politics many years before it became a fashionable subject. In addition, his use of historical methods and case studies as critical tools in the study of politics enabled him to be of a small group of pioneers whose work illuminated national security policymaking and retains considerable relevance and importance today.
Professor Hammond's multi-actor and multi-factor approach allowed him to make contributions both within academia and in more practical settings. He developed and maintained strong ties to government, for many decades advising the Departments of State, Defense, and Energy, as well as the CIA, on nuclear arms, conventional arms, disarmament and other national security policy options, with a special focus on helping leaders to understand the forces shaping the world in which they operate. Beyond arms policy, he shed light on global cooperation and competition between the Defense and State Departments, the U.S. government as a reluctant supplier of arms to other countries, and energy policy. His writings on civil-military relations in other countries, particularly Pakistan and North Korea, preceded and foreshadowed many of the strains that fill today's news. He was also awarded Fulbright Scholarships to the London School of Economics (1952-1953) and Singapore National University (1993-1994).
Beyond his work on national security policy, Professor Hammond contributed to field of presidential studies, with a focus on how presidents do and don't effectively employ congressional, domestic, and bureaucratic politics to accomplish their objectives. His work in this area culminated in his book, LBJ and the Management of Foreign Relations.
Spending the second half of his career at the University of Pittsburgh, Professor Hammond held chairs in the School of Engineering and Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. As Director of the Ridgway Center for International Security Studies, he was a force for international studies at Pitt.
As a colleague, teacher, and mentor Paul Hammond was exemplary: generous with his praise, careful and constructive with his incisive critiques, and warm in his personal relationships. He invariably stayed above the academic fray he understood so well and wrote about so trenchantly in relation to national security. His colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh had enormous respect and affection for Paul, not least because his intellect and scholarly achievements were matched by his graciousness, his generosity of spirit, and his warmth and wisdom.
Paul Y. Hammond was born in Salt Lake City on February 24, 1929, to James Thaddeus Hammond, an attorney, and his wife, Hortense Claire Young, a college English teacher. He was grandson of James Hammond, Utah's first Secretary of State. He graduated from East High School in 1944 and the University of Utah in 1949. He is survived by his wife, the former Merylyn Felt Simmons, a brother, Seymour (Tim), his children - Brett, Wendy, Robyn Fearon, Spencer, and Clifford - and seven grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his brothers James and Harlan. After leaving Salt Lake City for graduate school, he lived in the East and in California for many years, returning to Utah in 2004 after retiring from the University of Pittsburgh.
A memorial service will be held on Saturday, March 17, at 1:00 p.m. at the Emigration Sixth Ward, 589 East 18th Avenue, Salt Lake City, preceded by a visitation hour at noon on that day and followed by a burial service at the Salt Lake City Cemetery. An additional visitation will be on Friday, March 16, from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the Larkin Mortuary, 260 East South Temple. In lieu of flowers, the family has requested that a donation be made to the American Parkinson Disease Association.