Jerome Wiesner
Jerome Wiesner | |
---|---|
13th President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology | |
In office 1971–1980 | |
Preceded by | Howard Johnson |
Succeeded by | Paul Gray |
Director of the Office of Science and Technology | |
In office January 20, 1961 – January 24, 1964 | |
President | John F. Kennedy Lyndon B. Johnson |
Preceded by | George Kistiakowsky |
Succeeded by | Donald Hornig |
Personal details | |
Born | Jerome Bert Wiesner May 30, 1915 Los Alamos Laboratory |
Thesis | Pre-ignition phenomena in gas switching tubes and related rectifier burnout problems (1950) |
Jerome Bert Wiesner (May 30, 1915 – October 21, 1994) was a professor of
He was an outspoken critic of crewed exploration of
Early life and education
Wiesner was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Jewish immigrants from Silesia[1] and raised in Dearborn. He attended Fordson High School.
He received a
In 1940, Wiesner married Laya Wainger, a fellow mathematics major he met at UM. The same year, he was appointed chief engineer for the Acoustical and Record Laboratory of the
Career
Wiesner began his professional career at the
At the end of World War II, he worked briefly at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, then returned to MIT as a professor of electrical engineering, and worked from 1946 to 1961 at the Research Laboratory of Electronics at MIT (RLE), ultimately becoming the director.[3] Between this time, he is known to have attended the Macy Conferences in 1952, and to have provided feedback alongside Walter Pitts during a presentation on homeostatic systems by Ross Ashby.[5]
Kennedy administration
President John F. Kennedy named Wiesner to chair the President's Science Advisory Committee (PSAC) in February, 1961.
Space program
Before Kennedy took office, Wiesner chaired a task force which issued a report to the President-elect on January 10, 1961, warning of "inadequate planning and direction" and "the lack of outstanding scientists and engineers" in its space efforts, and expressing his opposition to crewed space flight,[6] saying that Project Mercury "exaggerated the value of that aspect of space activity where we are less likely to achieve success. We should stop advertising Mercury as our major objective in space activities."[7][8]
The Wiesner Report, as it was called, outlined to Kennedy Wiesner's advice to not continue with the crewed space program, Project Mercury. The President's Science Advisory Committee highlighted the skepticism of the scientific elite about sending humans into space. Wiesner was not concerned with the political aspects that others in Kennedy's administration were. Wiesner believed that the space program would continue making scientific advancements even without man. Also, he highlighted the disaster that would come out of a failure to place a man into orbit or causing the death of an astronaut, saying it "would create a situation of serious national embarrassment". These two points were among the many reasons Wiesner did not want to send man into space.[9]
When
But Golovin and Wiesner kept up the pressure, Wiesner at one point making the disagreement public during a two-day September visit by the President to Marshall Space Flight Center. Wiesner blurted out "No, that's no good," in front of the press, during a presentation by Marshall Director Wernher von Braun. Webb jumped in and defended von Braun, until Kennedy ended the squabble by stating that the matter was "still subject to final review." Webb held firm, as NASA issued a request for proposal to candidate LEM contractors. Wiesner finally relented, unwilling to settle the dispute once and for all in Kennedy's office, because of the President's involvement with the October Cuban Missile Crisis, and fear of Kennedy's support for Webb. NASA announced the selection of Grumman as the LEM contractor in November 1962.[12]
Pesticide usage
In the wake of controversy surrounding the 1962 publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, which questioned the indiscriminate use of the pesticide DDT, Kennedy directed the PSAC to conduct an investigation into Carson's claims. Wiesner held hearings, and on May 15, 1963, published a report titled "The Use of Pesticides",[13][14] which recommended a phaseout of "persistent toxic pesticides."[15]
Nuclear arms limitation
Wiesner's obituary described him as "a key figure in the Kennedy administration in the establishment of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, in achieving the October 1963 Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and in the successful effort to restrict the deployment of antiballistic missile systems.”[16]
Return to MIT
Shortly before his assassination in November 1963, Kennedy decided to replace Wiesner as PSAC chair with Donald Hornig of Princeton University. As Kennedy's successor, Lyndon B. Johnson honored the appointment in 1964.[17] After leaving the White House, Wiesner returned to MIT as Dean of the School of Science, became Provost in 1966, and served as President from 1971 to 1980.[1] He was also elected a life member of the MIT Corporation.
