Robert Kupperman; Warned of Terrorism's Potential

Robert Harris Kupperman, 71, a well-known terrorism expert who for years warned that the United States was underprepared for attacks on its own soil, died of complications from Parkinson's disease Nov. 24 at his home in Washington.

Dr. Kupperman, former chief scientist for the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and later a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, led the first government interagency studies of foreign and domestic terrorism in the 1970s.

He frequently spoke and wrote about the potential of chemical and biological attacks, the vulnerabilities of the power grid and the domestic water supply, unprotected government buildings and the insecurity of U.S. dollars.

"What I see out of it all is a negligent United States," he said in 1993. "We get fixated on every incident that takes place abroad. But I don't think we're doing what we need in monitoring terrorist activities in the United States."

Dr. Kupperman, considered one of the leading privately employed terrorism experts, wrote several books, including "Terrorism: Threat, Reality, Response" with Darrell Trent in 1979 and "Final Warning" with Jeff Kamen in 1989.

During a period when many Americans barely or only intermittently recognized the escalating violence by terrorist groups around the world, Dr. Kupperman tried to educate, alarm and impel decision-makers to take action on infrastructure "guarded by no more than a chain-link fence" and to reorganize the nation's antiterrorism management.

Derided by some as an alarmist, Dr. Kupperman doggedly set up panel discussions that included academics, law enforcement officials and retired senior military officers. He also conducted "war game" simulations for high-ranking government officials to familiarize them with some of the choices they might face.

He described some of those scenarios on a 1985 "CBS Reports" broadcast.

"We've got to decide ethically what we are willing to do," Dr. Kupperman said. "We've got to make decisions, because doing nothing is a decision that guarantees that we will be attacked repeatedly."

But he also warned that a bungled reprisal or preemptive strike would risk terrorist retaliation. "When you begin to use proxies, unreliable nationals of another nation, you invite nothing but trouble," he said.

The idea that extremism can be successfully fought by increasing political freedom and economic opportunity is "wishful thinking," Dr. Kupperman told The Washington Post in 1993. "There really are nasty people out there who are going to continue to do this no matter how much social equity arises in the world."

Born in New York City, he grew up there and on Long Island. He attended Franklin and Marshall College and graduated from New York University, where he also earned a doctorate in applied mathematics in 1962.

He taught at the California Institute of Technology and worked for aircraft companies and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory before moving to the Washington area in 1964. He was a senior staff member at the Institute for Defense Analyses until 1967 and assistant director of the Office of Emergency Preparedness until 1973. He then became an adviser on counterterrorism to the National Security Council before joining the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.

In 1979, he joined the Center for Strategic and International Studies and became a consultant to government agencies, foreign governments and multinational corporations. He retained his affiliation with the center until his death, although illness slowed him down after the mid-1990s.

His first wife, Helen Slotnick Kupperman, died in 1996.

Survivors include his wife, Barbara Norris Kupperman of Washington; a daughter from his first marriage, Tamara Kupperman Thorp of Washington; and a sister.