[175] Friday, July 1: We started out with an early morning meeting with Silverstein, Horner and Dryden in an attempt to understand better what the space task group is planning to do with follow-on activities in the Mercury Project. I have some very fixed notions about this. I believe that we ought to relieve the space task group of any real responsibility for the continuation of the project beyond the demonstration of man's capability to fly in a Mercury capsule. We ought to transfer the follow-on operation to the Ames Laboratory on the West Coast. This particular research center does not have as dynamic a program as do the others in NASA. It does have some very good people and I believe that centering the manned space flight activities of NASA at that research center, including the life sciences group, would make a great deal of sense. It will allow breaking with the present pattern of operations and bringing industry more dominantly into the picture. I doubt that this will be easy to sell but it may be necessary to force the issue very soon.1
The boys have been talking about this activity for two days earlier this week at a meeting of the space task group held at Canaveral. It appears that the on-going activity must look nine years ahead for a manned circum-lunar flight in 1969 or 1970. This program would cost at least $2 billion and probably $3 billion. Obviously, to put that sort of price tag on it at the present time is dreaming but I think it's dreaming in the right ballpark. I doubt that anyone would agree to go ahead with the program on that basis. This presents us with the usual dilemma: how much do we believe such a project should be undertaken?
In any event, I had to leave the group in mid-session to go to the White House for a meeting of the cabinet with President Eisenhower. Stans was presenting an "eyes only" paper relating to the need for planning for transition to the next administration. Apparently, this has never been done in a really orderly fashion. Eisenhower did organize a task force after he was elected, so that his cabinet and staff could get off to a running start. Harry Truman helped very little.
Obviously, defense matters, foreign affairs and intelligence matters would take the highest priority in an exercise of this kind. The president has spoken of a "legacy of thought" for his successor. He is, however, very concerned about the manner in which such a transitional operation should be accomplished. I think it might be said that this must be played in a very low key until after the election. If [176] Nixon wins, the problems will be very much less than if the Democratic contender wins the election. Eisenhower did say that the country's interests must be paramount - that everything else must be subordinated to that concept. He wound up the discussion by suggesting that thought be given to this and that plans be made at a later date for implementation of the ideas discussed - probably after the completion of the conventions. He wound up the discussion finally by saying that there is one thing we can do for our country - we can heighten our zeal for frugality during the closing days of the administration. He spoke particularly about identifying people who were more interested in continuity of their job than in pressing forward with sound plans for governmental operations.
It was a sobering session and one that I will remember. Returning to my office, I found John Stack of Langley. He had come up to talk with Horner, Dryden and myself about his future. Stack is an interesting character - almost ready for retirement, outspoken and somewhat lacking in common sense. He is, however, one of the very best men in the aeronautical field and his imprint is to be found on many of the most exciting and productive projects undertaken by NACA. John wants to be associate director of Langley; it is obvious that he shouldn't be even though he has been considered a sort of third man on the totem pole in that organization for many years. Just how we will get out of this one I am not sure, but it points up again the very great importance that must be placed on the handling of personnel in any organization.
A lunch at the Metropolitan Club with John Corson was a rather dismal affair. The McKinsey boys are doing a fairly good job but I am not satisfied that we are getting at the heart of the organizational study; nor that we are getting what we should out of the contracting study. Dealing with consultants is difficult; their dealings with us must be equally difficult for them. I agreed to have Stans, Staats and others of the Budget Bureau meet with the organization advisory committee during the course of its next visit in Washington.
At 2 o'clock, my spirits were lifted by a meeting with Dr. Jastrow. He is an exciting young man who heads our theoretical group. He is going to do an article on "Why Space Research," which I hope we can get into the Atlantic or Harpers. He is also quite excited about the prospect of doing a television panel show at the end of the year that would bring together some of the top scientists of the country who would be talking about the impact of science and scientific discoveries on the economic development of societies. I was so interested that I called Frank Stanton of CBS late in the evening and secured his agreement to "taping" the show regardless of whether or not CBS finally releases it. We ought to have more people who are as exciting as this young man is.
At 2:30, Silverstein, Buckley, Frutkin, Williams and Faber came in to talk about the Zanzibar situation.2 It is apparent that the State Department is in a bind [177] and that the British Foreign Office is concerned about the prospects of real trouble. They even talk about armed intervention on their part if a peaceful situation is to be maintained. Obviously, we want no part of any action of this kind, and I therefore authorized the transfer of equipment to a ship as a standby operation. We will continue to install equipment in Zanzibar on the odd chance that it will be possible for us to operate there after the present trouble dies down.
At 3 o'clock, we went into a budget session with Silverstein and Ostrander. This budgeting is really quite a game. The boys keep changing their plans; I suppose they must do this, but it is very hard to get a fix on the situation at any one time. I told them that they must prepare a budget that would come out at $1 billion and we would defer for another week the determination of action to be taken on the space flight and launch vehicles budgets for 1962.
At 5 o'clock, I went up the Hill to attend a reception being given by the House Space Committee, which had been named committee of the year by the McNaught Syndicate. Lots of activity, whether or not intelligent, seems to be a real criterion in this competition. Once again, it was interesting to see the manner in which the congressmen bask in the light of publicity and public relations men.
