America's Brain - Think Tanks & The Rand Corporation

Civilians that help the government think?

World War 2 just ended, America has no choice but to cut it’s massive defense budget and wind down the military. But the issue is, they entered into a high stakes poker game with the Soviet Union. They were locked in a game where losing meant getting annihilated by nuclear weapons. The stakes were high and they needed a way to keep all the brilliant minds gathered to help fight WW2. Some guys from the Defense Department (War Department in those days) and The Office of Scientific Research got together and formed a defense think tank called the RAND corporation, the first of it’s kind.