Alan F. Kay, author of four books on this page. At age 18, in 1944, he joined the US infantry until war’s end.  A Japanese language interpreter, he performed a wide range of military police duties in the army of occupation in Tokyo, 1946. Supported by the GI bill, he obtained a bachelor’s degree at MIT and was a PhD in mathematics at Harvard in 1952.  Kay co-founded TRG, Inc. a military R&D company (1954 '63).  His work led to improved performance in microwave transmission and reception both in short distances and over the earth’s horizon and in radio astronomy, exploring from the ionosphere, out to the furthest reaches of the universe.  In 1966, Kay founded AutEx, (Automatic Exchange), a supplier of electronic “marketplace” systems.  AutEx offered various industries, mostly the securities industry, an on-line network system for transactions between the industry and its suppliers and customers.  AutEx was the first operating B2B e-commerce company that also provided the first commercially available email.  In 1978, after selling AutEx (now owned by Thomson Financial), Kay became a donor and board member of public policy organizations and an investor and advisor to start-up companies pioneering energy efficiency and anti-pollution technologies.  From 1987 to 2007 his non-profit ATI, along with others, established the art and science of public-interest polling.  He is a board member of the World Security Institute. Kay, with his partner, global futurist Hazel Henderson, resides in Florida.

Am I offering a book that costs ten dollars? "No," one dollar? "Naw."

It's FREE.

Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, makes a fortune by selling books. His company won’t send you a book that doesn’t make him richer.  Though he may be a generous donor for good causes, to him selling books is for money.

Here is why he should want to help give away some Eliminating War books.  If Jeff Bezos, or one of his assistants, reads the book and discovers how useful the book is to (1) peace organizations (a vast majority of Americans favor peace) and (2) those million plus people in the US military who collectively consume almost a trillion dollars a year and control the uniquely powerful Pentagon and its diverse agencies.

Both need to know the book that offers:

Come-on Jeff, give away as many now as I did in the first month or two, after which America has begun to catch on to the urgency of addressing "Eliminating War" and you should catch on too.

Next Book

Militarist – Millionaire – Peacenik Memoir of a Serial Entrepreneur (Published by Cosimo) $15.95 available at amazon.com

About the Book  

More than any other issue, what worries Americans in the opening years of the 21st century is what to do about (1) spreading Middle East warfare, (2) increasing carnage of failed states and civil wars largely in Asia and Africa, and (3) fearsome terrorist attacks that strike anywhere in the world.  This book covers an era, my pre-21st century lifetime, when such evils seemed far less pressing..

It didn't start that way.  In the 1930s and 40s, Japan launched huge, emperor-worshiping military forces that encroached on China, and in WWII rampaged through Southeast Asia and the Pacific conquering territory and employing fearless suicide-bombers (kamikaze) that the US had not dealt with before.  I served a year in the US infantry during WWII.  When the war ended, my first hand military police experience in Tokyo as an interpreter in the Army of Occupation, played a small but close-to-the-action role that secured the peace, all brilliantly directed by Supreme Allied Commander General Douglas MacArthur.  Within a single year the benevolence of the Occupation steered Japan into becoming a peace-loving, democratic US ally for over 60 years and made possible what has been called the Japanese miracle – the creation of a powerhouse economy, the world's second largest.  Yes, a price was paid for that. MacArthur allowed hundreds of military leaders and the emperor himself to escape punishment for horrible war crimes.

Further employment by the US military came about six years later, after I had become a PhD mathematician, scientist, and engineer.  I worked for military research and development companies in the US for 14 years while observing the sought or unsought growth of the military industrial complex.

This memoir reveals how ignorant of WWII lessons our political leaders have been, and how arrogant and incompetent they remain when presented with the facts.

Peace is more difficult and frustrating than waging war, with its built-in momentum, but waging peace can work better than waging war.  The three "waging peace" chapters, #10 - #12, show the great success that we peace wagers had in Gorbachev's USSR and some success in the US – limited by Reagan's handlers' fight to keep nuclear war options alive.

Though war and peace are big themes in this book, my life experiences as a serial entrepreneur extended to other roles too.  The unlikely but true story of why and how I obtained a PhD in mathematics from Harvard in 1952 is presented in Chapter 6, "Course Correction."  The story of how my many years as a mathematician had a major beneficial effect on my life after 1965 (when my main activities no longer included mathematics) appears in "The Best of Math," Chapter 8.  Though correctly labeled as "Military R&D," Chapter 7 spans my development from mathematician to scientist, engineer, manager, executive and business leader that covered many non-military subjects such as microwaves, antennas, information technology, and computers.

Chapter 9 tells the story of my company, AutEx, that well before the Internet, was the first to link competitive companies in various industries with their suppliers and customers for on-line transactions.  Chapter 13 covers my most important, non-commercial activity (aside perhaps from waging peace), the missing link of democracy, a practical way to get the voice of the public accurately, fairly, and consistently, into the heads of our political leaders.

---

Book 3 & 4

Spot the Spin

The FUN Way to Keep

Democracy Alive & Elections Honest

Locating Consensus

for

⋆ Democracy ⋆

A Ten-Year U.S. Experiment

$29.95

available at amazon.com

$14.50

available at amazon.com

Are you an activist for a good cause? Fine! Few of us do as much as needed to really make the world a better place or to avoid it getting worse.  For many, opting out of activism comes from lack of money, energy or time.  As for "keeping democracy alive and elections honest," that strikes many as the hardest of all the do-good things to do.

This is the only book that tells you the fun way to keep democracy alive, keep elections honest and improve the world without becoming an activist, without making donations, without organizing events, without  volunteering your time and without relying on a beneficent act of divine intervention.

To read the book online where key words can be searched and chapters printed, visit The Polling Critic.

WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING

The Washington Post called Kay "America's Patron of Polling."

Stanley B. Greenberg, Pollster for Democrats,  "In a period of frenzied and irrelevant politics, this is a breath of fresh air." 

See Vicious Circle Chart - Table of Contents #15.3

Purpose  /  Table of Contents