Saturday, July 2: Up early to take Sally and her friend Donna to the White House. I went to the office and read until they came by at noon when I took them to the White House mess for lunch. This evening, Laura Silverman is having dinner with the kids and then Ruth, Sally and Donna will join me in a drive to Huntlands at Middleburg, Virginia, where we are going to spend the next two days. Believe me, I am looking forward to it.
Looking back over this past week, I have become increasingly discouraged about the prospect of getting a man to replace Dick Horner. However, the visit with Bob Seamans has interesting implications, and he will visit me in Washington next Wednesday for a full day of discussions with me and other people. He is interested in the job.
The actions of Congress in attempting to get out of town before the conventions have been less than what one might expect from the responsible lawmakers of the country. They have really spent a lot of time in unproductive pursuits this spring and now stand up and blame each other for being out of town, for wasting time, for avoiding coming to grips with the issues, etc. While this is a great democracy that has withstood the tests of time for 150 years, one is struck with the conviction that some new mechanisms must be found in the near future if we are to keep abreast of the rapidly changing economic, political and international scene. I used to say that only a rich nation could afford the confusion and indecision that seem so often to characterize our national operations. I see nothing that would change my mind. What is more important, it seems clear to me that we must find a way to exert leadership as we identify more clearly our own goals. By definition, our present practice of reacting to the Soviet actions must doom us to ultimate failure.
Sunday, July 3: Up at a reasonable hour and off to Huntlands with Ruth, Sally and Donna. It was a beautiful day, not too hot but with plenty of sunshine. [178] Later in the day it became rather humid. Living in air-conditioned comfort with a pleasant and efficient staff, a swimming pool within yards of the house and excellent food at any time of the day, it was a pleasant weekend. Sunday was spent quietly with me attempting to put together my thoughts for the NASA-industry conference to be held late this month. I managed to complete most of it today.
Monday, July 4: Independence Day was spent in quiet splendor with much sunning around the swimming pool. This two-day respite has done me much good. We returned home about 8:00 in the evening.
Tuesday, July 5: We started off the day with a review of the Project Echo film prepared under the supervision of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It turns out to be a pretty good effort with only minor editing changes to be made. They have attempted to anticipate success in the next launching and have thus put the hex on the project team. Tommy Thompson came up from Langley to discuss the management problems he faces there. I hope we were somewhat helpful to him. At 2:30, Siepert and others came in to discuss the effect of the recent congressional pay raise - it was passed over the veto of the president - on NASA's excepted positions. Many of our people have had very substantial increases during the course of the last two years. Now the pay raise forces action upon us that will add anywhere from $500 to $1000 to these same salaries. In many ways, this is a really morally wrong situation, but pressure groups being what they are, we are powerless to resist. For a few, the additional raise is warranted. For most of the group, it is not.
A meeting on the NASA-industry conference took up most of the afternoon. We were listening to the papers as presented by the authors. The boys take these rehearsals very seriously. I have no judgment at the moment as to the value of the conference in the first place and the quality of the presentations themselves.
Wednesday, July 6: Bob Seamans spent this day with us. I had breakfast with him at 8 o'clock and then turned him over to Dick Horner for the balance of the morning. Lunch with Johnny Johnson to discuss some of our operating problems and to tell him about Bob Seamans, who then joined us for lunch. At 2 o'clock Professor A. C. B. Lovell - our guest from the University of Manchester in England and the director of the Jodrell Bank Observatory - came in to pay his respects. It is his station that has been so effective in tracking and communicating with our satellites and particularly with Pioneer V. He seems a pleasant chap and I think is going to enjoy his stay with us. The NASA-industry conference rehearsal took up the balance of the afternoon. At 7:30, Professor Lovell, Admiral Arleigh Burke, Mrs. Burke and George Kistiakowsky came to the apartment for dinner. It was a very pleasant evening with much good conversation. Lovell is an out-spoken character and operates very much as any of the good scientists in that he is seemingly quite apolitical.
Thursday, July 7: An early morning session to greet the fiscal officers and the administrative officers from our field establishment. They look a good lot. The staff meeting had nothing unusual to recommend it this morning. A consensus of opinion as between Dryden, Horner, Johnson and myself leads to the conclusion that [179] we should offer Seamans the job of associate administrator. Actually, I had done this last evening just before Seamans left for Philadelphia. He is to give me an answer on Saturday morning.
At 11 o'clock, Professor Lovell, Lord Hood, chargé d'affaires of the British Embassy, [E. S.] Hiscocks, Dryden and myself visited with the president.3 Lovell and Ike got on very well together. The president showed a great deal of interest in the activities at the Jodrell Bank Observatory and expressed his appreciation for the cooperative program that has been going on between Professor Lovell's installation and the space operating groups here in the United States. Lunch for Professor Lovell was a small affair at Lord Hood's residence. We had caused to be made a rather nice little model of the Pioneer V satellite containing a music box especially made in Switzerland for us. The box played "God Save the King," which served adequately to bind together the two countries since we also use this tune.
[180] At 4 o'clock, we held a press conference with Professor Lovell that went rather well. I left the conference to have a meeting with John Lear, science editor of the Saturday Review. This went well indeed. At 7:30, we had a black tie dinner for Professor Lovell at the Cosmos Club. He spoke briefly about the work of his observatory and we handed to him a beautifully engrossed scroll expressing our appreciation for his help on our problems.
