Fred Charles Iklé (né Fritz Karl Iklé; August 21, 1924 – November 10, 2011) and a Director of the National Endowment for Democracy.

Early life and education

Iklé was born Fritz Karl Iklé on August 21, 1924, in Samedan, Switzerland, the youngest of four children, to Friedrich Arnold Iklé (1877–1946) and Maria Hedwig Iklé (née Huber). He is of German Jewish descent through his paternal grandfather, Leopold Iklé, who hailed from Hamburg and became a citizen in St. Gallen, operating Iklé Brothers trading in silk and embroidery. Through this family connection he is a second cousin of Elisabeth Kopp (née Iklé) who was a member of the Federal Council (Switzerland).

He anglicized his name after moving to the United States in 1946. He earned 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). From 1964 to 1967 Iklé was a professor in political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. When he visited Pakistan in April 1985, Iklé found that the CIA was still pursuing the war in a halfhearted manner. "We began to understand that what to us was a very big deal back in Washington, from the point of view of the president, is a second order priority handled by one GS [civil service officer]," according to Michael Pillsbury, Iklé's deputy. The Stinger proposal was at first strongly opposed by the CIA, the U.S. State Department, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Despite McMahon's apparent change of heart, the CIA again vetoed the Stinger proposal at an interagency meeting in mid-February 1986. President Reagan signed an executive order to supply the Angolan guerrilla group UNITA with Stingers on February 18, and the CIA finally agreed to supply them to the Afghan rebels on February 23. In 1975 and 1987, Iklé received the highest civilian award of the Department of Defense, the Medal for Distinguished Public Service. In 1988, he was awarded the Bronze Palm.

Iklé served as chairman of the Board of the Telos Corporation and as a director of the Zurich-American Insurance Companies. He was a Director of CMC Energy Services and served as Governor of the Smith Richardson Foundation and as a Director of the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea.

He was a founding signatory of the Project for the New American Century's 1997 "statement of principles."

He was the author of several books and numerous articles on defense, foreign policy, and arms control, including How Nations Negotiate and Every War Must End.

Personal life

On December 23, 1959, Iklé married Doris Margaret Eisemann (1928–2012), an economist of German Jewish origins. They had two daughters together;

  • Judith Iklé (b.c. 1960s), who married Aaron Maizlish, a businessman of San Francisco, California. Two children; Leo Iklé-Maizlish (b.c. 2000) and Anna Iklé-Maizlish (b.c. 2004)
  • Miriam Iklé-Khalsa (b.c. 1960s), who married Sat Jiwan Iklé-Khalsa. One daughter; Kyah S. Iklé-Khalsa (born April 6, 2007). Both of Takoma Park, Maryland.

Iklé died in Bethesda, Maryland on November 10, 2011.

Awards

  • the Department of Defense's Medal for Distinguished Public Service (1987)

Published works

  • Annihilation From Within (Columbia University Press, 2006)
  • Every War Must End (Columbia University Press, 1971, 1991, 2005 with new prefaces)
  • How Nations Negotiate (Harper and Row, 1968)
  • The Social Impact of Bomb Destruction (University of Oklahoma Press, 1958)

References

  • CSIS Mourns the loss of Fred C Ikle's at the CSIS web site

|-