[280] Thursday, December 1: Only 50 more days in Washington! I was up early and down to the White House for a meeting with the National Security Council. George Kistiakowsky was presenting a paper on international science. The president agreed that we should make greater efforts to develop cooperative programs throughout the scientific area with scientists of other nations. Staff meeting was delayed this morning because of my attendance at the National Security Council. We had a good meeting, talking over the various facets of the communications satellite program, the congressional picture, the present difficulties caused by the trade press as it attempts to drive a wedge between the Department of Defense and ourselves. This was a good meeting and one has to have pride in the type of staff we now have working with us. Trevor Gardner [a former assistant secretary of the Air Force for research and development] is chairing a committee for General Schriever in an attempt to define the space program of the Air Force. He called me to ask that we assign a man to be party to a study group that is struggling with this problem. The group is to be located at Los Alamos for the next two months. After taking advice from members of my staff, I think that [Addison] Rothrock is the proper man to send. He is the senior man of the organization and well grounded in all our activities.
At 12:30, I went over to the National Press Club with Arnold Frutkin to hear Henry Wriston [president emeritus of Brown University] and Frank Pace talk about the report of the President's Commission on National Goals [of which Wriston had been the chairman and Pace the vice chairman]. Wriston was absolutely marvelous - he far outshone Pace. There is not very much glamour in the report, but I think it is a solid piece of work - at least as described by Henry Wriston. The Russians launched another space zoo early this morning. Apparently they got it into orbit all right, but they are not as yet talking about bringing it back. Two dogs, several other animals and bits of plant and biological specimens are aboard. The announcement was greeted in an almost routine fashion by the press.1
We have been having trouble with John McCone again. I cannot seem to get him into the same office with me to talk about our budgets for the Rover project. He is so damned busy doing other things that this one particular project gets scant attention. I fear that we will get caught in a budgetary snarl again as we did last year. [281] At 4:00 o'clock John Johson and Bob Nunn came in to talk about the visit we are making next week to New York to talk with the AT&T people. For an hour and a half we discussed the various facets of the communications satellite program, industry participation, patent problems, etc. I think we will be in reasonable shape for the discussions in New York. Ruth and I went out to Andrews Air Force Base to have dinner with General and Mrs. Schriever. It was a pleasant occasion with the men getting together to debate various problems in the space business. Except for George Kistiakowsky, all the rest were military people. They are sharp and able and they stay on the job - something civilians don't do. Back home at 11:30, seemingly none the worse for wear.
Friday, December 2: We worked together on the budgetary presentation and then Bob Seamans and I talked with Stans at 10:45. We had brought our budget down within $19 million of the figure desired by Stans. He kept pressing for his figure and I agreed to look at it again. Our total budget will be somewhat in excess of $1.15 billion, so it seems strange that $19 million would loom so large in these discussions. Later in the day, I talked with Jerry Persons about this problem. He will take up the cudgels for us if I want him to but I have decided that I'll fight it out myself. I did - and lost. I may have another go at it in an attempt to retrieve $10 million on Monday next. At 2 o'clock Charlie Spahr of Standard Oil of Ohio came in to seek advice about a merger problem that will involve the Justice Department. John Johnson helped with this discussion.
Saturday, December 3: This was just another day of work at home. All meals were taken rather casually and at odd hours. I am not sure how much I accomplished but at least I spent a good bit of time trying.
Sunday, December 4: Another day at home, and I managed to get some work done in preparation for two speeches next week and for the visit with the AT&T people on Wednesday morning. For dinner, the Frutkins, the Courtland Perkins and George Kistiakowsky came in.2 The dinner was very pleasant. There was good and lively discussion about a variety of matters - mostly centering around the change in administration.
During the course of this week, Mr. Kennedy has announced several appointments. The first one - Governor [G. Mennen] Williams of Michigan as assistant secretary of state for African affairs - drew mixed comment. It is a strange appointment to make as the first selection and coming as it does, in advance of the appointment of the new secretary of state, can only be taken as a desire to show the importance placed by Mr. Kennedy on relationships with the new African nations or as a means of getting rid of G. Mennen Williams early in the game. Governor [Abraham A.] Ribicoff of Connecticut was appointed secretary of health, education and welfare, and this was well received. David Bell, a Harvard economics professor, was appointed director of the Bureau of the Budget and again, this action [282] was applauded. Yesterday, Kennedy appointed Governor [Luther] Hodges of North Carolina as secretary of commerce. It appears that Kennedy is working up to the tough ones - I hope all of his appointments are received as well as these have been.
As for myself, I still find the state of suspended animation a little difficult to cope with. We are attempting to put together the material that will be useful to a new administrator, but it would be much easier if we could do this having some notion of the person who will get the job. Actually, the entire Washington scene is confusing and seems to be running without too much sense of direction. I guess this is as it must be under our scheme of operation. Ruth's dinner was a masterpiece and she won many well deserved compliments. Off to bed at 11:30, just a bit worn out.
