Wiesner, Jerome

Wiesner, Jerome B. 2003. Letter to Howard Johnson, April 3, 1967. In ferry Wiesner Scientist, Statesman, Humanist Memories and Memoirs, Walter A. Rosenblith. Cambridge MIT Press, 473-75. 

In 1961 Jerome Wiesner and John Kenneth Galbraith asked President John F. Kennedy to create a development commission to stimulate civilian industry. The Department of Commerce was already charged with this mission, but it was a relatively weak agency with few R D functions. To spearhead new government-industry partnerships in the model of postwar military sucesses, Wiesner chose Hollomon to serve as Commerce s assistant secretary of science and technology. ... 

A series of administrative transitions from the President s office to the department level nevertheless held on to the idea of integrating social and technical knowledge. Jerome Wiesner, who replaced Johnson as president in 1971, emphasized a new breed of socially and politically... 

Jerome B. Wiesner, Human Communications, IEEE CSIT Newsletter 4 (September 1973) 3-5. 

Jerome Wiesner and Paul Gray, President and Chancelloi Massachusetts Institute of Technology Bulletin 108, no. 3 (September 1973) 1-30. 

Reactions to Seaborg s proposal varied within the executive office staff. The Budget Bureau viewed it as an attempt to "protect the President (and AEC) in such a way that specific forward-looking actions could be taken at this time without a commitment of public funds now." Kennedy s science adviser, Jerome Wiesner, took a dimmer view of the proposal. Wiesner mentioned it to the president, who initially did "not feel strongly" about it one way or the other. Wiesner indicated that if such a study was to be useful, it should consider the need for atomic power within the broad context of energy supplies from all sources. ... 

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