During the
Portrayal
Wiesner was portrayed by Al Franken in the 1998 HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon.[18]
Awards and honors
Wiesner was elected to the
Personal life
Wiesner died at his home in Watertown, Massachusetts of heart failure at age 79.[3] His son, Stephen Wiesner, made fundamental discoveries in quantum information theory.
Bibliography (selection)
Articles
- .
Notes
- ^ Obituary, MIT News Office
- ^ "Lists of White House 'Enemies' and Memorandums Relating to Those Named", The New York Times, June 28, 1973, p. 38.
- ^ "Enemies list", The Tech (MIT's student newspaper), September 7, 1973, p. 4.
- A Random Walk through the Twentieth Century, online hyper-biography of Wiesner from 1995
References
- ^ Dalyell, Tam (October 23, 2011). "Obituary: Jerome Wiesner". The Independent. Archived from the original on 2022-06-08.
Born in Detroit of first-generation Jewish parents from Silesia
- .
- ^ a b c d e http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/1994/weisner-obit-1026.html President emeritus Jerome Wiesner is dead at 79 October 26, 1994
- ^ "The Telegraph, Oct. 7, 1971".
- Ashby, R (March 1952). "Homeostasis". In von Foerster, H; Mead, M; Teuber, H.L.; Pias, C (eds.). Cybernetics: The Macy Conferences 1946-1953. Cybernetics. Transactions of the Ninth Conference. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. pp. 593–619 – via Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation.
- ^ House Science and Astronautics Committee, Defense Space interests, 87th Cong., 1st sess. (1961), p. 19.
- ^ Levine, Future of the US Space Program, p. 71. Emphasis in original.
- ^ Levine, Anold S. (1982). Managing NASA in the Apollo Era, chapter 27, "The Lunar Landing Decision and Its Aftermath". NASA SP-4102.
- ^ Logsdon, John, ed. (January 10, 1961). Report to the President-Elect of the Ad Hoc Committee on Space. NASA Historical Reference Collection. pp. 416–423.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Golovin had been NASA Associate Administrator Robert Seamans' special technical assistant, who left NASA after chairing an ad-hoc committee for Seamans in July 1961 to recommend an Apollo launch vehicle. Contrary to Wiesner's expectation, this NASA committee had helped open the door to serious consideration of LOR. Hansen, James R. (1999). Enchanted Rendezvous: John C. Houbolt and the Genesis of the Lunar-Orbit Rendezvous Concept.
- ^ Brooks, Grimwood, and Swenson (1979). Chariots For Apollo, chapter 3.7, "Casting the Die". NASA SP-4205.
- ^ Brooks, Grimwood, and Swenson (1979). Chariots For Apollo, chapter 4.4, "Pressures by PSAC". NASA SP-4205.
- PMID 17810673.
- OCLC 748974.
- ISBN 978-0-19-530067-3.
- JSTOR 24916480. Retrieved 25 February 2023.
- ^ Donald Hornig, Last to See First A-Bomb, Dies at 92, The New York Times, January 26, 2013
- ^ James, Caryn (April 3, 1998). "Television Review; Boyish Eyes on the Moon". The New York Times. Retrieved August 5, 2018.
- ^ "Jerome Bert Wiesner". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 2022-09-14.
- ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 2022-09-14.
- ^ "Public Welfare Award". National Academy of Sciences. Archived from the original on 29 December 2010. Retrieved 18 February 2011.
- ^ "Jerome B. Wiesner". www.nasonline.org. Retrieved 2022-09-14.
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