Monday, December 5: This was another tough day. I believe I stated that I had capitulated last Friday to Maury Stans of the Budget Bureau with respect to our FY 1962 budget. He had beaten me down to the point where I was a little bit uncertain about going in to see the president and I agreed, therefore, to accept a final cut of about $20 million. I had second thoughts about the matter and tried to get Stans on Saturday without luck. He called me at 8:45 this morning and I told him that I was most certain that I had been unwise and asked that he review the matter and let me have $10 million back. He expressed himself as distressed but said that he would look into it. I immediately called his assistant and gave him the story and believe that there is a reasonable chance of success in this gambit. At 9 o'clock, Dr. Howard Engstrom of Remington Rand came in to ask whether or not his company could put two men at the Marshall Space Flight Center to work in the computing center there without salary for a period of one year. This was a most unusual offer. Naturally, if we were to accept this sort of an offer from one organization, we would have to do the same for others. The purpose is a straightforward one - Remington Rand wants to know what kind of activities we engage in, which would make it a better competitor for our computing business. I will take this matter under advisement.
I got a start on the preparation of a long paper for the man who will follow me whoever he may be. I didn't get too far before I was interrupted. Hugh Dryden is back from his trip to South America and we had a little time together to review the events of the past week, particularly the budgetary problems.3 At 11:30 I went to the White House where I joined a large group in the cabinet room for a presentation of the Collier's Award by the president to the Air Force, Space Technology Laboratories, and Convair. The award was presented this year in recognition of the activities of these three participants in the development of the Atlas intercontinental-ballistic missile. Fred Crawford [chair of the executive committee of Thompson-Ramo-Wooldridge, Inc. of which Space Technology Laboratories was a component] was on hand and I joined him at lunch as he told me [283] something about his visit in Minneapolis a week ago. There can be no question about his interest in and loyalty to Case [whose board of trustees he also chaired]. What a guy!
During the cocktail hour preceding lunch, [Lieutenant General] Roscoe Wilson, deputy chief of staff of the Air Force for research and development, asked me my purpose in seeing the heads of the Air Force tomorrow morning. Apparently, word had gotten around that I was going to complain about something. I told him that I was complaining about nothing but that I was interested in knowing whether or not the top men in the Air Force were concerned about the articles being printed in some newspapers and in many of the trade magazines these days indicating a rift between NASA and the Air Force. I want to be as certain as I can that our appearances before Congress this year are shoulder-to-shoulder with no possibility of congressional wedges being forced between us. Later in the day, General Wilson called to say that General White would be happy to discuss these matters with me. Further, he sent word that he hoped I was going to stay on as head of NASA. If this was not to be the case, General White stated that this was the only job in government that he desired for himself. Since he had hinted at this before in discussions with me, it was interesting now to get confirmation in such a straightforward manner.
Back at the office at 2:00 to meet Wayne Barrett of Midland, Michigan, who was asking me, in a very left-handed way, to speak to a group in Midland next spring. He was so earnest it was very difficult to refuse him and I have indicated that I will study the matter if he will make the date late enough in the spring. I might be able to combine it with a trip to the Dow Chemical Company. At 4:00 o'clock, the senior vice president of Westinghouse, E. V. Huggins, came in to seek information about the reasons for its being excluded from the airborne part of the orbiting astronomical observatory. Apparently someone has taken my name in vain in this matter. Since Westinghouse was a partner with Grumman in this proposal, I was at a loss to understand the situation. Later, it developed that the Goddard people had made a shift in the negotiations without securing agreement for doing so from headquarters. This will be looked into further, you may bet. I have no particular interest in Westinghouse but I cannot stand idly by and see a company treated in this manner.4
At 4:30, Dryden, Hagen, Johnson, and Frutkin came in to talk about the proposed space conference and exhibition to be held in Geneva at some point in the future if the Russians can ever make up their minds to behave like human beings. The question before us was, "Shall we attempt to go ahead with this conference even though the Russians do not indicate that they will participate?" After some discussion, my decision was yes! In 1955 they refused to go along with the Atomic Energy Conference held in Geneva but finally came in and participated in a very [284] acceptable manner. Later, meeting with Abe Silverstein and Seamans, we took another look at the budget picture, especially with respect to communications satellites. It appears that we are going to need more money even than has been set aside thus far. The most recent cut I accepted from Stans is not going to help in this matter and I must now get that money back.
Tuesday, December 6: This should be an interesting day. I will have plenty of activity both in Washington and in New York. At 8:45, Hugh Dryden, Bob Seamans, and I visited Secretary of the Air Force Dudley Sharp, General White and Joe Charyk. My purpose was to try to find out whether or not there was anything seriously wrong between NASA and the Air Force. The publication of stories of strife, vying for position, stealing each other's projects, etc. have been very frequent these last two or three weeks. It was a pleasant discussion with much agreement on both sides. Certainly at the top of our organizations there is no real difference or need for concern. I am sure, however, at the "colonel" level, there is a good deal of envy and flexing of elbows. We came away feeling that the visit was worthwhile. At 11:45, I took off for New York and was able to keep my appointment with Paul Ylvisaker of the Ford Foundation at 2:15. It was a lovely day and I walked down from the Westbury Hotel to the Ford Foundation offices. This was an interesting discussion - my opinion was requested on the desirability of providing to Cleveland through some mechanism or other an amount equivalent to $250,000 per year for each of ten years for use in civic development. It was obvious that the foundation was thinking about Case as a center for this activity. It sounds like an interesting idea - one must be careful that it is not just a simple way of buying out of a situation at less than the cost that might otherwise be incurred. I promised to think about it further. Certainly, the Ford Foundation has a difficult situation in Cleveland where so many different agencies want money from it.