Friday, July 8: This day was devoted entirely to a program review using the mechanism of the new program control center. We went through the meteorological satellite program, Project Mercury, and the Centaur program. There are a good many tough decisions to be made as these programs go forward. I have made a note of the questions that need resolution and hope to be able to get at them next week. We broke off for lunch - Horner and myself - to be with the advisory committee on organization (Kimpton Committee). Director Stans, his assistant Elmer Staats, and our budget examiner, Willis Shapley, were present as well. It was a rather disorganized luncheon but I hope the committee was satisfied with the result of the discussion.
They seem to be getting off on to some side roads but perhaps more mature reflection will bring them back onto the main street. Kimpton continues to worry about our association with the scientific community. I have told him several times that we can repair this disaffection by supporting the individual members of this so-called community in the manner to which they would like to become accustomed. Unfortunately, we don't have enough money for this. At 7:30, Ruth and I went to dinner with the Ostranders at their home. Hugh Dryden, Nick Golovin, the guest of honor, Dick Horner, and wives were present. It was a pleasant evening for all concerned. We have been very fortunate to get General Ostrander assigned to our staff.
Saturday, July 9: The morning was spent in review of more projects. The Saturn development and a further review of Mercury were put together end-to-end. Each of these involves a billion or more dollars. The Mercury Project, if carried to the conclusion the boys have suggested, will cost at least $3 billion. These are decisions a little bit tough to make. And yet, decisions must be made. The "lead time" for any one of these important projects may be as much as from five to seven years. It seems impossible to believe that the nation will be satisfied with accomplishing a Mercury flight and then stop any further attempts to undertake more difficult and longer-duration missions. I suppose that one of my problems is that I am already beginning to feel like a "short-timer." And in this situation, I tend to avoid making decisions that will affect the activities of my successor.
Sunday, July 10: This was to have been a day of rest but the presence of Dr. Lovell in this country suggested the possibility of doing a taped interview for the U.S. Information Agency. Accordingly, I met Dr. Lovell and others at the office at 11:30 and we spent about an hour in a discussion that was put on tape for use by the USIA in its foreign broadcast service. The balance of the day was spent in contemplation and work.
[181] Monday, July 11: This was the morning when I was to take a physical examination at the Naval Medical Center at Bethesda. Actually, I have no need of this physical since I had a rather thorough one in Cleveland over the Christmas holidays last year. However, since we are just setting up this kind of an activity for our senior staff I wanted to see what kind of program was being offered by the armed services. Each of them is taking a number of our top administrative staff people and putting them through its regular routine physical examination as given to the generals and admirals. I was not impressed. Since I am writing this several days after the event took place I can say that my lack of enthusiasm seems to be valid. The report from the doctor states that everything seems to be all right except that one of the blood tests would indicate that I am a bit anemic. He does not rely particularly on this test since the second blood test was not well handled, either. The suggestion is made that I return for a further physical but I will not take the time to do this.
I have been attempting to talk with Homer Joe Stewart about the problems of finding a replacement for him. Homer Joe goes back to the staff at Caltech late this year. One of my problems is that I am unhappy about the way he has conducted the affairs of the office of program planning and evaluation. I need to get this straightened out before I set up the criteria for a replacement person. The balance of the day was given over pretty much to listening to rehearsals of the papers to be presented in the NASA-industry conference. This is a tedious and time-consuming job, but there is no substitute for practice in these matters. Some of the papers were very good, but many contained statements that give every evidence of making of NASA a space cadet organization. This will have to be corrected.
At 6:30, Silverstein, Horner and Stewart met with me to discuss tracking problems in other countries. At 7:15, Kerrigan came in to report on the program that he had prepared for the transport of members of the Nigerian government to our Wallops Island operation where they may view some of the Mercury activities.4 Normally, there would be no problem about this but all of these gentlemen are black and it is impossible for us to take them into Virginia without giving real concern to the manner in which they may be received. In particular, we must take them down early in the morning and bring them back at night in order to avoid having to find hotel accommodations for them.
Tuesday, July 12: At 9 o'clock, B. F. Coggan of the San Diego Convair organization came in to see me. He is a person who had been recommended as a possible replacement for Dick Horner. The very welcome telephone call I received last Saturday relieved me of the necessity of talking definitively with Coggan. Bob Seamans has agreed to join us as associate administrator and will report on 1 September. Coggan was a pleasant fellow but it is obvious that he is best suited for sales and public relations efforts - not the rigorous task of running a tough and [182] broadly-based program. I say this in spite of the fact that for several years he has been the manager of the San Diego operations of Convair and in that job has handled a very substantial organization.
At 11 o'clock, Irving Gitlin of NBC came in with Shelby Thompson, Walt Bonney and others to discuss their proposition for a television series. Gitlin was with CBS and prepared the program submitted to us some weeks ago by that organization. Thus he had the advantage of knowing what was in his competitor's proposal. Nevertheless, he did present an interesting and exciting suggestion for our consideration. I think we are going to get out of this just what we want, although it is going to take a good bit of effort on our part. After a visit with Nick Golovin about the NASA-industry conference, I had lunch with Jim Hardie of Case. Jim has grown a good bit in stature although he has not as yet acquired very much in the way of humility. Each of us has his shortcomings - the problem is to achieve the best by taking advantage of the strengths of our people and minimizing their weaknesses. This is easily said and not so easily done. In Jim's case, he will ultimately hurt himself unless he does learn something about the necessity for humility in his day-to-day operations.
