Charles M. Herzfeld

Austrian-born American scientist and scientific manager

Dr. Charles M. Herzfeld in 1990

Charles Maria Herzfeld[1] (June 29, 1925 - February 23, 2017) was an Austrian-born American scientist and scientific manager, particularly for the US Government. He is best known for his time as Director of DARPA, during which, among other things, he personally made the decision to authorize the creation of the ARPANET, the predecessor of the Internet.[2]

## Biography

[edit]

Herzfeld was born in Vienna, Austria; he is the nephew of Karl Ferdinand Herzfeld, the accomplished physical chemist (brother of his father, August). After the Nazi takeover of Austria, since they were Catholic Monarchists, he and his mother fled Austria, criss-crossing Europe and two years later emigrated to the United States; he became an American citizen in the late 1940s.[3]

He received a BS degree in chemical engineering from the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. (1945) and a PhD degree in physical chemistry from the University of Chicago (1951).[1][4] While at Chicago, he attended a lecture by John von Neumann about von Neumann's early work on computers, a lecture which had a profound influence on him.[5]

He first worked as a physicist; from 1951 to 1953 in the United States Army at the Ballistic Research Laboratory in Aberdeen, Maryland, and from 1953 to 1955 as a civilian employee at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. He then spent several years with the National Bureau of Standards.[1]

## Later career

[edit]

He moved to DARPA (or ARPA as it was called at that point) on September 29, 1961, to coordinate the Project Defender program, an early ballistic missile defense program.[6]

One early experience at DARPA would leave a lasting impact on him: a lecture by the noted computer scientist J. C. R. Licklider, which converted him to Licklider's vision of computers as general information accessories; during his time at DARPA, Herzfeld would do much to set Licklider's vision on the road to achievement.

Herzfeld would stay at DARPA until 1967, directing the Ballistic Missile Defense Program from 1961 to 1963, then moving on to serve as assistant director from 1963 to 1965, and as director from June, 1965 to March, 1967.

After leaving ARPA, he worked for a number of different companies, including the ITT Corporation (as vice president and director of research and technology) from 1967 to 1985, and as vice chairman of Aetna, Jacobs, and Ramo Technology Ventures, a high-technology venture capital group, from 1985 until 1990.[citation needed]

He returned to the government in 1990, serving as Director of Defense Research and Engineering from March 12, 1990, to May 18, 1991. He chaired the Nuclear Weapons Council and the Intelligence R&D Council.

He was also a member of the Chief of Naval Operations Executive Panel (since its formation in 1970), the National Commission on Space (to which he was appointed in 1985), the Defense Science Board, the Defense Policy Board and the President's Information Advisory Council (PITAC) National Security Panel, among numerous other government advisory activities.[7]

## Memberships

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He was a member of the Council of Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. He was also a fellow of the American Physical Society (elected in 1958),[8] and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was also a member of the Cosmos Club (in Washington D.C.), and of the Explorers Club (in New York).

In 2012, Herzfeld was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame by the Internet Society.[9]

## References

[edit]

1. ^ a b c "Charles Maria Herzfeld". Joseph Gawler’s Sons, LLC. Retrieved 2021-10-23.
2. ^ "Dr. CHARLES M. HERZFELD (Age 91)". The Washington Post. February 28, 2017. Retrieved December 25, 2019.
3. ^ "People - Charles Herzfeld - ARPA Director". Archived from the original on 2011-07-19. Retrieved 2010-03-31.
4. ^ "Charles Herzfeld". 2010-03-25. Retrieved 2010-03-31.
5. ^ Sharon Weinberger (2017). The Imagineers of War: The Untold Story of DARPA, the Pentagon Agency That Changed the World. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. p. 122\. ISBN 9780385351805.
6. ^ "Aeronautical and Astronautical Events of July-September 1961". 2005-01-27. Retrieved 2010-03-31.
7. ^ "Charles M. Herzfeld - Center for Strategic and International Studies". 2010. Archived from the original on 2010-04-13. Retrieved 2010-03-31.
8. ^ "Fellow Archive". American Physical Society.
9. ^ "2012 Internet Hall of Fame Inductees". Internet Society. Archived from the original on December 13, 2012. Retrieved December 25, 2019.

