Jerome Wiesner

Jerome Wiesner (1915-1994) was an electrical engineer who served as scientific advisor to President John F. Kennedy from 1961 to 1964 and President of MIT from 1971 and 1980. He worked closely with scientists and government officials in both India and Pakistan in the 1960s.

Jerome Bert Wiesner receives the Sitara i Pakistan award, 1963 Courtesy of the MIT Museum

President Kennedy’s Science Advisory Committee

Wiesner, the son of Jewish immigrants from Silesia, graduated from the University of Michigan with degrees in electrical engineering and computer science. Interested in problems of communication—including both the scientific and social problems associated with the transmission of information—he began his career as Chief Engineer for the Acoustical and Record Laboratory of the Library of Congress before working at MIT’s Radiation Laboratory in 1942. There, he led projects related to World War II homeland defense. After the war, he worked briefly at the Los Alamos National Laboratory before returning to MIT as Professor, Electrical Engineering, serving as Director of the Research Laboratory for Electronics (RLE) from 1946 to 1961.

Norbert Wiener and others receive the National Medal of Science, 1964

In 1961, President Kennedy appointed Wiesner as chair of the President's Science Advisory Committee (PSAC). As scientific advisor to the POTUS, Wiesner was responsible for advising the President on all matters of science and technology. He was particularly focused on enabling US space exploration at the height of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. During this time, Wiesner was admired by many at MIT for his ability to act as a bridge between science and policy. He was known for his clear and concise communication skills and his ability to distill complex technical information into terms that could be understood by policymakers.

Wiesner's role as a scientist in an advisory position strengthened Burchard’s belief in providing a holistic approach to technical education at MIT, training students who could not only understand science and technology, but who could also communicate effectively with the public. In 1966, Weisner delivered a lecture on Using Science for Public Ends soon after he left the government. This policy-oriented scientific knowledge formed the framework of Weisner’s collaborations with government leaders and scientists in India and Pakistan to aid with educational reforms and building new scientific institutions in the nascent nations.

“In most fields of science, we are going to find the cost so great that the world will have to cooperate and we will have to have centers collectively if we want the same rate of progress in the development of knowledge, the opening up of new knowledge, as we have in the past years.” - Jerome Wiesner, speech to the Pakistan Association for Advancement of Science, 1961 (Distinctive Collections, Jerome B. Wiesner Papers, Box 100, Speeches).

Jerome Wiesner and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO)

Wiesner’s work with PSAC played a significant role in the development of India’s space program, both in terms of training and direct collaboration. As the scientific lead on the United States’ space exploration program, Wiesner actively sought to forge connections between NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) that was set up by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in 1962 through training and access to cutting-edge space technology.

Dr. Vikram Sarabhai and Dr. Paine Sign a Satellite Agreement

After his presidential appointment ended in 1964, Jerome Wiesner continued to promote US-Indian cooperation in space as the Dean of the School of Science, Provost, and President of MIT. In the mid-1960s, Wiesner and MIT actively promoted US-Indian cooperation in space activity, framing it as a way to contain communist China and the spread of nuclear weapons during the Cold War. Wiesner believed space activity could serve as a realistic substitute for diverting India’s attention away from the development of nuclear weapons as well as a method to strengthen India’s ties to the West.

During this time, MIT's Lincoln Laboratory worked with Indian scientists at ISRO to develop a design for a satellite that could be used to beam educational programs to India's poor. The MIT-based study was a major factor in the development of India's INSAT satellite program, which has been used for a variety of purposes, including television broadcasting, telecommunications, and remote sensing. Beyond establishing a baseline satellite design configuration which would become the standard for ISRO in the 1980s, MIT provided hands-on engineering experience to several Indians who later headed important space-related projects in India. 

Jerome Wiesner played a pivotal role in fostering the early direction of India's space program by exposing Indian scientists and engineers to a rich network of scientific activity spread across several disciplines, economic sectors, and countries. This helped to create the infrastructure for India's current space exploration efforts, which have made significant contributions to the fields of telecommunications, remote sensing, and disaster management.The United States and India continue to have strong bilaterial cooperation in space, with the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Mission (NISAR) expected to launch in 2024.

Scientific Mission to Pakistan

Wiesner was intimately involved in development of public infrastructure and political affairs in Pakistan. He received the Sitara-i-Pakistan in 1963 for these efforts.

Jerome Bert Wiesner receives the Sitara i Pakistan award, 1963

Jerome Bert Wiesner at the Sitara Pakistan award celebration, 1963

In 1961, as part of President Kennedy's Scientific Mission to Pakistan, Jerome Wiesner visited Lahore and Karachi. There, he met with ministers and officers of the government in West Pakistan and the central government, as well as leaders of the irrigation department, agriculture department, Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA), Planning and Development department, and other institutes to brainstorm scientific solutions for problems in Pakistan. While serving as Special Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, he was a member of several working groups on the problems of West Pakistan in the early 1960s, specifically waterlogging and hyper-salinity in soil.

Institutions visited by Wiesner in Karachi, October 1961

During a visit to Pakistan in 1961, Wiesner gave a speech on the science of communication from the perspective of a political advisor and an engineer to the Pakistan Association for Advancement of Science and the University of Punjab. In his speech, he emphasized the importance of international scientific cooperation for the development of nations and technical knowledge. He mentioned the contributions of important Pakistani scientists such as Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist Abdus Salam, who was in attendance along with other Pakistani officials and scientists, and who had met John Burchard in Pakistan in 1962.

American Embassy in Pakistan to Jerome Weisner, 2 October 1961

Weisner continued to foster closer relations and take an active interest in Pakistan on his return to MIT in 1964. In October 1971, he became President of MIT just two months before the Bangladesh War during which time East Pakistan declared independence in the face of extreme violence at the hands of the Pakistani army that imposed martial law in the region. Although the United States supported West Pakistan during the war, Wiesner, a strong advocate for human rights and democracy, protested against this. As a member of American Friends of Pakistan, a group of officials from several American universities, he signed a public statement opposing America’s support of the Pakistani government's actions, urging the United States to not cooperate with the Pakistani government as long as it continued to violate the principles of democracy.

This public statement caused a strain in MIT's relationship with Pakistan. Pakistani officials rebutted that President Yahya Khan was trying to re-establish democratic practice in the country. They also pointed out that he had held the first nationwide elections in Pakistan on the basis of one man one vote. However, Wiesner and other members of American Friends of Pakistan argued that the Pakistani government's actions in East Pakistan were a clear violation of human rights, arguing that the United States should not be supporting a government that was suppressing its own people.

American Friends of Pakistan in the Washington Post, 12 April 1971

“Wiesner's legacy in South Asia is complex and contested. Some see him as a champion of science and education, while others see him as a critic of the Pakistani government. However, there is no doubt that he was a significant figure in the history of both Pakistan and India's scientific and technological development. His work helped to lay the foundation for India's current space program and Pakistan’s public infrastructure.” - Sarah Syed, 2024, Student Researcher