At 4 o'clock, Siepert and Wyatt came in to talk over a paper that has been in preparation for at least a year. It is intended to set forth the basic philosophy governing our operations with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. At long last, it seems to be ready for transmittal to JPL. Later this afternoon, Miss Van Keuren, a Lewis employee who is serving temporarily as editor of the NASA-industry conference papers, came in to make a final review of my paper. She seems a very able gal.5 Nothing much of importance happened during the balance of this day.
Wednesday, July 13: I had an 8 o'clock breakfast with John Corson of the McKinsey Company lasting about two and a half hours. I was going over with him the form of the final report that the Kimpton Committee is to present to us. There are some real differences of opinion as to the kind of organization that we ought to have but all concerned are agreed that there is need for a much better management capability than we now possess. At 11:00, Admiral Kirby Smith came in to see me. He is a retired admiral who is representing some Atlanta company seeking work with NASA. One has to see all of these people but it certainly is a waste of time.
I had hoped to get away on Friday of this week for a week's rest at the Bohemian Grove encampment.6 With Dick Horner gone and Hugh Dryden away part of the time it has become increasingly difficult to contemplate that trip. In an attempt to salvage it, however, I called together the top staff at lunch and said that I would take the trip if I could be certain that there were no unresolved problems of major importance facing any member of the staff. This led to a five hour session in which we did come to grips with several of the problems posed in the meetings we [183] held last Thursday and Friday. At the end of this session, I had agreed on the lunar and interplanetary program, had determined that the Saturn problem must have further reviews before a final decision on the scale of effort to be undertaken next year could be made, and had agreed on the Centaur program and several other problems that were bothering us.7 Thus, I am going to take the trip.
I picked up Ruth and went to a cocktail party at the Sheraton-Carlton Hotel given by Alhaji Sir Ahmadu, premier of the northern region of Nigeria. There were many jet black people in the room and I was a little disturbed that there was so little representation from our own State Department. This was the day on which these good people had been taken to our Wallops Station, and they seemed to be very grateful for the arrangements that had been made for them.
Thursday, July 14: The staff meeting contained no unusual problems and I joined the space program council meeting at 10 o'clock. This is a meeting held every three months by Horner to bring together the directors of the laboratories and the various program offices so mutual problems can be discussed freely. I think its chief value is that of letting people get matters off their chests. It is interesting to note the differences in approach taken by the various members of the staff. Ostrander is reasonably quiet, always thoughtful and never overly determined or aggressive. In fact, he could be a little more aggressive in his own behalf. Silverstein attacks on every question and is seldom at a loss for words. One of his favorite expressions is that "he does not want to argue the question." He will state his position, then go forward to attempt to ride over all opposition. He is a very able engineer with an enormous capacity for work. It is clear that others find it difficult to work with him although many are devoted to him.
Von Braun and Pickering operate a bit as outsiders. Pickering always wants to get the record cleared down to the smallest detail and always seems to be pushing for more authority. Von Braun is persuasive and enthusiastic. He is a very able engineer and quite conservative when the chips are down. He seems to be a born leader and is able to engender very great loyalty among his subordinates. Harry Goett is a good technical man, but I think we made less than the best choice when we put him in charge of Goddard. This must be corrected by giving him a deputy who is adept in the management field. Harry is apt to be short-tempered and Abe tends to back him up in public discussions when he knows that Goett is not wholly right.
At 4:30, Frutkin came in to tell me of the success of his mission to Zanzibar. Apparently, after a diligent effort to meet with large numbers of Zanzibari, the Mercury tracking station will go forward on that island. Nevertheless, I have authorized and will continue to support an alternate station to be placed aboard a [184] ship. Dick Horner, probably in light of the confusion that attends his leaving the organization tomorrow, failed to provide arrangements for dinner for the group. Accordingly, Al Siepert and I took them to Costins. These are the small things that are important when you have top staff people from out of town. Left to fend for themselves, they must wonder whether or not they are really important members of the organization.
Friday, July 15: This was an all-day meeting with the space program council. I did finish up at 4 o'clock in the afternoon and Ruth picked me up at five to go to the airport. I was to have received a copy of each of the speeches to be given at the NASA-industry conference, but this package was not delivered to me. I had hoped to be able to use the five-hour trip across the country to review these papers. I suppose I will now have to do this next week while I am "relaxing" at the Grove. The flight left on time from Friendship Airport and I was in San Francisco at 8:35 p.m. where I was met by Marron Hendricks. We started out at 9 o'clock for the Bohemian Grove and arrived at the gate at exactly 11 o'clock. Almost everyone had gone to bed but my tent was ready with the electric blanket turned on. I am looking forward to the next several days.
Saturday, July 16: I should have noted that the late afternoon on Friday was given over to a discussion with Abe Silverstein about the management plan for Nimbus and about the possibility of transferring these manned space flight projects beyond the present Mercury project to the Ames Research Center. He was asked to bring back his response to these matters upon my return from the Bohemian Grove.8 Also, I had a meeting with Ostrander, Hyatt and Finger to ask for their thoughts about a study of the probable uses of a nuclear rocket propulsion system of the Rover type. I will follow up on this when I return.