## External links

[edit]

* Biography at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies
* Oral history interview with Charles M. Herzfeld at the Charles Babbage Institute
* Oral history interview with Charles M. Herzfeld at the American Institute of Physics

Government offices

Preceded by

Robert L. Sproull

|  Director of ARPA
1965–1967  | Succeeded by

Eberhardt Rechtin

Preceded by

Robert C. Duncan

|  Director of Defense Research and Engineering
1990–1991  | Succeeded by

Victor H. Reis

* v
* t
* e

Internet Hall of Fame

Pioneers

| 2012|

* Paul Baran
* Vint Cerf
* Danny Cohen
* Steve Crocker
* Donald Davies
* Elizabeth J. Feinler
* Charles Herzfeld
* Robert Kahn
* Peter T. Kirstein
* Leonard Kleinrock
* John Klensin
* Jon Postel
* Louis Pouzin
* Lawrence Roberts

|

2013|

* David Clark
* David Farber
* Howard Frank
* Kanchana Kanchanasut
* J. C. R. Licklider
* Bob Metcalfe
* Jun Murai
* Kees Neggers
* Nii Quaynor
* Glenn Ricart
* Robert Taylor
* Stephen Wolff
* Werner Zorn

2014|

* Douglas Engelbart
* Susan Estrada
* Frank Heart
* Dennis Jennings
* Rolf Nordhagen
* Radia Perlman

Global connectors

| 2012|

* Randy Bush
* Kilnam Chon
* Al Gore
* Nancy Hafkin
* Geoff Huston
* Brewster Kahle
* Daniel Karrenberg
* Toru Takahashi
* Tan Tin Wee

|

2013|

* Karen Banks
* Gihan Dias
* Anriette Esterhuysen
* Steve Goldstein
* Teus Hagen
* Ida Holz
* Qiheng Hu
* Haruhisa Ishida
* Barry Leiner
* George Sadowsky

2014|

* Dai Davies
* Demi Getschko
* Masaki Hirabaru
* Erik Huizer
* Steve Huter
* Abhaya Induruwa
* Dorcas Muthoni
* Mahabir Pun
* Srinivasan Ramani
* Michael Roberts
* Ben Segal
* Douglas Van Houweling

2017|

* Nabil Bukhalid
* Ira Fuchs
* Shigeki Goto
* Mike Jensen
* Ermanno Pietrosemoli
* Tadao Takahashi
* Florencio Utreras
* Wu Jianping

Innovators

| 2012|

* Mitchell Baker
* Tim Berners-Lee
* Robert Cailliau
* Van Jacobson
* Lawrence Landweber
* Paul Mockapetris
* Craig Newmark
* Ray Tomlinson
* Linus Torvalds
* Phil Zimmermann

|

2013|

* Marc Andreessen
* John Perry Barlow
* François Flückiger
* Stephen Kent
* Anne-Marie Eklund Löwinder
* Henning Schulzrinne
* Richard Stallman
* Aaron Swartz
* Jimmy Wales

2014|

* Eric Allman
* Eric Bina
* Karlheinz Brandenburg
* John Cioffi
* Hualin Qian
* Paul Vixie

2017|

* Jaap Akkerhuis
* Yvonne Marie Andres
* Alan Emtage
* Ed Krol
* Tracy LaQuey Parker
* Craig Partridge

Inductees since 2019

| 2019|

* Adiel Akplogan
* Kimberly Claffy
* Douglas Comer
* Elise Gerich
* Larry Irving
* Dan Lynch
* Jean Armour Polly
* José Soriano
* Michael Stanton [pt]
* Klaas Wierenga
* Suguru Yamaguchi [ja]

|

2021|

* Carlos Afonso
* Rob Blokzijl
* Hans-Werner Braun [de]
* Frode Greisen
* Jan Gruntorad
* Saul Hahn
* Kim Hubbard
* Rafael Ibarra
* Xing Li
* Yngvar Lundh
* Dan Kaminsky
* DaeYoung Kim
* Kenneth Klingenstein
* Alejandro Pisanty
* Yakov Rekhter
* Philip Smith
* Pål Spilling
* Liane Tarouco [pt]
* Virginia Travers
* George Varghese
* Lixia Zhang

2023|

* Abhay Bhushan
* Laura Breeden
* Ivan Moura Campos
* Steve Cisler
* Peter Eckersley
* Hartmut Richard Glaser
* Simon S. Lam
* William Schrader
* Guy de Téramond

Authority control databases

International|

* ISNI
* VIAF
* FAST
* WorldCat

National|

* United States
* Netherlands
* Israel

Other|

* IdRef
* SNAC

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