Short answers, pulled from the story.
Jerome Wiesner was an American electrical engineer and science advisor who served as chairman of President Kennedy's Science Advisory Committee beginning in February 1961. He played a central role in shaping Kennedy-era policy on space, nuclear arms, and environmental science, and later served as President of MIT from 1971 to 1980.
Wiesner believed automated space probes could achieve scientific goals without the risks of crewed flight. He argued that a failed mission or astronaut death would create serious national embarrassment, and he felt Project Mercury exaggerated the value of human spaceflight in an area where the United States was less likely to succeed.
Before his White House role, Wiesner earned degrees at the University of Michigan, recorded folk music across the American South and Southwest alongside folklorist Alan Lomax under a Carnegie Corporation grant, and worked from 1946 to 1961 at MIT's Research Laboratory of Electronics, eventually becoming its director. During World War II he developed microwave radar at the MIT Radiation Laboratory and led Project Cadillac.
The Wiesner Report was a document delivered to President-elect Kennedy on the 10th of January 1961, warning of inadequate planning and a shortage of outstanding scientists in the American space effort. It advised against continuing the crewed Project Mercury program, arguing that the United States should not advertise Mercury as its primary objective in space activities.
Following the 1962 publication of Silent Spring, President Kennedy directed Wiesner's Science Advisory Committee to investigate Carson's claims about DDT. On the 15th of May 1963, the committee published a report titled "The Use of Pesticides" that recommended a phaseout of persistent toxic pesticides, endorsing Carson's findings.
Wiesner was added to the expanded version of Nixon's enemies list compiled by White House counsel Charles W. Colson on the 9th of September 1971. A White House memo described a Nixon order to reduce MIT's federal subsidy because of what was characterized as Wiesner's anti-defense bias, reflecting his long career as a critic of anti-ballistic missile systems and military overreach.