James Webb; Ran NASA, Helped Plan Moon Landing

James E. Webb, the hard-charging and immensely capable administrator who was head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration from 1961 to 1968, has died at 85.

Webb died Thursday at Georgetown University Hospital after a heart attack. He had also suffered from Parkinson’s disease.

Webb had a long career in public service and private industry. During the Truman Administration, he served as director of the Budget Bureau and as an undersecretary of state. He also had been a deputy governor of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

After spending the Eisenhower years in private industry, he was asked to become chief of NASA by Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson.

He took over an agency that was in its administrative infancy. His first mandate, which he received from President John F. Kennedy, was to put a man on the moon. Although he stepped down as administrator a year before Apollo touched down on the lunar surface, Webb was credited with laying the groundwork for that epic event.

Webb was chosen as an administrator for his management skills and his political sophistication. At NASA, he was perhaps more admired than loved, gaining a reputation for bullheadedness, and he seemed to relish keeping the staff somewhat off-balance, a management technique he called “planned disequilibrium.”

He reined in NASA administrators and scientists alike, gaining a legendary mastery over small details. When called before congressional committees, he tended to bury them in loud and fast-talking testimony and seemingly endless streams of data.

His mastery of Congress and his agency reached the point where he could complain to Kennedy about one of his chief staff members and to President Lyndon B. Johnson about “your vice president,” Hubert H. Humphrey, and come out the winner.

His darkest hour with NASA was probably Jan. 20, 1967, when three astronauts died on the launch pad in an Apollo craft. Webb spent the next several months answering critics, including congressional committees, on possible blame for the tragedy.

In 1968, he announced that he was retiring. He deplored congressional budget cuts for NASA at a time when the Soviet space program seemingly was growing. After leaving NASA, he undertook projects for the Smithsonian Institution and National Geographic.

Webb, a native of North Carolina, graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1928 with a degree in education and a Phi Beta Kappa key. He studied law at George Washington University and was admitted to the Washington Bar Assn. in 1936. He joined the Marine Corps Reserves in 1930, received his wings the next year and spent part of World War II as a Marine flier.

From 1932 to 1934, he was secretary to Rep. Edward W. Pou (D-N. C.), chairman of the Rules Committee. Later in the 1930s, he worked for O. Max Gardner, a former North Carolina governor who was general counsel of the Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce of America. From 1936 to 1943, he worked for the Sperry Gyroscope Corp., becoming its vice president.

After World War II, he practiced law before serving as Budget Bureau director from 1946 to 1949 and undersecretary of state from 1949 to 1952. He then was a director of Kerr-McGee Oil Industries and McDonnell Aircraft, and president and board chairman of the Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies before becoming NASA chief.

Survivors include his wife of 53 years, Patsy, of Washington; a son, James Jr. of Stockton, N. J.; a daughter, Sarah G. Webb of Santa Fe, N. M.; two brothers, Henry G. of Kensington, Md., and John F. Webb Jr. of Oxford, N. C.; a sister, Olive Webb Wharton of Durham, N. C., and a granddaughter.