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Memorial Tributes Volume 5 (1992) / Chapter Skim
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James R. Killian, Jr.
Pages 138-143

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From page 139...
... In addition, for more than half those years he was a notably influential participant in national affairs concerned with engineering and science. His extraordinary impact was felt across a broad range of issues directly relatecl to the central interests of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE)
From page 140...
... Under Killian's leadership, MIT established the Lincoln Laboratory that would develop an electronic continental defense system, a semiautomatic interconnected system so vast and sophisticated that it could not have been imagined even a few years earlier. During the same period, the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory was developing inertial guidance systems for intercontinental ballistic missiles and the space vehicles and nuclear-powered submarines that were yet to come.
From page 141...
... He served on President Truman's Communications Policy Board, 1950-1951; on the President's AdvisoryCommittee on Management, 1950-1952; as chairman ofthe Army Scientific Advisory Panel, 1951-1956; and as a member of the Science Advisory Committee of Truman's Office of Defense Mobilization in 1951. Later, in the mid-1950s he served President Eisenhower in evaluating national technological capabilities as chairman of the Technical Capabilities Panel of the President's Science Advisory Committee (PSAC)
From page 142...
... presidents with the best scientific advice the nation had to offer. As the columnist Arthur Krock wrote in Killian's obituaryin the Nero York Times, he "repaired aciangerous national deficiency by bringing science and technology into the inner circles of the government." Of the many other contributions Killian made as presidential science adviser from 1957 to 1959, one of the most significant was the establishment on his recommendation in 1958 of the NationalAeronautics and SpaceAdministration (NASA)
From page 143...
... That report started the concerned governments down the long road to an atmospheric test ban agreement ancl had a seminal effect in altering the climate within the government ancI the nation for consideration of arms control issues. After Killian returned to MIT as chairman in 1959 ancI throughout his subsequent intensive involvement in institution builcling, Dr.


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