That trip west yesterday at 32,000 feet was a pleasant one in some ways and not so pleasant in others. For a fair portion of the trip, we were flying over a cloud pattern that looked like a great many patches of sheep on a grey landscape. It was truly beautiful and I attempted to get one or two pictures from the cabin window. On the negative side, it has become increasingly difficult for me to travel without being interrupted by people who want to talk with me about the space business. This gives me a strange feeling of oppression that arises, I am sure, from the thought that I am unable to get away from the public nature of my office. During the course of the flight, I was accosted by one chap from the Itek [185] Corporation and by a second from the Aerojet Corporation. The first was pleasant enough but the second, after two martinis, was determined to argue with me the validity of my choice of Rocketdyne for development of the 200 K engine. I listened as politely as I could, responded pleasantly for a time and finally asked the chap to leave since I had other things about which I wanted to think.
Enough of that sort of thing - this is Saturday and I was up at 7:45 for a breakfast with Jimmy Doolittle and with General Pat Partridge and General Joe Cannon. Pat Partridge is now retired; he was the commanding general of the North American Air Defense Command. Joe Cannon is the commander of the Sixth Army in San Francisco. Immediately after breakfast, the four of us went for a three hour walk. This became a bit strenuous for General Cannon and myself and we broke off a bit ahead of Doolittle and Partridge. Lunch at the camp was a pleasant experience. Our guests today were a quartet and a five piece-orchestra. The music was quite wonderful and the food and conversation good. We wound up about 4:30. Around 6 o'clock, we went as a group to the Web Camp for cocktails. The weekend crowd has begun to arrive and the noise and confusion is increasing. Several old friends were among those present and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. We had dinner at the "Dining Room Under the Stars." It was a large gathering, probably 1,600 in all. Apparently, there is a tradition that this opening dinner includes remarks from a member of the "old guard" and a response from one of the younger members of the Bohemian Club. The old guard consists of those members of the club who have had forty encampments to their credit.
Sunday, July 17: Up about 7:30 to meet Jimmy and Pat at breakfast. They went for a walk but did not invite me this morning. At 12:00, we listened to the organ concert at the lake side given each day by Paul Carson. Dinner at the dining circle and then a wonderful campfire program.
Monday, July 18: Up at 7:30 again and off with Pat Partridge and Jim Doolittle for a one and a half hour hike. Later in the day, I went for another walk with Jimmy Doolittle and, on my return, found much work to do. The papers for the NASA-industrial conference had come in. A good many people came in for cocktails before dinner and the campfire program tonight was instrumental and not too good. Off to bed about 12 o'clock.
Tuesday, July 19: Up at 7:30 and off for another three and a half hour hike with Pat and Jim. I came back at 12:15 to finish up the conference papers on which I had worked during the afternoon and evening yesterday and then spent 45 minutes on the phone talking to Washington to give them my comments. John Lodge, brother of Cabot Lodge and Ambassador to Spain, came to lunch today along with Preston Hotchkiss. A good discussion took place after which several of us went along to the Sun-Dodgers camp to listen in on the Socrates discussion. Plato and Socrates seem pretty distant in these times and I believe most of the [186] audience thought this as well. The present-day controversy involving people like Oppenheimer, Strauss and Clinton Anderson could be made equally interesting - even more so.9
I talked with Grayson Kirk, President of Columbia University, about South America. I find it a little difficult to explain adequately my own interest in this part of the world. He listened sympathetically but suggested that it would be impossible for me to develop a real interest in Latin and South America while continuing at Case. Part of this arises out of the probability of a split in my allegiance but I would think that this could be managed. Dinner this evening was followed by a campfire show involving the Marine Corps. At least, this was the billing given to the show although the Marines only appeared to present the colors. Our luncheon quartet of several days ago stole the show.
Wednesday, July 20: Up at 7:45 and off with Pat for three and a half hours. We had a good talk about Washington, the various services and about participation in community affairs. [In the evening,] we had cocktails with the Lost Angels camp. I stayed home for dinner and worked on a speech. This being the 20th day of the month, I sent a remembrance to Ruth.
Thursday, July 21: Up at 7:15 and a four hour walk around the rim of the Grove proved almost too much for me. At the lake side today, John Lodge talked about the importance of Spain as an ally.
People are pouring in for the weekend. Lee DuBridge came to lunch and promised to come over tomorrow morning for a discussion with me. I worked on the speech again and then visited Herbert Hoover's camp which is known as Cave-man's Camp. Hoover had gone to San Francisco and to Chicago for the Republican Convention but his son Herbert Hoover, Jr. and others were there. The campfire tonight was given over to the music of Jerome Kern and it was really a fine evening. After we had finished, the members of Pelican Camp gathered around the fire to hear Fred Crawford tell stories once again.
[187] Friday, July 22: I had a leisurely breakfast this morning and put the finishing touches on the notes for my talk. Several of us walked over to Monte Rio just to make the annual pilgrimage. The talk went fairly well - there must have been a thousand people at the lake side. There was much good comment about the speech although I did not do as well as I should have done. Fred and I visited Lee DuBridge at the "Sons of Toil" Camp and then went up to Lost Angels and Halcyon. I avoided dinner again - just too much to eat. The campfire was very fine tonight. At lunch today, General [David] Sarnoff [chairman, Radio Corporation of America] appeared and I found myself in a substantial argument with him. This time it was about his conviction that the Soviet Union was about to launch one hundred satellites carrying nuclear weapons and thus equipping themselves for a real exercise at blackmail.