At 5 o'clock, I walked on down to the Carnegie Corporation where Jim Perkins and John Gardner [the president of Carnegie Corporation] were waiting for me. We had about fifteen minutes of discussion about my interest in the Latin American scene. I hope I am not getting in over my head in this matter. Certainly, John and Jim are very much interested in my taking a part in the educational activities in Latin America and it is clear that some arrangement could be worked out that would make it an interesting and useful task as well as possible of accomplishment within the scope of my activities at Case. In any event, I will get a chance to look at the problems this spring and summer, and we can talk it over later in the fall when a decision as to the future must be made. All of this, of course, contemplates working in such a program in consonance with my work at Case.
At the Coffee House discussion group I talked to 18 of the 20 members - the largest attendance they have had in several years. It was an interesting group of lawyers, writers, professors, business and professional men. Among the group were the following: Jim Perkins of the Carnegie Corporation; Harlan Cleveland of Syracuse University; Don Price of Harvard University; Chuck Dollard, formerly president of the Carnegie Corporation; and Jack Fisher, editor of Harpers. The [285] entire group apparently gets together whenever an interesting evening is in prospect. After a drink or two, we had a very excellent dinner and then I held forth on the space program. I described very briefly what we were doing and then raised four or five questions for discussion. We talked about manned space flight, international cooperation, communications satellites, etc. It was a really good evening, and I think the participants were pleased to have been involved. After a beer at the Century Club, we took a taxi to the Westbury where I spent the night.
Wednesday, December 7: Up at 6:30 for breakfast with Bob Nunn and off by taxi to 195 Broadway for a meeting with [Fred] Kappel, president of AT&T. Included in the meeting were Johnny Johnson of our office in Washington and Paul Gorman, George Best, and Jim Fisk of AT&T and Bell Laboratories. It was quite a meeting - we went over each point many times. We are trying to convince AT&T that it is not in the company's best interests to appear as a very large organization attempting to monopolize the communications satellite field. Actually, I think the whole deal will fall in its lap in time, anyway. I believe we made some headway. I suggested that AT&T might well provide the ground stations, both in this country and in Europe, at no cost to the government. This would parallel what the firm had done in Project Echo. We could pay a small sum for carrying out particular experiments for us. Having the ground terminals would mean that it had to have knowledge of the satellite circuitry and would be intimately identified with the whole project. After three hours I believe we convinced the four executives of some of our points of view and then we left for Washington. I expect we will get a letter in another day or two from Kappel.
Our plane was somewhat late so I missed a presentation by a scientist from the University of California. We did have a meeting with Dryden, Newell, Silverstein and Jastrow about the desirability of moving our theoretical group to a college campus. Jastrow feels that he can no longer attract really good people to Washington. The graduate programs in this area are just not of the caliber to make the community a lively one. Harry Goett, Jastrow's boss, is very unhappy about the prospect of having the theoretical group move away from Washington. My own feeling is that the lack of good graduate students is a really important matter to a group of this kind. We agreed to take it under advisement and to make a decision later in the week.5
I left immediately after this meeting to pick up Ruth and to dress for dinner. We stopped in at a party given by [Edward] Perkins McGuire, assistant secretary of defense for supplies and logistics, at the Sulgrave Club. Everybody in town was there. I moved on to the Mayflower for the dinner of the business advisory council of the Department of Commerce. Ruth went on home. This is really a wonderful [286] group of businessmen throughout the country who come together at intervals to advise the secretary of commerce and to learn something of his problems. For some reason, I was seated at a table with the president and had a chance to ask him about his visit with Kennedy and whether or not it included any concern for the space agency. Mr. Eisenhower said, "Kennedy was polite, interested and attractive and attentive. He is a sharp young man, but I found no way of learning exactly what he was thinking."
The president spoke to the group after dinner - a quiet little discussion of the importance of integrity and belief in the basic premises on which this country was founded. He said that he was not going to be a male Mrs. Roosevelt and write a column after he had left the White House. Most of the table conversation was concerned with the favorite Washington game these days - guessing about cabinet appointments and the plans of Mr. Kennedy. Never have I seen a business machine - a great organization - operating in such a vacuum. The best description is that we are in a state of "suspended animation."
Thursday, December 8: We had a staff meeting, which was not particularly exciting. Then Ben McKelway, editor of the Washington Evening Star, and [James] Russell Wiggins, editor of the Washington Post, came in to counsel with us about our public information problems. I have been concerned about the possibility - really, the probability - that the papers would make a circus of our Project Mercury as we approach the time when a man will enter the capsule to undertake a flight. Both men were quite responsive to our questions; they thought that we had been remiss in not providing to the working press interpretive materials. They thought it well for us to bring together the president of the science writers association and the science writers for the UPI and the Associated Press. It was a useful session and I think we will take their advice.
