Founding Father.

Founding Father; Wired; March 2001, pp. 144-153.

This interview with 74-year-old inventor and entrepreneur Paul Baran sheds light on the origins of the Internet as well as some of the political/technical considerations that went into antiballistic missile defense at the height of the

Cold War. Baran, who in April was awarded the Franklin Institute's 2001 Bower Award and Prize for Achievement in Science, was a pioneer in the development of digital, packet-switched networks, which lie at the heart of the Internet. Here he recalls being unable in the 1960s to convince AT&T to accept Air Force funding to build such a network because "the company was controlled by people who had been there a long time, and they were all analog." The interview also touches on the need to preserve documentation ("we're under-investing in recording history") and the conditions that make for an important research institution like Rand ("great leadership, great researchers, and great freedom to be effective.")