Saturday, July 23: This morning I was up at 8:15 and walked around taking pictures with Fred Crawford. We had an early dinner and found good places at the Low Jinks. It was not a particularly good show but the audience was wonderful and everybody had a good time. We repaired to our camp immediately following the show, and I packed up to leave very early tomorrow morning.
Sunday, July 24: Marron Kendricks awoke me at 5:30 and after a fast ride to San Francisco, I caught an 8 o'clock plane for Los Angeles. Tom and Martha met me there and took me to the Knox home.10 Getting into shorts and a shirt I just had a wonderful lazy day. I called on Gordon and Cora for a couple of hours and brought them up-to-date as they did me. A wonderful barbecued lamb supper, much discussion of politics and Latin America wound up the day.
Monday, July 25: This day I spent at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. We had a good discussion and I found much to be pleased about. Certainly, the rapport between JPL and NASA is very much better than it was a year ago. At 3 o'clock, I went over to Arcadia to see Mother, Jessie and John.11 Mother is very frail but seems just as bright as ever and we had a really good talk. I got her to tell me something about my childhood and learned much that I had not before known. Gordon came over to get me and I had dinner with him, Cora and Mary Lou and the baby.12 This has been a really pleasant day.
Tuesday, July 26: Tom and I drove to the Burbank Airport where an Aero Commander took us to the Edwards Air Force Base for a visit with our Flight Research Center people at that station. Tom had a chance to look at the X-15 while [188] I visited the U-2 installation and looked over two or three of the planes.13 We then went across the reservation to look at the big static test stands that are being erected for the testing of our 1.5-million-pound thrust. This is really a substantial piece of concrete. Back home about 5:30 and ready for packing for the trip back to Washington. I had a swim and then took the Knox family and Tom and Martha to the Beachcombers for dinner. The plane left on time and I arrived in Washington at 7 o'clock in the morning with very little sleep behind me.
Wednesday, July 27: Bill Detrich met me at the plane and took me directly to the apartment.14 After a shower and a bit of breakfast with Ruth, I took off for the office where I had a date at 9:30 with [General] Quesada, representatives of Dr. York's office and of the Air Force - Dr. Courtland Perkins [Air Force assistant secretary for research and development, 1960-1961] and others - on the problem of developing a public policy and a program for the management of a supersonic transport project. I had called this meeting because of the increasing pressures for activity in this field. These pressures have been generated both by industry and by Congress.15 And this is not to ignore the desires and pressures of large numbers of people active in government service today. I started the meeting by stating that I did not want to manage and fund this kind of an activity. Much to my surprise, this statement was greeted with a sigh of relief on the part of all concerned. Quesada was particularly happy about it and I responded by saying, "I thought you all recognized that NASA was the one government organization that is not seeking to expand its responsibilities." This brought a laugh, at least.
We agreed that the Federal Aviation Agency should take the leadership position in this activity and that the rest of us should support the activity in any way possible. FAA would plan to use the Defense Department to manage its development program and would expect research and development support from NASA. It was agreed that a small committee be set up to deal with this matter in the hopes of bringing it to the attention of the president and other elements of the government - perhaps the cabinet or the National Security Council - so that we might get instructions from the president to move ahead with planning in this field. This was [189] an interesting exercise in bringing interested parties together in the development of public policy.16
My desk was piled high with mail, which I have been attempting to surround. Lunch with Bob Seamans was a pleasant affair and we agreed on his program for the next month or so. At 2 o'clock, Dr. Kistiakowsky came over to talk with me about the problems involved in the communications and meteorological satellite areas. Apparently, one of the subcommittees of the President's Science Advisory Committee has been holding hearings on the communications satellite system and has become very much concerned that we are lagging in the development of public policy in this area and that the program could proceed at a very much faster pace. I told him of our activites with the Rand Corporation and asked Bob Nunn to come in to discuss the status of those researches with Dr. Kistiakowsky. None of it is very reassuring and it is clear that we will have to put some one person in charge of this particular activity. I am reminded, at this point, that no single communication satellite has flown, as yet.17 The pressures generated by AT&T and by the military as well as by other industrial suppliers are building up quite a fire, however.
The rest of the afternoon was given over to catching up with the mail and talking with Dick Horner and others. Ruth and I joined the group at the National Press Club at a dinner for John Victory at 7:15. I was toastmaster and did as well as might be expected with the lack of sleep I had experienced. John was less voluble than usual having been warned about this on several occasions privately and publicly. It must be a bit of a wrench, however, to drop out of an activity one has had a real hand in developing over a period of 45 years. Victory was the first employee of the NACA back in 1915.18
Thursday, July 28: A call from Elmer Lindseth before breakfast resulted in my agreeing to meet him at 8:15 at the office in order that we might talk a bit about the work of the organizational advisory committee. They are coming down the pike toward a report framework and Elmer wants to be sure that the report will be a helpful one. There is much to be said for a continuing operation of this kind and I am hopeful that our own management analysis group will be able to take on such a task. I opened the NASA-industry program plans conference at the Department [190] of Commerce auditorium at 9 o'clock. There must have been 1,500 or 1,600 in attendance and the program seems to be off to a good start. I think our staff has done an excellent job in planning and executing this particular program.
