![]() ![]() Today, NASA mentions von Braun’s Nazi past on its website. Von Braun, who was a member of the Nazi Party and an SS officer, played a pivotal role in the US space program. ![]() Whatever Webb’s role in the Lavender Scare, the question for some observers seems to come down to whether he was personally homophobic.įraming the issue like this has echoes of another controversy: the complicity of German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun in the Third Reich. NASA’s official response to the controversy is that there is “no evidence at this point that warrants changing the name of the telescope”. The Webb telescope’s name was reportedly chosen by NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe in 2002. For example, the 1991 Gamma Ray Observatory was renamed after physicist Arthur Holly Compton after its launch. It’s also not unusual for spacecraft names to be changed. ![]() Space instruments are usually named via a consultation process, often with the public invited to contribute their ideas. Is it any better if Webb was passively enacting the policies rather than leading the persecution? Other government departments did actively oppose the investigation and sacking of LGBTQ+ employees. ‘I don’t see him as having any sort of leadership role in the Lavender Scare,’ says Johnson. Webb did attend a White House meeting on the threat allegedly posed by gay people, but the context of the meeting was to contain the hysteria that members of Congress were stirring up. There is no record of him choosing to stand up for the humanity of those being persecuted.ĭavid Johnson, a historian at the University of South Florida in Tampa who wrote the 2004 book The Lavender Scare, says he knows of no evidence that Webb led or instigated persecution. The records clearly show that Webb planned and participated in meetings during which he handed over homophobic material. In a Scientific American article last year, authors led by cosmologist Chanda Prescod-Weinstein wrote: Several astronomers petitioning to have the telescope renamed have noted Webb (while at the State Department) was involved in high-level meetings about Lavender Scare policies. Webb’s exact role in the Lavender Scare is hotly debated. From the late 1940s, under the influence of Republican politician Joseph McCarthy, LGBTQ+ people were purged from US government employment. Proponents of these ideas argued that because of the social stigma attached to their sexuality, LGBTQ+ people were at risk of being blackmailed into becoming Soviet spies. The “ Lavender Scare” was entwined with this paranoia. What was the 'Lavender Scare’?ĭuring the Cold War, Western capitalist democracies feared communist infiltration. In later life, he served on various advisory boards and was involved with the Smithsonian Institution, the US flagship cluster of museums, education and research centres. Webb left NASA in 1968, before Apollo 11 flew to the Moon. He also promoted “ psychological warfare” (or propaganda). Webb pushed for science to be prioritised in the Cold War environment, where every space mission was a political tool. From L to R: James Webb, Wernher von Braun, and Kurt Debus at a Kennedy Space Centre award ceremony in 1964. ![]()
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