Fred Ikle

Fred Charles Iklé (August 21, 1924 – November 10, 2011) was a Swiss-born sociologist and defense expert who became a significant part of the US defense policy establishment. Iklé's expertise was in defense and foreign policy, nuclear strategy, and the role of technology in the emerging international order. After a career in academia (including a professorship at MIT) he was appointed director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency in 1973-1977, before becoming Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (1981 to 1988). He was later a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Department of Defense's Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee, a Distinguished Scholar with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and a Director of the National Endowment for Democracy.

Iklé is credited with a key role in increasing U.S. aid to anti-Soviet rebels in the Soviet War in Afghanistan. He successfully proposed and promoted the idea of supplying the rebels with anti-aircraft Stinger missiles, overcoming CIA opposition.

Iklé was born Fritz Karl Iklé in Samedan, Switzerland in 1924, growing up in St. Gallen; he anglicised his name after moving to the United States in 1946. He followed a degree at the University of Zurich with a master's and doctorate from the University of Chicago (1948 and 1950), both in sociology. His doctorate involved research in Dresden and Nagasaki and led to a book, The Social Impact of Bomb Destruction, (1958).

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