Fred Robinson, a classmate of mine whom I did not know at college, now president of the National Aviation Corporation, came in to ask me to be a director of his organization. This is quite impossible but it is always flattering to be asked. At 11 o'clock I went over to the Commerce Department to speak to the business advisory council. I gave it a run-down on our operation and answered questions. I believe it was a useful discussion. When asked, "What can the business advisory council do to help NASA?" I answered, "Just stop trying to drive a wedge between the Defense Department and NASA. We have developed effective means of cooperation and coordination. Industry ought to keep out of the act." I then attended the business advisory council luncheon at the Willard Hotel where Henry Wriston spoke. He is a wonderful person and a very able historian. It will be remembered that he is chairman of the President's Committee on National Goals.
At 2:15, we had a meeting on communications satellites with a variety of people including Abe Silverstein. Abe believes that private industry should not have a free hand in the communications satellite business. It is interesting to see the extent to which those people who have spent all of their life in government are negative in their attitude toward industry. I finally had to tell Abe that I was delighted to have his technical judgments but that he would have to leave some of the policy matters to me. I was a little bit tired today, came home rather early and went immediately to bed.
[287] Friday, December 9: At 8:30 I met with Bob Nunn and Hugh Dryden to talk over certain aspects of the communications satellite business. Believe me, this is an involved affair. If we are successful, we will have made history. Bob Bell came in at 10 o'clock to talk about a[nother individual's] psychiatric problem involving possible perversion. We are never free of these situations. One can only have pity for a person thus afflicted. I have decided, in this case, to refrain from taking any action in the belief that the incident happened so long ago as to give reasonable indication that the man has his problem under control. A visit with Undersecretary Jim Douglas of the Department of Defense was a most useful one. I have been very much concerned about the very apparent campaign of the Air Force to stake out its claim to a larger share of the space business. Really, I think it is fighting the battle within the Pentagon more than with us but we do not escape "fringe benefits" from an action of this kind. Jim Douglas saw the point and decided that he would take action with General White.
At 1:30, several of us got together to talk over the complaint of Westinghouse that it has been dealt with unfairly in connection with its bid on the orbiting astronomical observatory. It was teamed with Grumman. It seems that the Westinghouse portion of the proposal was less than satisfactory and Grumman decided not to continue with the firm on a substantial fraction of the job. Our people seemed to have been completely in the clear although they did not keep the head office informed of the actions they were taking. I will support their position without question.
At 2:30, over to the White House to meet with General Persons. He is very much interested in the communications satellite business and wants to have the president announce his support of ownership and operation by a private organization - probably the telephone company. A discussion of our budget followed and I indicated that $10 million between Mr. Stans and myself was taking us to the president for a decision. Jerry said he thought he could handle this himself. By the time I had reached my office, Stans had called and asked me to get in touch with him. He said that he had been talking with Jerry Persons and that he felt that the $10 million was not worth stirring up any controversy. Our budget was approved! Thus do things get done in Washington. I went home shortly thereafter to dress and pick up Ruth for the reception we are giving tonight for the resident research associates who have come to us from other countries for training. There are nine of them. The reception was a pleasant one.
I took Ruth to Jack Hunt's for dinner and then we went on to the Lisner auditorium to hear C. P. Snow and his wife read from their respective writings.6 Naturally, I fell asleep. Somehow or other, I have never been able to stay awake [288] when anyone reads to me. Following the program, we dropped in at Bill Bundy's to meet Snow and his wife. He seems a pleasant person although it is almost impossible to get much of an impression in a throng such as that present on an occasion of this kind.
Saturday, December 10: Not much happened today. I had lunch with Dr. Mann of the National Bureau of Standards, an old friend from England. I was to see General Schriever at 4:30 in the afternoon but he found he could not make it. All in all, a quiet day!
Sunday, December 11: This morning it started to snow. I called General Schriever at 9 o'clock to suggest that he not come in from Andrews Field because of the snow. He said he would call me back in an hour when he had had a chance to survey the situation. He did just this. The upshot - we talked over the telephone for a half an hour. I gave him a full story on my concern about the actions being indulged in by the Air Force. He protested that this was all very innocent. Finally, we agreed that we would get together a week from now when he returns from the west coast. I think I have all of these people concerned about what action I may take next. It continued to snow all day. We were going out to dinner with the Seamans and stopped in at the Richmonds on the way for cocktails. Fortunately, they live only three blocks apart so we were able to park our car in the Richmonds' garage and thus avoid being snowed in. Already, six inches have fallen and the city is pretty well tied up. Schools will be closed tomorrow and persons driving in Washington are subject to arrest if they block traffic and are found to have neither chains nor snow tires. It was a pleasant evening - we are really very lucky to have the Seamans with us.
Monday, December 12: I got in on time to find that the government offices had all been closed for the day. Just a few of our people came in, so we managed to accomplish quite a little bit. I was to have flown to Williamsburg to speak to a training conference we are starting at that location today.7 Because of the snow, the airport was closed down for most of the morning. We finally took off about 3:30 in the afternoon and I managed to give my talk after dinner. I arrived back in Washington about midnight. Quite a heavy day!
