Jerry Wiesner, Scientist, Statesman, Humanist: Memories and Memoirs [Hardcover]

Judy Rosenblith (Editor), Edward M. Kennedy (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 5, 2003

The recurring theme in Jerry Wiesner's varied and distinguished career was what Senator Edward M. Kennedy calls in the foreword to this book a "passionate involvement to make a better world, and a safer world." His odyssey as a public citizen included work as an acoustician for folklorist Alan Lomax in the Library of Congress, research at MIT's Radiation Lab and at Los Alamos, service as President John F. Kennedy's Special Assistant for Science and Technology, and his years at MIT as professor, dean, provost, and president. At Los Alamos he received what he called "a valuable education on issues that were to occupy a large part of my life." The lessons learned informed his later work on nuclear disarmament; he was a pivotal adviser on both the 1963 partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and the 1972 ABM Treaty and an early member of the Pugwash group, an organization of scientists from both sides of the Iron Curtain. His many accomplishments as president of MIT similarly reflected his conviction that science and technology cannot be separate from society.Jerry Wiesner had long planned an autobiographical book that would combine personal experience and historical interpretation, covering the wide range of interests that he compared to "the many parts of a giant jigsaw puzzle," but the commitments of his postretirement life and a serious stroke in 1989 kept him from completing it. Jerry Wiesner, Scientist, Statesman, Humanist, conceived by Wiesner's longtime colleague and friend Walter Rosenblith, fills the gap between the unwritten autobiography and the still-to-be-written biography, assembling reminiscences of Wiesner by such friends as Alan Lomax, Theodore C. Sorensen, and John Kenneth Galbraith, and writings by Wiesner himself, including the autobiographical pieces that would have been the basis of his own book.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

The name Jerry Wiesner won't ring bells for many, but this illuminating collection of essaylike tributes and Wiesner's own letters, speeches, and memoirs will introduce this important scientist of conscience to a wider public. As Senator Edward Kennedy writes, Wiesner (1915-94) was a "brilliant scientist, an innovative educator, a devoted public servant." He came of age professionally in sync with the atomic bomb and became a tireless advocate for arms control and peace. Wiesner served as President John F. Kennedy's special assistant for science and technology and, later, president of MIT, working hard to secure the partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and the ABM Treaty and establish dynamic approaches to linking the sciences and the humanities. The great breadth and depth of his convictions and activities are reflected in contributions by John Kenneth Galbraith, musicologist Alan Lomax, and fellow scientists. In his own writings, Wiesner offers unique insights into the ever-complicated and all-important nuclear-arms debate and the complex interaction between science and politics. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"...[An] illuminating collection of essaylike tributes and Wiesner's own letters, speeches, and memoirs..." Donna Seaman Booklist

"Jerry Wiesner is well worth getting to know." Roy Herbert NewScientist

"...[This] collection documents Wiesner's remarkable career...many of the book's essays are fascinating." Wolfgang K. H. Panofsky Physics Today

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press (December 5, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262182327
• ISBN-13: 978-0262182324
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.3 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,708,154 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Essential Jerry Wiesner--Scientist Extraordinaire, January 29, 2006

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This review is from: Jerry Wiesner, Scientist, Statesman, Humanist: Memories and Memoirs (Hardcover)

Jerome B. Wiesner is far from being a household name, but he was arguably one of the most significant figures in science and technology in the middle part of the twentieth century. He was the President's Science Advisor during the term of John F. Kennedy, and president of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), between 1966 and 1975. He was an outspoken advocate of nuclear arms control, believing it the only way to prevent nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union, and was a founding member of the International Foundation for the Survival and Development of Humanity. During his tenure as presidential science advisor he was involved in the build-up of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to accomplish Project Apollo, the commitment to land Americans on the Moon before the end of the 1960s.

A longstanding faculty member at MIT, Wiesner first made a name for himself in the immediate post-World War II era by assisting national leaders in setting science and technology policy. Two areas, especially, sparked his involvement. The first was nuclear weapons and the deterrence theory then current during the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Wiesner favored a strong military capability for the United States, but always argued for efforts limiting the number of nuclear warheads available to both sides. Accordingly, Wiesner participated in the Geneva summit of 1958 and the Pugwash conference of 1960, in both cases making arguments in favor of strategic arms limitations.

The second area where Wiesner played an especially important role was in the Cold War rivalry concerning space flight. At the time of Sputnik in October 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower asked him to serve on a special science advisory committee charged with revamping the federal government's oversight of critical science and technology development efforts. He advocated the creation of NASA in 1958 and the consolidation of non-military space flight activities under its leadership. When John F. Kennedy was preparing to take office in late 1960, he appointed an ad hoc committee headed by Wiesner to offer suggestions for American efforts in space. Wiesner concluded that the issue of "national prestige" was too great to allow the Soviet Union leadership in space efforts, and therefore the U.S. had to enter the field in a substantive way. Wiesner also emphasized the importance of practical non-military applications of space technology--communications, mapping, and weather satellites among others--and the necessity of keeping up the effort to exploit space for national security through such technologies as ICBMs and reconnaissance satellites. He tended to de-emphasize the human space flight initiative.

After the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963, Wiesner resigned from government service and returned to MIT. He spent the rest of his career there in senior positions, much of it as its president.

This work is a collection of documents and reminiscences by and about Jerry Wiesner and well worth the time to read. Some of the pieces were written by such luminaries as Theodore C. Sorensen, Edward M. Kennedy, and John Kenneth Galbraith. Others are by Wiesner and relate his passion for myriad aspects of science and technology in modern American life.