James Beggs, NASA administrator in the 1980s, dies at 94

The cause was congestive heart failure, said his son, Charles Beggs.|
<SPAN>MATT SCHUDEL</SPAN>
THE WASHINGTON POST

James Beggs, who had a key role as NASA's administrator in the 1980s in promoting the space shuttle program, then resigned soon after the 1986 Challenger disaster that left seven astronauts dead, died April 23 at his home in Bethesda, Maryland. He was 94.

The cause was congestive heart failure, said his son, Charles Beggs.

Beggs was a onetime Navy officer who worked in the aerospace industry and held top jobs at NASA in the 1960s and later in the Transportation Department. He was named NASA administrator - the space agency's top position - in 1981.

At that time, NASA's glory days of manned space flight and heroic missions to the moon were a decade in the past, and budget cuts had reduced the agency's scope and morale. Beggs sought to restore NASA's luster through scientific expeditions, strengthened ties to the military and a new space station - which White House budget cutters dismissed as a "motel in the sky for astronauts."

Beggs secured additional funding for NASA and proved to be a popular and charismatic figure, given to spontaneously quoting lines from Shakespeare. He was skilled at dealing with lawmakers on Capitol Hill and helped rebuild the country's space program. He foresaw a time when a squadron of space shuttles would be conducting scientific research and launching secret military satellites in space.

"There is no telling where our vision and imagination will lead us once we have the space station," he said in 1985. "As Shakespeare put it, 'Thoughts are but dreams till their effects be tried.' "

He stepped up the space shuttle program, with more than 20 successful missions during his tenure, and was instrumental in establishing programs to send members of Congress and teachers into space. By 1985, NASA had 20,000 employees and an annual budget of almost $8 billion.

It was a constant battle, Beggs said, to win support from President Ronald Reagan, who had little interest in the space program.

"He was almost technically ignorant," Beggs told journalist Joseph Trento for his 1987 book "Prescription for Disaster," about NASA and the Challenger. "Not quite, but almost. He grasps a few of the broader concepts, but when you start talking in any kind of detail about the broader aspects of the program, his eyes glaze over."

Beggs' tenure at NASA was overshadowed by two events that took place in rapid succession. In December 1985, he was indicted by federal prosecutors in Los Angeles for defrauding the Army of millions of dollars when he had worked at General Dynamics, a major defense contractor. He and three other company executives were charged with illegally billing the government for millions of dollars in cost overruns during the development of a prototype of an antiaircraft gun.

Beggs took a leave of absence from NASA while strenuously disputing the accusations.

"There is nothing that I did in the case involved that I would not do again if I had to do it over again," he said in a speech to his staff, who gave him a standing ovation. "We acted in an entirely ethical, legal and moral sense. The charges are therefore baseless, they are outrageous, ridiculous, and I feel confident that once this is brought to trial that I'll be completely exonerated of the charges."

Every top official at NASA signed letters sent to Congress and the White House, calling Beggs "an individual with the highest standards of integrity which have earned him the esteem and respect of his colleagues."

He was still officially the NASA administrator the following month, when the Challenger space shuttle broke apart 73 seconds after liftoff, on Jan. 28, 1986. All seven members of the flight crew, including New Hampshire schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe, were killed.

Soon afterward, as congressional committees and oversight panels began to search for answers, Beggs resigned. With his career in tatters, he fought a legal battle with federal prosecutors for more than a year.

In June 1987, all charges against Beggs and the three other General Dynamics executives were dropped. A Justice Department review found that no laws had been violated, and Attorney General Edwin Meese III took the unusual step of sending a letter to Beggs, apologizing for the prosecution.

"I wish to offer you a profound apology on behalf of the federal government and the Department of Justice," Meese wrote, saying the indictment was based on "an inaccurate understanding and assessment of the underlying facts."

"Your fellow citizens," Meese continued, "should now be more aware than ever that your character is untarnished and your behavior unblemished."

Two years later, a federal judge ordered more than a dozen government agencies to destroy all records related to Beggs' indictment, giving him a full exoneration.

James Montgomery Beggs was born Jan. 9, 1926, in Pittsburgh and grew up in San Antonio. His father was in the insurance business, his mother a homemaker.

After a year at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Beggs entered the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, graduating in 1947 as part of an accelerated program. He served in the Navy until 1954. A year later, he received an MBA from Harvard University.

He worked for Westinghouse in Baltimore until 1968, when he became NASA's chief of research in Washington. He was a top official at the Transportation Department from 1969 to 1973, then joined a company owned by reclusive mogul Howard Hughes.

(In a 2002 oral history interview with NASA, Beggs said Hughes had no passport because he refused to have his photograph taken. When he needed to visit foreign countries, he dispensed out huge bribes to be allowed to enter - all to avoid sitting in front of a camera.)

In 1974, Beggs became an executive vice president of General Dynamics in southern California, managing defense and aerospace projects.

After his legal problems were resolved, he worked for various aeronautical companies, severed on corporate boards and worked as a consultant well into his 80s. He was also a devoted amateur student of minerals and gems.

His wife of 62 years, Mary Harrison Beggs, a former director and chairwoman of the Wolf Trap Foundation, died in 2015. A daughter, Kathleen Beggs, died in 2012. Survivors include four children, Maureen Fox and Terri Luechtefeld, both of Bethesda, James Beggs of Vienna, Virginia, and Charles Beggs of Arlington, Virginia; and 10 grandchildren.

In 1983, when Beggs was NASA administrator, Sally Ride became America's first female astronaut to go to space when she flew on an early mission of the Challenger space shuttle. Her parents lived in the California congressional district of Rep. Tom Hayden, a Democrat, who was married at the time to actress Jane Fonda. NASA invited Hayden and Fonda to witness the launch of the shuttle in Florida.

"And of course, as you would expect, the press swarmed around Fonda like bees do around honey," Beggs told Trento for "Prescription for Disaster."

The next day, Beggs received a call from an incensed Michael Deaver, one of Reagan's top White House aides. "What . . . was Jane Fonda doing there?" he said Deaver asked. "Nancy Reagan is mad, and I am mad, and everybody is mad."

Beggs was told to fire the NASA public relations official who had invited Hayden and Fonda.

"Mary and I were invited to the White House several times before the Fonda incident," Beggs added, "and never afterward."

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