Tuesday, December 13: We had an excellent presentation on the orbiting geophysical laboratory by members of the Goddard Space Flight Center staff. This is a very sophisticated satellite, interesting in concept and well presented. It looks as though Thompson-Ramo-Wooldridge would win the competition.8 Over to the [289] Pentagon at 12 o'clock to attend a presentation of an award to Dick Morse by Secretary Brucker. The latter can certainly lay it on thick! Back to the Metropolitan Club for lunch with Admiral Strauss. We had a pleasant time - I think Lewis is mellowing a bit. We discussed a good many elements of the political scene and wondered, in concert, about some of the appointments yet to be made. At 3:00, we had a discussion of the NASA-AEC contract. It does seem as though we should be able to work in closer harmony than apparently is the case. I am not quite sure that we are without fault but I am sure that the AEC is a loosely run operation these days. Home to help Ruth a bit - she is really busy these days getting ready for Christmas.
Wednesday, December 14: This morning I gave a talk at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces at Ft. McNair. It went quite well; the questions were interesting and I think the audience genuinely appreciative of the story I gave them. Not much of importance happened today. Lunch with John Rubel [deputy director of defense research and engineering] was without incident or importance, and a briefing by the Defense Department on the very large radio astronomy antennae being built in West Virginia and in Puerto Rico was interesting but without too much point for us, I am afraid. Later in the afternoon, we talked over some of the problems faced by Abe Hyatt as he takes on the job of directing our office of program planning and evaluation. I think he is going to do a very much better job than did Homer Joe Stewart. At least, his approach is very different and one I can understand better than I did Stewart's operations. Home to help Ruth pack up and get the station wagon loaded for an early takeoff tomorrow. A call to the automobile club indicates that the roads ought to be reasonably clear although one may expect ice in places in the early morning. We managed to get things pretty well put away and I hope Ruth's trip [to Cleveland] tomorrow will not be too difficult.
Thursday, December 15: I started out about 6:30 this morning to get Ruth finally underway. This is going to be a long day. Down to the White House at 7:30 for breakfast with General Persons and General Goodpaster to discuss the communications satellite problem again. We talked over the cabinet paper I am to give next week. Hopefully, we will get this one under the wire before I leave for the West Coast on the 20th. Back to the office at 8:30 for a staff meeting, which was neither important nor very long this morning. At 10:50 we met in the office of the postmaster general to take part in the ceremony placing the Echo commemorative stamp on sale for the first time. It was quite an impressive show and each of us taking part was given an album containing fifty stamps autographed by the postmaster general. This is somewhat of a triumph for me - I have tried to get a commemorative stamp issued several times and have finally made it. Also, I contributed the slogan on the stamp, "Communications for Peace." There are some satisfactions in this job, after all.
I had lunch with Admiral Bennett today. He is still worrying about his future. He retires on 1 January and seems to be unable to make up his mind about any of the jobs that are being offered to him. I advised him to take one with the [290] United Aircraft and get it over with. Otherwise, I will bet that the Navy will convince him that he ought to stay on board. The afternoon was pretty well given over to further discussions of the communications satellite business. Three gentlemen came in from the French telephone organization to talk to us about participating in experiments in the satellite communications field. At 2:30, Jim Fisk of Bell Labs and George Best of the [American] telephone company came in to debate further with us the program they want to undertake. Earlier in the day I had received a letter from Fred Kappel setting forth a rather good program that AT&T wanted to undertake. It continues to want to be the first in the field and the only one in the field. We continue to believe that this is unwise and we must have some sort of competition so that there can be no attack by Congress on the basis of monopoly operations. I believe that we made some progress in this discussion. I pointed out there were only 35 days left and that I doubted the next administration would be quite as concerned with the support of individual and private enterprise as is the present one. At 4 o'clock, Dryden, Seamans, Thompson and Silverstein came together to talk over the public information problems with Mercury. We have decided to follow the advice given us by Messrs. Wiggins and McKelway and will do a good bit more interpretive writing that will be released for the press one to two weeks in advance of a firing. At least, we are going to try it this way.
Friday, December 16: At 8:30, Bob Nunn came in for another session on the cabinet paper on communications satellites. I believe we will get this satisfactorily underway yet. At 9 o'clock, we listened to a presentation by the Huntsville people of a study program involving the expenditure of $3 million. We were convinced and the expenditure has been approved. A little later in the morning, Clark Randt came in to discuss some of his problems in working with the military in the life sciences field. He had prepared an excellent presentation, and we were able to give him some useful advice. At 10:45, Col. Glosser came in from Andrews Field to answer our questions about the plans of the Air Force for development of passive communications satellites. He stated emphatically that the Air Force had study programs going - no hardware. He apologized for a paper given at the American Rocket Society last week saying that it had gotten through the net without proper screening. I read to him that portion of the cabinet paper defining the responsibilities of the Air Force, the Department of Defense and NASA. He said the Air Force agreed completely with what I had written. As I have said before, I think we have the animals stirred up.