I had lunch with Bob Nunn to talk over the steps that need to be taken with respect to the communications satellite business. It does seem probable that we should ask the president to assign to us the task of developing the basic public policy to be proposed to Congress by the administration. This is the way these things are done; if some one agency doesn't step up and seek the assignment, everyone is apt to rush in and a chaotic condition can prevail. It seems clear to me that it is our responsibility and one that we should not duck. Accordingly, I asked Bob to come up with an outline of a paper to be presented to the cabinet at an early date. This paper would request that the president assign, by executive order or otherwise, the task of developing policy to NASA. At 2 o'clock, I met with the advisory committee on organization and continued with them until 6 o'clock. There is a good bit of discussion going on about the desirability of having the individual field centers report directly to the associate administrator. Under certain circumstances I think this would be a good thing; in fact, it may be necessary to do this within the next year or so. It also seems desirable to bring together, at some point in time, the activities of the launch vehicle operations group under Ostrander and the space flight operations group under Silverstein.19 I think we are going to get enough out of this activity to make all of us feel quite satisfied about it. Basically, the areas of management development, adequate recruiting and organizational planning, and the strengthening of the planning function throughout seem to be the principal areas of agreement. Left for future discussion and action are precise organizational changes, the urgency of which does not seem too great at the present time. Bob Seamans, Hugh and I had dinner with the organizational advisory committee at 7 o'clock. Seamans conducted himself well in a discussion period following the dinner.
Friday, July 29: Lee Atwood of North American Aviation came in to see me on short notice. He was in town for the NASA-industry conference and simply wanted to pass the time of day. He made strong remarks about the Rover program, however. Everyone wants to build this gadget but none of them wants to face up to the problems of its use. At 11:30, Martin Kreuzer of RCA came in to see me. His firm built the Tiros satellite. It wants to build the next one but I am afraid that our organization is not quite up to it. I say our organization because we have not set up our management structure sensibly for the Nimbus satellite system.20 I am hoping to get this straightened out before many weeks have passed, however.
[191] We closed out the NASA-industry conference about 4 o'clock with an attendance that continued to surprise all participants. At 5:00, Dryden, Horner and Silverstein met with me to discuss the on-going program in the manned satellite field. I had proposed the possibility of moving the manned space activities to Ames Research Center at Moffett Field in California. After some long discussion, it became quite clear that there was substantial opposition to this proposal, opposition that was rational enough so that it must be reckoned with. There was substantial agreement, however, with my concern that this project would overwhelm Goddard Space Flight Center and that some alternative method of planning for it should be developed. It does appear that it could be left at Langley as a separate activity. I have asked Silverstein to explore this thought. All hands agree that the management of the project must be strengthened, although it is clear that this must be done in such a way as to avoid tampering with the morale of the Mercury group. This has been quite a day and I think some useful results have been accomplished. I decided to take the family down to Huntland for the weekend and was able to set this up without difficulty.21 I have a great deal of work to do over the weekend.
Saturday, July 30: Up to a leisurely breakfast and off to Huntland at 11 o'clock or thereabouts. The afternoon was spent in reading, writing and sitting in the sun. I got off to bed at 10 o'clock but did not have much sleep during the night for reasons that must be associated with this heavy organizational and operational activity facing me in the next six weeks.
Sunday, July 31: Up to a very leisurely breakfast and more work during the day. We had a good change at Huntland and arrived back home in the early evening. George Brown certainly deserves a hearty vote of thanks for the manner in which be has made it possible for a few heavily loaded people in Washington to enjoy the pleasures of a weekend home in the Virginia countryside.
1. Glennan's hopes to convert Ames to a manned spaceflight center never came to fruition because the Manned Spacecraft Center was formed out of the space task group at Langley and moved to Houston in 1962, becoming the nucleus of what came to be called the Johnson Space Center. (Rosholt, Administrative History of NASA, p. 214.)
2. The name "Faber" does not appear in the NASA biographical files or telephone books for the period, and neither Glennan nor Arnold Frutkin could identify him or suggest another name for which "Faber" might have been a mistaken transcription in the original diary.
3. Available records at the British Embassy do not indicate that Lord Hood was still on the staff there at this time. According to these records, Dennis Russell Hiscock [without the "s"] was the scientific advisor there in 1960. (Thanks to Marianne Hosea of the personnel office for her researches in the embassy's files.) However, the Glennan files in the NASA Historical Reference Collection contain a letter from Glennan, dated 26 October 1960, addressed to Mr. E. S. Hiscocks, Scientific Attache, United Kingdom Scientific Mission, 1907 K Street, Northwest, so perhaps there were two individuals with similar names doing similar work for the British government in Washington at the same point in time.
4. Edward J. Kerrigan worked in the office of international programs as programs assistant and then chief of operations support. (Headquarters Telephone Directories, May 1960, p. 1, and Dec. 1960, p. 8, NASA Historical Reference Collection.)
5. Katherine M. Van Keuren worked in the reports editing branch at Lewis. (Lewis Research Center Telephone Directory, 21 Aug. 1959, pp. i, 47, NASA Historical Reference Collection.)
6. This encampment, located outside San Francisco, brought together leaders of government, industry, and the media every summer.
