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JEROME BERT WIESNER
1915-1994
BY PAUL E. GRAY
OPEROSE B. WIESNER engineer, educator, adviser to presidents
and the young, passionate advocate for peace, and public citi-
zen died on October ill, 1994, at his home in Watertown,
Massachusetts, at the age of seventy-nine. Throughout his life,
he applieci his intellect and wisdom and energy to improve the
many institutions with which he was involved, to ameliorate the
problems clouding the future of humankind, and to make the
worIcl a better, safer, more humane home to all its citizens.
Jerry was born in Detroit, Michigan, on May 30, 1915- the son
of a shopkeeper and grew up in nearby Dearborn, where he
attended the public schools. He attenclec3 the University of Mich-
igan at Ann Arbor, where he earned bachelor of science degrees
in electrical engineering and mathematics in 1937, the master of
science degree in electrical engineering in 193S, and the doctor
of philosophy degree in electrical engineering in 1950.
fin or out of public positions, he never stopped caring
or working for the country's good. He never thought it
was not his problem
~He] performed the office of
public citizen better than any contemporary I know. . .
Anthony Lewis
The New York Times
October 28, 1994
291
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292
MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
He began his professional career in 1937 as associate direc-
tor of the University of Michigan broadcasting service, and in
1940 mover! to the Acoustical Record Library of the Library of
Congress, where he served as chief engineer. In that capacity
he traveled throughout the South with folklorist Alan Lomax
recording the music of the black folk en cl blues tradition.
In 1942 he joined the Radiation Laboratory at the Massa-
chusetts Institute
of Technology (MIT), beginning an
association that with brief interruptions for government ser-
vice, lasted until his death fifty-two years later. At the Radiation
Laboratory, he player! a major role in developing microwave
raclar a too] that Winston Churchill characterized as decisive
in the Alliecl victory in World War lI.
In 1945 he moved for a year to Los Alamos to work on in-
strumentation for nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific.
In 1946 he rejoined MTT as assistant professor of electrical
engineering, working in the Research Laboratory of Electron-
ics (RLE), a multidisciplinary center for basic research in
electronics, physics, en cl communications, which grew out of
the wartime Racliation Laboratory. He made significant contri-
butions to the continued development of airborn racier systems
and to the development of tropospheric-scatter microwave
communications systems, which proviclec! highly reliable long
.
distance communications.
Promoter! to full professor in 1950, he became director of
RLE in 1952 and head of the Department of Electrical
Engineering in 1959.
In 1961 JerryT took leave from MIT to serve as special assis-
tant for science and technology to President John F. Kennedy
and as chairman of the Presiclent's Science Advisory Commit
tee (PSAC). He also held these posts for a short time under
President Lynclon B. Johnson, following President Kennecly's
assassination in 1963. He had known government consulting
en c! advisory service in prior years as a member of P SAC since
1957 en cl as a participant in several panels. He participates! in
the Pugwash Group, which enabler! him to develop strong per-
sonal relationships with Soviet scientists and leaders.
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TEROME BERT WIESNER
293
He was remarkably gifted in his ability to elucidate complex
issues and to explain the effects of policies ant! their technical
en cl political consequences, as in his 1961 book Where Science
and Politics Meet. He wrote extensively on the issues of arms
control en c! nuclear disarmament. He unclerstooct the dewily
collateral hazards associated with nuclear weapons production
and testing, and an unrestrained nuclear arms race. With
persistent persuasive argument he convinced others, in the
East en cl West, that the florid must move off this dangerous
course. His influence was central in bringing about the ban on
atmospheric weapons testing and in generating interest, on
both sides of the Iron Curtain, in parallel systematic reductions
in nuclear weapons.
Jerry Wiesner's passionate involvement with these issues was
evident throughout his life. His 1969 publication (with Abram
Chayes) of ABM: An Evaluation of the Decision to Deploy an Anti-
ballistic Missile System earner! him a place on President Nixon's
"enemies lists." In 1993 he published, with his MIT colleagues
Kosta Tsipis en c! Philip Morrison, Beyond the Looking Glass: The
United States Military in 2000 and Later, calling for deep cuts in
American military procurement and expenditures. Anti in the
days before his death he was corresponding with Secretary of
Defense William Perry about Pentagon needs and budgets.
When ferry returned to MIT after his service in the White
House, he became clean of science, having been appointed
institute professor in 1962, MIT's highest faculty rank. In 1966
he became provost, and was elected thirteenth president of
MIT in 1971, serving in that position until 1980. As clean, pro-
vost, and president, he expanded MTT's teaching and research
programs in health sciences, humanities, and the arts. He
sought new ways in which MIT's expertise in science and engi-
neering couIc3 be brought to bear on social issues such as
health care, urban clecay, mass transportation, and housing.
He was instrumental in establishing the MIT program in Sci-
ence, Technology, and Society to focus on ways in which
science and technological and social factors interact to shape
modern life. Jerry was centrally involved in the creation of the
Program in Media Arts en cl Sciences and the Meclia Laborato-
ry, which are housed at MIT in the Jerome and Laya Wiesner
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MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
Builcling. He was cleeply committed to the goals of this na-
tion's civil rights movement, and the perioc! of his leaclership
of MET procluced the greatest progress in bringing women
and minorities to the student body and the faculty.
After his retirement as president, Jerry clevoted himself to
teaching and research in technical en cl policy areas related to
science, technology, society, en c! world peace.
Jerome Wiesner was elected to the National Academy of
Engineering (NAE) in 1966 and to the National Academy of
Sciences (NAS) in 1960. He was a fellow of the American Acad-
emy of Arts and Sciences (1953) and of the Institute of
Electrical en cl Electronics Engineers (19521. In 1985 he was
awarilecl the NAE's Arthur M. Bueche Award for long-term
contributions to public unclerstancling of the risks of the nu-
clear age, and in 1992 he received the National Science
Founciation's Vannevar Bush Award for outstanding contribu-
tions in science en c! technology that are significant to the
national welfare. In 1993 he received the National Academy of
Sciences Public Welfare Medal, the highest honor of the NAS,
for clistinguishecl contributions in the application of science
to the public welfare.
Jerry received honors throughout his life from professional,
acacl emic, and philanthropic organizations in the United
States, from clistinguishecl international associations, and from
foreign governments. He was the recipient of honorary cle-
grees from premier universities Harvard, Tufts, Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute, en cl Notre Dame among many others.
This extraordinary stream of honors, although warmly appre-
ciated by the recipient, never altered his fundamental
modesty; the (listinguishecI elder statesman of the 199Os was,
in fact, not very different from the junior engineer who ar-
rived at MIT fifty years earlier: still a little shy, but friendly,
humorous, and always accessible.
Jerry Wiesner was a reliable friend, and all at MIT and else-
where (including this writer) who relied on that friendship
and on his course! and guidance, are unlikely to find its re-
placement.
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TEROME BERT WIESNER
295
For Jerry's inauguration as president of MIT on October 7,
1971, Archibald MacLeish wrote and deliverecl a poem that
spoke the truth of this remarkable man. It ended with these
lines, which are the best words to conclude this remembrance:
Advisor to Presidents the papers call him.
Acivisor, ~ say to the young.
It's the young who need competent friends,
boIcl companions,
honest men who won't run out,
won't write off mankind, sell up the country,
quit the venture, jibe the ship.
I love this man.
I rinse my mouth with his praise in a
frightful time.
The taste in the cup is of mint,
~ .
Ot spring water.
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
bert wiesner