At 12:15, I had lunch with Clay Blair of the Saturday Evening Post. I was proposing an article, descriptive in nature, that would set before the public the NASA program in its proper perspective. No one has really told the story of the difficulties of performing research and development under the bright lights of public interest. I think this could be a useful article and was glad to have Blair's agreement. I also talked to him about the possibility of doing an article on Case - at least on engineering education built around the program we are developing at Case. He promised to take a look at this and said that he felt that it could be a useful story.
Later in the afternoon, I talked with Elmer Staats at the Budget Bureau and with Secretary Douglas at the Defense Department about the cabinet paper on communications satellites. I secured their approval so that we ought to be able to [291] go through the meeting now set for Tuesday without too much argument. Back home to a quiet house and a dull evening. Lots of work to do but without Ruth here it doesn't seem to get done very well. She, incidentally, had a fairly good trip to Cleveland yesterday.
Saturday, December 17: I spent almost all of the day working at home. Most of it was taken up with writing my Christmas letters. I then went to the vice president's for a reception - a very pleasant affair. I had a chance to talk with Dick Nixon for a few moments and he asked me to come see him after my return from the West Coast. I think I will do this. I then moved on to the Wright Memorial Dinner, which was a badly managed affair. Fred Crawford was given the Wright Memorial Trophy and gave a fine acceptance speech except that he was unable to get on his feet until 11 o'clock. The toastmaster - Walt Bonney, late of NASA - became enamored of his own words and simply would not bring the program to a close. What an evening!
Sunday, December 18: Early this morning as I returned from the dinner, I called Ruth to find that Kitty and Frank had flown to Los Angeles without incident. Today is the day on which Ruth and Sally fly out. I have insisted that Ruth call me when she arrives there. I will now record that this happened about 2 o'clock on Monday morning. I spent the entire day writing Christmas letters and then went over to George Kistiakowsky's for cocktails with the members of the President's Science Advisory Board. This is a real powerhouse of scientists and I was glad to see many of them again. Jim Fisk was there and we had dinner together. Once again, I think I made a little progress with him in bringing him around to our point of view on some of these sticky problems. It is amazing how much time it takes to get a job of this sort done.
Monday, December 19: A meeting with the president at 10:30 gave me an opportunity to introduce Bob Seamans to him. We presented him with the cabinet paper and I discussed it in some detail. He stated his unequivocal belief in private enterprise and discussed the paper rather thoroughly so that we could be able to answer any questions tomorrow in cabinet meeting. I asked the president about my resignation. I told him that I was going to leave on 20 January and he indicated that I should then send my resignation to him to be effective on that day. We returned to the office just in time to make it to the control room as the Redstone-Mercury lifted off the pad at Cape Canaveral. This was a real thrilling bit of business. Everything went exactly on schedule; the capsule was picked up out of the water and deposited on the deck of the carrier, the Valley Forge, 48 minutes after lift-off. I called the president and gave him the good news. He seemed quite excited about it.
The balance of the day was rather dull after that excitement except for the fact that I left the office early to pick up Polly at the station. We had a good visit and then went on to Jack Hunt's for a lobster dinner. The gal really seems to like them. Back home to do the washing, write a few more Christmas letters, pack and get ready for the trip tomorrow. It is now 11:45 p.m. and I must be up at 6:30.9 Goodnight!
[292] Tuesday, December 20: This was to be quite a day. Meetings with the cabinet and the National Security Council were scheduled. At each of these, Dryden and I were to present papers and discuss elements of our program. At 8:15, Doug Lord of Kistiakowsky's office came over to meet with Dryden and myself in an attempt to reconcile some of the figures to be used by Kistiakowsky in the National Security Council meeting this afternoon. We were able to accomplish this reasonably well. At 9 o'clock, we met with the cabinet and the president to discuss the communications satellite program. I had been working very hard for a month in an attempt to develop a statement of public policy that could be enunciated by the president before he leaves office. Naturally, I wanted this statement to reflect my conviction - I am sure it is the president's as well, as demonstrated in our meeting yesterday - that private enterprise should undertake the ultimate development and operation of any non-military communications satellite system. The presentation went off without difficulty. Secretary Herter asked that the interests of the State Department in foreign negotiations be more clearly stated. Secretary Gates of the Defense Department expressed approval of the total program but wanted the Defense Department to be kept fully informed on negotiations, program, etc. The president expressed his firm conviction about the importance of avoiding governmental development and operation of the system, and we finally won from him an approval for the policy statement as included in the cabinet paper. I consider this to be a significant step forward.
