Malham M. Wakin (March 31, 1931 â July 30, 2024) was a United States Air Force brigadier general, and head of the philosophy department at the U.S. Air Force Academy.
Wakin was raised in Oneonta, New York. He graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1952, earned an M.A. from the State University of New York, and earned a PhD at the University of Southern California in 1959.
Wakin joined the U.S. Air Force in 1953, and spent 42 years on active duty. The great majority of those years were spent teaching at the Air Force Academy, beginning in 1959. He retired from active duty in 1995, but continued to teach at the academy until retiring from teaching in 2016.
One theme of Wakin's teaching career was challenging the assertion made by H. G. Wells in The Outline of History: "The professional military mind is by necessity an inferior and unimaginative mind; no man of high intellectual quality would willingly imprison his gifts in such a calling.".
Wakin died on July 30, 2024, at the age of 93.