1961–1982 , founder of the Hudson Institute The Hudson Institute was founded in 1961 by
Herman Kahn, Max Singer, and
Oscar M. Ruebhausen. Kahn was a physicist and military consultant known for envisioning
nuclear war scenarios. In 1960, while employed at the RAND Corporation, Kahn had given a series of lectures at
Princeton University on scenarios related to nuclear war. In 1960,
Princeton University Press published
On Thermonuclear War, a book-length expansion of Kahn's lecture notes. Major controversies ensued, and Kahn and RAND parted ways. Kahn moved to
Croton-on-Hudson, New York, intending to establish a new think tank that was less hierarchical and bureaucratic. Along with Max Singer, a young government lawyer who had been Kahn's RAND colleague, and New York attorney Oscar Ruebhausen, Kahn founded the Hudson Institute on July 20, 1961. Kahn has been described as Hudson's driving intellect while Singer developed the institute's organization. Ruebhausen was an advisor to New York governor
Nelson Rockefeller. Hudson's initial research projects largely represented Kahn's personal interests, which included the domestic and military use of
nuclear power and
scenario planning exercises about policy options and their possible outcomes. The use of the word
scenario in such exercises had been adapted from
Hollywood storytelling as a more dignified word than "screenplay", and Kahn was an enthusiastic practitioner. Kahn and his colleagues made pioneering contributions to nuclear deterrence theory and strategy during this period. Hudson's detailed analyses of "ladders of escalation" and reports on the likely consequences of limited and unlimited nuclear exchanges, eventually published as
Thinking About the Unthinkable in 1962 were influential within the
Kennedy administration. They helped the institute win its first major research contract from the
Office of Civil Defense at the Pentagon. A 1968 audit by the U.S. General Accounting Office raised concerns about the administration of Hudson's Office of Civil Defense research contracts, finding in one case that the work had added "nothing to the state of the art" and in another that it constituted a "rehash of old, if not tired ideas." Meanwhile, in popular culture,
Dr. Strangelove in 1964 borrowed many lines from Kahn's
On Thermonuclear War, Kahn did not want Hudson limited to defense-related research, and along with Singer, he recruited a staff from diverse academic backgrounds. Hudson also involved a wide range of consultants for analysis and policy, including French philosopher
Raymond Aron, African-American novelist
Ralph Ellison, and social scientist
Daniel Bell. economics,
demography,
anthropology, science and technology, and
urban planning. Kahn in 1962 predicted the rise of
Japan as the world's second-largest economy and developed close ties to politicians and corporate leaders there. Hudson Institute used scenario-planning techniques to forecast long-term developments and was noted for its future studies. In 1967, Hudson published
The Year 2000, a bestselling book commissioned by the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1970,
The Emerging Japanese Superstate was published. It turned to grants from corporations such as
IBM and
Mobil. In his 1982 book
The Coming Boom, Kahn argued that pro-growth tax and fiscal policies, information technology, and developments by the energy industry would make possible an unprecedented prosperity in the Western world by the early 21st century. Kahn also foresaw unconventional extraction techniques like
hydraulic fracturing.
Paris,
Brussels,
Montreal and
Tokyo. Other research projects were related to
South Korea,
Singapore,
Australia and
Latin America.
1983–2000 After Kahn's sudden death at age 61 on July 7, 1983, Hudson was restructured. Recruited by the City of
Indianapolis and the
Lilly Endowment, Hudson relocated its headquarters to
Indiana in 1984.
William Eldridge Odom, former director of the
National Security Agency, became Hudson's director of national security studies; economist
Alan Reynolds became director of economic research. Technologist
George Gilder led a project on the implications of the digital era for American society. In 1990, Daniels quit to become vice president of corporate affairs at
Eli Lilly and Company. He was succeeded as CEO by Leslie Lenkowsky, a social scientist, and former consultant to Senator
Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Under Lenkowsky, Hudson emphasized domestic and social policy. During the early 1990s, the institute did work concerning education reform and applied research on
charter schools and
school choice. Also in 1990, Hudson Institute spun off a subsidiary non-profit organization that took the name the
Discovery Institute. At the initiative of Wisconsin governor
Tommy Thompson, two members of Hudson were in the small planning group that designed the
Wisconsin Works welfare-to-work program. Hudson also helped fund the planning and evaluated the results. A version was adopted nationwide in the 1996 federal welfare-reform legislation signed by President
Bill Clinton. In 2001, President
George W. Bush's initiative on
charitable choice was based on Hudson's research into social-service programs administered by faith-based organizations. Other Hudson research from this period included 1987's "Workforce 2000", the "Blue Ribbon Commission on
Hungary" (1990) "International Baltic Economic Commission" (1991–93), on market-oriented reforms in the newly independent states of Eastern Europe, and the 1997 follow-up study "Workforce 2020".
2001–2016 After the
September 11 attacks, Hudson emphasized international issues such as the
Middle East,
Latin America, and
Islam. On June 1, 2004, Hudson relocated its headquarters to Washington, D.C. to a custom-built office space on
Pennsylvania Avenue, near the
U.S. Capitol and the
White House. The new
LEED-certified offices were designed by
FOX Architects. The
Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe presided over the opening of the new offices.
2016–present US Vice President
Mike Pence used the institute as his venue for a major policy speech concerning China on October 4, 2018. In 2021,
Mike Pompeo and
Elaine Chao, Secretary of Transportation in the Trump administration, joined the institute. In January 2021,
John P. Walters was appointed president and CEO of the Hudson Institute. Walters succeeded
Kenneth R. Weinstein, who became the first Walter P. Stern Distinguished Fellow. Former U.S. attorney general
William P. Barr joined as a distinguished fellow in 2022. On March 30, 2023, President
Tsai Ing-wen of
Taiwan attended an event held by the Hudson Institute, where she accepted the institute's Global Leadership Award. In response to the award event, the
Foreign Ministry of China imposed sanctions on the institute, its Board of Trustees Chair Sarah May Stern, and its President and CEO John P. Walters. In September 2023, the Hudson Institute was designated as an "
undesirable organization" in Russia.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen spoke at the Hudson Institute in support of
Israel in October 2023 after the
October 7 attacks. The speech was coordinated with the
White House as President
Joe Biden urged Congress to approve additional aid to support Ukraine and Israel. The institute provides several briefing services, such as the Keystone Defense Initiative, where Rebecca Heinrichs is the senior fellow and director. ==Sponsored awards==