Look at the man pictured here. Those glasses. That haircut. Nerd! NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERD!

You're damn right, he was a nerd! Harold Brown, a child prodigy, graduated high school at the age of 15, college at 17 (summa cum laude), and got his PhD at 21. (Seriously? We expected 19!) NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERD!

Brown then worked at the Polaris missile, succeeded Edward Teller as head of the University of California Radiation Laboratory, worked on nuclear warheads, and became President of Caltech. Talk about a NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERD!

After that, Brown became the US Secretary of Defense. Bet you didn't see that punchline coming. NERD?

Yep, for four years Brown (fully Jewish; mother's maiden name was Cohen) was Jimmy Carter's right-hand man as far as the military was concerned. And while the administration that followed usually gets credit for ending the Cold War, many assert that it was Brown's policy of "essential equivalence" in the nuclear arms raise that had a huge role in the Soviet Union's eventual demise.

NERD!