Sherman Kent (December 6, 1903 – March 11, 1986), was a

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

history professor who, during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

and through 17 years of

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

-era service in the

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

, pioneered many of the methods of

intelligence analysis Intelligence analysis is the application of individual and collective cognitive methods to weigh data and test hypotheses within a secret socio-cultural context. The descriptions are drawn from what may only be available in the form of delibera ...

. He is often described as "the father of intelligence analysis".

Early life and education

Kent was the son of U.S. Congressman

William Kent William Kent (c. 1685 – 12 April 1748) was an English architect, landscape architect, painter and furniture designer of the early 18th century. He began his career as a painter, and became Principal Painter in Ordinary or court painter, b ...

and women's rights activist Elizabeth Thacher Kent, and the brother of Roger Kent and Adaline Kent. His grandfather was Yale professor Thomas Anthony Thacher, and he was great-great grandson of American founding father

Roger Sherman Roger Sherman (April 19, 1721 – July 23, 1793) was an early American politician, lawyer, and a Founding Father of the United States. He is the only person to sign all four great state papers of the United States: the Continental Association, ...

. He was a graduate of The Thacher School (founded by his uncle Sherman Day Thacher) and

where he studied

European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD 500), the Middle Ages (AD 500–1500), and the modern era (since AD 1500). The first early Eu ...

with the intention of spending his career as an academic. After graduating in 1926, he spent several years teaching and doing research but joined the

Office of Strategic Services The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the first intelligence agency of the United States, formed during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines ...

(OSS) with the outbreak of the war in Europe in 1942.

Career

Sherman Kent first served within the Research and Analysis Branch of the OSS as Chief of the Europe-Africa Division. In this capacity, he oversaw much of the process which would now be considered intelligence preparation of the battlespace in support of planning for

Operation Torch Operation Torch (8–16 November 1942) was an Allies of World War II, Allied invasion of French North Africa during the Second World War. Torch was a compromise operation that met the British objective of securing victory in North Africa whil ...

, the 1942 Allied invasion of North Africa. (An irreverent wit, Kent once proposed for the heraldic emblem of the often-zany OSS, "A horse's ass rampant on a Boston Social Register".) After a post-war stint at the

National War College In the United States, the National War College (NWC) is a school within the National Defense University. It is housed in Roosevelt Hall on Fort Lesley J. McNair, Washington, D.C., the third-oldest Army post still active. History The National ...

, he returned to Yale for three years, during which time he penned his classic work, ''Strategic Intelligence for American World Policy''. In November 1950, during the crisis that followed, the Chinese

Communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

incursion in the

Korean War The Korean War (25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953) was an armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula fought between North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea; DPRK) and South Korea (Republic of Korea; ROK) and their allies. North Korea was s ...

, which prompted a build-up and reorganization of the American Intelligence Community, he was called to

Washington, DC Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and Federal district of the United States, federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from ...

, to assist

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...

historian William L. Langer, with whom he had worked in OSS, to form a new CIA Office of National Estimates (ONE). He succeeded Langer as chief of ONE in 1952, serving in that position for the next fifteen years under four Directors of Central Intelligence in four presidential administrations. ONE was "a small organization, consisting of a Board of National Estimates of between five and twelve senior experts, a professional staff of 25–30 regional and functional specialists, and a support staff." Until it was dissolved, six years after Kent's retirement, in a

Watergate The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon. The scandal began in 1972 and ultimately led to Nixon's resignation in 1974, in August of that year. It revol ...

-era CIA reorganization, ONE prepared more than 1,500 speculative National Intelligence Estimates for the President and top foreign policy-makers. Kent led ONE through years of challenge and crisis, including McCarthy-era accusations against one of Kent's young aides, future presidential advisor William Bundy, and "predictive failures" during the

Cuban Missile Crisis The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis () in Cuba, or the Caribbean Crisis (), was a 13-day confrontation between the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union, when American deployments of Nuclear weapons d ...

and other Cold War "flaps". Kent's unique and enduring role within the US intelligence community was to formalize analytical "tradecraft" and methodologies, while encouraging creation of a ''"literature of intelligence"'' to provide a formal mechanism for the transfer of knowledge and experiences between generations of analysts.

Death and legacy

Sherman Kent retired from the CIA in 1967 and died in 1986. In 2000, the CIA established a school in Kent's name dedicated to the pursuit of professionalism in the art and science of

Publications

History

* ''Electoral Procedure Under Louis Philippe'' (Yale University Press, 1937) * ''Writing History'' (NY, 1941; 1967) * ''Election of 1827 in France'' (Harvard University Press, 1975)

Intelligence

* ''Strategic Intelligence for American World Policy'' (Princeton University Press, 1949; 1966)
''Words of Estimative Probability'' (CIA, 1964)

:* ttps://catalog.archives.gov/id/7267738 ''The Law and Custom of the National Intelligence Estimate'' (CIA, 1965):
''The Making of an NIE'' (CIA, 1967)
:

Autobiography

* ''A Boy and a Pig, But Mostly Horses'' (NY, 1974) ("Recounts the adventures of three boys during the summer they spend working on a Nevada ranch in the 1920s") * *''Letters'' (also listed as ''Buffalo Letters''): ''Sherman Kent to His Family, 1936–1965'' ( .d., but "for Christmas 1990" mentioned in Acknowledgements; n.p., probably Washington D. C. (private publication for family members edited by Margaret Gourd-Barrett, published by Kent's widow, illustrated by Kent) * ''Reminiscences of a Varied Life'' (San Rafael, CA, 1991)

References

Biographic sources

Harold P. Ford, "A Tribute to Sherman Kent" in Studies in Intelligence (CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1980)
* Steury, Donald Paul, ed. "Sherman Kent and the Board of National Estimates: Collected Essays" (CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1994)

External links

* *

Political Graveyard The Political Graveyard is a website and database that catalogues information on more than 277,000 American political figures and political families, along with other information. The name comes from the website's inclusion of burial locations o ...

(Lawrence Kestenbaum) :* :* :* * CIA :*
Sherman Kent and the Board of National Estimates

Sherman Kent Photo

The Need for an Intelligence Literature
:

:* :* :* :* :* :* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kent, Sherman 1903 births 1986 deaths Analysts of the Central Intelligence Agency Yale University faculty 20th-century American historians 20th-century American male writers The Thacher School alumni Yale University alumni Kent family (California) Recipients of the President's Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service American male non-fiction writers