At lunch with Seamans and Ostrander we reviewed the bidding on organizational changes that may take Colonel Heaton from Seamans' staff to Ostrander's operation. This seems a sensible move and it is to be accomplished by 15 January.10 At 2:30, we met with the National Security Council. I presented our budget and 10-year plan as revised while Hugh described in more detail the activities to be undertaken under the 1962 budget, which is now set at $1.16 billion approximately. Of that amount, $50 million will be requested in a supplemental for the current fiscal year. After we had completed our story showing the NASA budget increasing to more than $2.5 billion annually by the end of the decade, Kistiakowsky talked about the manned space flight program beyond Project Mercury. Most of his information had been derived from presentations given by our people to a committee of the President's Science Advisory Committee. The total dollars estimated to be required for landing a man on the moon and returning him to earth are really quite staggering. One can support a figure anywhere from $10 billion to $35 billion and even then, not know whether or not he is in the right ballpark. The president was prompt in his response: he couldn't care less whether a man ever reached the moon. There was desultory comment by others in the meeting who were concerned over the increasing cost of space research. I pointed out that our presently planned program did not contemplate the tremendous expenditures mentioned by Kistiakowsky - that some of these decisions must be made by a later administration [293] following more significant results from research now in progress. Finally, I stood up and addressed the president saying that my toughest problem in the face of congressional, public and other pressures - some of them from within the administration - had been to develop a sound program in this area. Facts cannot be changed - this is a difficult, complex and costly business. I stated my belief that we had succeeded in avoiding the clamor for "spectacular accomplishments" that had no basic scientific interest. In some ways, the meeting was discouraging. However, I think that feeling might be considered a natural one under the circumstances.
At 3:30, I started looking for Polly. It turned out that she was to be picked up at 3:30 and thus we started for the airport at 4 o'clock, well endowed with bags and carrying flowers for Ruth's anniversary. We were able to get seats in the tourist section of the plane and, after inquiring of the counter clerk, I bought a couple of miniature Manhattans to be consumed on the plane. We boarded on time and after an appropriate interval, I asked the stewardess for a glass and some ice. She informed me that we could not have a drink in the tourist section. After a slight bit of argument, I gave in. The dinner was very ordinary and Polly seemed rather completely under the weather. There was no particular explanation for this except that I suspect she was worried about the flight. After all, only a few days ago, a jet and a Constellation had come together over Staten Island with the loss of 135 lives. The flight was without incident and we arrived just a little bit ahead of schedule. I noted, as we came in to land, that we were a bit high "over the fence!" We came to a stop on the runway and after a moment the pilot announced, "The reason we are sitting here is that we can't steer this wagon. We lost all of our hydraulic fluid in the last few moments." About thirty minutes later, we arrived at the unloading dock having been hauled in unceremoniously by a tractor.
Ruth, Tom, Kitty, Sally and Martha were there to meet us and it was a really happy reunion. We repaired immediately to the Knox establishment for dessert - some delicious pumpkin pie with ice cream. After a reasonably short interval we drove down the hill to our motel - the Travelodge - and were settled for the night. It was now about 2:30 in the morning, Washington time. What a day!
Wednesday, 21 December-Monday, 2 January 1961: This was the period of the big trek to the West Coast to see the family, get acquainted with Keith III and generally enjoy the company of good friends and relatives. I am not going to attempt to give a day-by-day account of activities. Rather, I will indicate the principal movements of members of the family and say, without hesitation, that it was a really fine holiday for all concerned. One of the first visits we made was to Arcadia where Ruth, Tommy, Martha, the baby and Sally saw Grandmother, Jessie and John. John is still shy and reticent. Mother seemed even more frail but in quite good spirits and certainly in possession of all of her faculties except for her inability to walk.11 She does get around well with the walker, however. This was her first sight of Keith III and immediately, she retired to her bedroom to bring back a picture we had given her many years ago of Tommy when he was about six to eight weeks [294] old. The resemblance between him at that age and the baby was very marked. She gave the picture to Martha.
This day was marred by the fact that Kent Smith called me from Cleveland asking if I would come back on the 30th to appear before the City council on a hearing regarding [university matters]. After some consideration, I decided that I would leave San Francisco on Thursday rather than Saturday and thus have two days in Cleveland for [this and other business]. On Thursday, I took Polly and Sally on a trip up to Santa Barbara. On Friday, Sally and Frank accompanied me to Pomona - I should put it that we took Sally to Pomona. Because our time was short we saw only a little bit of the campus. We rushed back to Los Angeles so that Sally could join the rest of the ladies for lunch at Bullock's. This evening, all the Glennans had dinner at the Sportsman's Tavern and thus ended quite a busy day. On the 24th, we dropped down to Gordon's to visit with Mother and Jessie who had come over to see the family since there didn't seem to be much chance that they would be getting together on Christmas day. Mother had stood the trip quite well, it seemed. This evening - Christmas Eve - we had a pick-up supper that was really quite a feast. Some time after seven o'clock, a good many people came in to visit for a few minutes. Gordon and Cora came as did [others].
After all the guests had left, the stockings were hung on the fireplace and the ladies of the establishment busied themselves with preparing for the next day. During the course of the week, there had been much debate about whether or not Kitty was getting adequate rest. I think she was enjoying the debate although it was obvious that there was some cause for her discomfort. In any event, it was finally decided that she and Frank would stay at the Knox home and would not, as had been suggested, interchange with Sally and Polly at the motel. Oh Christmas day, we got up relatively early and joined the Knox household for the business of opening presents, drinking coffee and eating doughnuts and sweet rolls. It took us until noon to finish the job and I am sure everybody enjoyed it very much indeed. The children had put together stockings for the older folks and we enjoyed this thoughtful act on their parts. There was a good bit of picture taking, and later in the afternoon, Tom, Frank and I walked up to the Griffith Observatory. After a very good turkey dinner, we were quite happy to get back to bed.