7. Presumably "the lunar and interplanetary program" referred to Ranger (discussed in previous notes), Surveyor, and Mariner, among other programs and projects. Surveyor was a series of softlanding spacecraft to examine the lunar surface, while Mariner was an interplanetary program, with Mariner 2 becoming the first satellite to fly past another planet when on 14 December 1962 it came within 21,380 miles of Venus before continuing in orbit around the Sun.
8. Nimbus was an advanced meteorological satellite program approved after the first launch of Tiros in the spring of 1959. General Electric's Spacecraft Department developed and built the satellites under the direction of the Goddard Space Flight Center. A successful launch of Nimbus 1 occurred on 28 August 1964, but the satellite only operated a little under a month. Nimbus 2, launched 15 May 1966, transmitted 210,000 images over a period of 978 days. (NASA Historical Data Book, Vol. II, pp. 360-363.)
9. On the Anderson-Strauss disagreements, see note 7, Chapter 5. J. Robert Oppenheimer (Ph.D. Göttingen, 1927) was an American physicist who made important contributions to quantum mechanics as related to atomic nuclei. He was director of the Los Alamos Laboratory during World War II, in charge there of developing the first atomic bomb. From 1947-1953, while he was director of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, he served on the general advisory committee to the Atomic Energy Commission, while Strauss became chairman of the AEC in the latter year. Because of allegations of past associations with Communists, a security hearing in 1953 resulted in a ruling that despite his personal loyalty, his further access to military secrets be denied. This resulted in his contract as adviser to the AEC being cancelled in a widely celebrated and controversial case. Also factors in the situation were Oppenheimer's opposition on moral grounds to the building of the hydrogen bomb - a position with which Strauss vehemently disagreed - and a concern on the part of President Eisenhower that Senator Joseph McCarthy, then conducting his infamous hearings to detect Communists in the government, not give the country the impression that all scientists were disloyal. Eisenhower was successful in preventing this undesirable outcome, but in the process, Oppenheimer became a worldwide symbol of scientists who, in attempting to deal with the ethical problems that arise from scientific discovery, become the victims of witch-hunts. (See Nuel Pharr Davis, Lawrence and Oppenheimer [New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968]; Alice Smith and Charles Weiner, Robert Oppenheimer: Letters and Recollections [Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1980].)
10. Dr. Stuart C. and Rozella Knox were evidently close friends or relatives of the Glennans who lived in the Los Angeles area. On Gordon and Cora, mentioned just below in the diary, see note 12 below.
11. Arcadia is a community in the northern part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. John [Simmons] was Glennan's nephew. Jessie was his mother and Glennan's sister.
12. Gordon was Glennan's brother, Cora his wife, and Mary Lou their daughter.
13. The famous hypersonic X-15 rocket research aircraft was built in the mid-1950s under the joint auspices of the Air Force, Navy, and the NACA/NASA with the NACA as the technical director of the project when it began in 1954. The first flight occurred on 8 June 1959, and over the next decade there were 198 more flights in the aircraft, with speeds up to 4,500 miles per hour and altitudes of over 350,000 feet. (For details, see Hallion, On the Frontier, pp. 106-129, 329-337.) The U-2, of course, was the high-altitude jet reconnaissance and research aircraft in which Francis Gary Powers was flying on 1 May 1960 (see entries in diary after that date). A prototype first flew in 1955. The aircraft had a top speed of 494 miles per hour and could attain altitudes upwards of 70,000 feet. NASA used the aircraft for weather and atmospheric research. (U-2 files, NASA Historical Reference Collection.)
14. This may have been Harry W. Detrich, Jr., who worked in the public information office and then in the office of educational programs. (NASA Headquarters telephone directories, May and December 1960, pp. 7, 2 respectively, NASA Historical Reference Collection.)
15. See U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Science and Astronautics, Report of the Special Investigating Subcommittee to the . . . Eighty-Sixth Congress, Second Session on Supersonic Air Transports, 30 June 1960 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1960).
16. For a discussion of NASA's subsequent role in the effort to develop a supersonic transport, see Hallion, On the Frontier, pp. 177-196. For an overall history, see Mel Horowitch, Clipped Wings: The American SST Conflict (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1982).
17. For subsequent NASA progress in the area of communications satellites, see the unpublished paper by Leonard Jaffe, director of the communication and navigation program office (since 1963), NASA office of space science and applications, entitled "Satellite Communications: Six Years of Achievement, 1958-1964," dated 1 February 1965 (in his biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection.) Jaffe had joined NASA in 1959 as chief of the communications satellite program in the office of the assistant director for advanced technology. He had previously worked at Lewis for the NACA in instrumentation and automatic data.
18. As these comments would suggest, he was retiring after 52 years of continuous government service. See the entry under his name in the biographical appendix.
19. These changes did not occur during Glennan's tenure as administrator but were part of the 1 November 1961 reorganization. See Rosholt, Administrative History of NASA, pp. 221-222.
20. In December 1960, RCA won a contract to develop and build an advanced vidicon camera system for Nimbus, but in February 1961 - under the Kennedy administration - NASA selected General Electric to build the spacecraft and do the subsystem integration, a contract on which RCA had bid. (NASA Historical Data Book, Vol. II, p. 361.)
21. As appears in part from what follows in the diary, Huntland was the home of a man by the name of George Brown, who evidently permitted several people besides Glennan and his family to visit the premises in the Virginia countryside on separate occasions and use them as a weekend retreat from the burdens of their work in the nation's capital.