On Monday, Kitty and Frank, Polly and Sally, and Ruth and I went to Disneyland. This was quite an experience and I think everybody had a good time. The kids went on all the rides they could crowd into the five hours we were there; then we returned to the house so that we could have dinner and pack for the drive to San Francisco on the morrow. Tom and Martha have been particularly fine throughout this week. We arose quite early and took the family to the Knox home, from which they all took off for Palo Alto about 8 o'clock. Kitty, Martha, Keith III and I took a noon plane, which was a little bit delayed. We arrived in Palo Alto without incident, having been met at the airport by one of the NASA people. We were pleased to find the automobile party already in residence. We ate a good supper [295] consisting of tuna fish and peas at the request of Kitty. We were glad to get away to the motel for a good night's sleep.
On the morning of Wednesday, the 28th, I took Frank and Tommy over to the Ames Research Center, where they were given a good tour of the operation while I talked to Washington several times about the statement requested by the White House covering our activities for the past two years. This statement was to be accompanied by my resignation. I finally approved the documents and signed off.12 In the afternoon, we were driven over the Stanford campus by Tom and then we had a good roast beef dinner at the apartment. The baby was in fine spirits - in fact, he was a model of deportment throughout the entire time of our visit. Tommy took me to the airport on Thursday morning where I left him, the girls and Frank and Kitty, who were going on into San Francisco for some sightseeing. My plane was canceled but I was able to get on to the TWA jet to Chicago. I made a 10-minute transfer to the United Airlines plane to Cleveland and managed to get into that city on time. Taking a taxi home, I was able to catch up on a little reading and get to bed at a fairly early hour.
On Friday, the 30th, I spent the morning on Case [business]. I spent all of the afternoon at the City council hearing but found it unnecessary to make any comments. It was good to see [old friends]. They seemed genuine in their pleasure at the announcement that I was coming back to Cleveland. On Saturday, I spent most of the day on Case business. [Then I met the family at the airport.] They all came in in good spirits and on time. We were able to have a fine New Year's Eve dinner at home. We were in bed before midnight and probably asleep at the witching hour.
1. Referred to as Sputnik VI, this spacecraft burned up on unprogrammed re-entry, 2 December 1960. (Emme, Aeronautics and Astronautics . . . 1915-1960, p. 151.)
2. Courtland Perkins was chairman of the department of aeronautical engineering at Princeton and was at this time serving as assistant secretary of the Air Force for research and development.
3. Dryden was in Argentina 26 November-2 December for a Symposium on Space Research sponsored by the National Commission for Space Research of Argentina. (Appointment Calendar, 1960, Dryden subsection, NASA Historical Reference Collection.)
4. See entry below under 9 December. Despite what is said there, Westinghouse did win one of four subsystem development contracts from Grumman for the ground operating equipment. (NASA Historical Data Book, Vol. II, p. 261.)
5. This is a discussion about the theoretical division of the Goddard Space Flight Center. The result of the concerns Jastrow raised here was the establishment in May 1961 of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City in May 1961. For further details, see Rosenthal, Venture Into Space, pp. 59-60.
6. Both Snow (1905-1980) and his wife, Pamela Hansford Johnson (1912-1981), were novelists. In addition, he was a molecular physicist, university administrator, and, during World War II, scientific advisor to the British government. He is best known for his book, The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution (1959), where he argued that the sciences and the humanities constituted distinct cultures between which communication was difficult. His wife's novels often dealt in a light vein with moral concerns, but The Unspeakable Skipton (1959) was a piece of satire.
7. On this training program, see Rosholt, Administrative History of NASA, pp. 145-146.
8. On 21 December 1960, NASA issued a letter contract to Space Technology Laboratories, a division of Thompson-Ramo-Wooldridge, to do preliminary analytical and design studies for three orbiting geophysical observatories. NASA ultimately contracted with TRW for six such observatories, the first of which was launched on 5 September 1964. Although only partly successful, it did return useful data about the earth's atmosphere and magnetosphere. It and the other five orbiting geophysical observatories, which went into orbit between 1965 and 1969, provided the first really automated orbiting laboratories designed to make a variety of observations; they returned a vast quantity of data on earth-sun relationships. (NASA Historical Data Books, Vol. II, pp. 264-270, and Vol. III, pp. 172-173.)
9. As the entries in the last couple of days for other members of his family would suggest, Glennan was joining the rest of his children, their spouses, and his grandson for Christmas in California.
10. This change did occur. The December 1960 headquarters telephone directory (p. 8) shows Heaton as assistant administrator for resources under Seamans, while the directory for March 1961 (p. 13) shows him as assistant director for vehicles in Ostrander's office of launch vehicle programs. (Both directories in NASA Historical Reference Collection.)
11. She had never fully recovered from a broken hip suffered almost two years previous to this visit.
12. These documents are available to researchers as part of the Glennan subsection of the NASA Historical Reference Collection.