[192] Monday, August 1: After I dictated the story for yesterday, a storm came up and we hastened to pack and start back to Washington. This morning is my first with the responsibility for the operating organization as well as for the activities in my own office. Dick Horner has gone west and Bob Seamans will not be on board for another month. This means that I will have my hands full but I suspect that I will learn a great many things about the organization I have not been aware of. After trying to catch up with the morning mail and make a little sense out of the thinking I have been doing over the weekend, I met with Golovin and Colonel Heaton to talk about the way we would operate during the coming month. Golovin very nicely agreed to stay on an extra week - be had been planning to leave at the end of the current week - so that I would be served for half the month by Golovin and for the second half of the month by Heaton, who reports for his assignment as special assistant to the associate administrator [Seamans] on 15 August. I think we made out well in this discussion and that I will be well served by these two gentlemen. As I may have said before in this chronicle, Golovin is an amazingly able person who completely lacks the ability to deal with people. I have found few persons able to think through a problem and to state the conclusions on paper so clearly and so convincingly. On the other hand, I have found few who can so readily arouse the antagonism of co-workers - especially those he is expected to convince regarding a proper course of action.
At 11:30, I drifted over to see Jerry Morgan at the White House to assure myself that the need for Senate action on our legislative proposals will be mentioned in the president's message to Congress. I received as much assurance as one can in a situation of this kind. Following a lunch at the Occidental for Gus Crowley - he retired a year ago [as NASA's director of aeronautical and space research] - I met with Ostrander's committee on the Juno II program. This committee had been set up some two or three months ago to review the then-ABMA program calling for the launching of four Juno II rocket systems with scientific payloads provided by our Goddard Space Flight Center but manufactured and qualified by ABMA. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory has supplied the upper stages for the Juno II - indeed, this was the first American rocket system to launch a satellite into orbit, Explorer I.1 Unfortunately, it is really not a very good system and the parents now would rather forget it than try to make it work. However, we have a good bit of money involved [193] and I am determined that we will fly these missions whether or not they all result in failure.
This particular committee, set up by Ostrander, has had the task of attempting to review the vehicle itself with the thought of improving, if possible, the chance of success. It was an excellent presentation and I think it can help somewhat in giving us greater assurance of a reasonable score with these shots. Strangely enough, the principal action recommended was that of assigning responsibility for the missions. I am not at all sure why it has not been done before, but I suspect that this is one of those things that Dick Horner left behind him during his last month or two when he was a little loath to take action in certain of these matters. At any rate, I dealt with this matter promptly and have assigned the responsibility to Marshall Space Flight Center. If these are their vehicles - they are making the payloads under scientific direction of Goddard - they have the background of experience in this particular flight article, and it must be their black eye if things fail to operate satisfactorily. I know they would prefer to get out of this responsibility, but I am determined that they accept it - willingly and with determination.2
At 4 o'clock, Thompson, Bonney and Phillips came in to discuss the proposals given to us by CBS and NBC regarding television programs dealing with the space exploration program of NASA. After some discussion, it became apparent that each of the proposals was reasonable and that there was little to choose between them. However, all of us agreed that CBS seems to have dealt more effectively with programs of this sort in the past and accordingly, I determined that CBS would get the nod. I managed to get away from the office about 5:30 and surprised Ruth at home. Most of the evening was given over to reading; it seems that I get satisfaction out of having discharged a task such as that of making the decisions in the television and the Juno II situations. At least, I felt very good tonight. Perhaps I ought to say that I have decided to go on a diet again, and this time I will not stop until I have reached 180 lbs. Since that goal is some 14 lbs. away, I suspect that it is going to take some weeks before the goal is attained.
Tuesday, August 2: At 8:30, Bob King [NASA director of program management] came in to discuss with me further the program management plan. Yesterday I had begun to look into this in depth for the first time and was very much surprised that we had established such a plan without a real program for making effective use of it by having the top officials in the agency review at frequent intervals the results depicted in the plan. I intend that this be done and now must [194] get at the job myself. These people who are paid $17,000 a year to handle problems of this kind certainly are not earning their money, in my opinion. They do not have as much initiative or as much follow-through as I would think was necessary.
At 9 o'clock, John Johnson and Bob Nunn came in to talk with me about the communications satellite problems. In the period of time since I went away for the recent holiday, a good many things have happened tending to make it important that we grab the ball in this particular program. I should say here that we have stayed entirely with the "passive" satellite program and have relied upon the Defense Department to handle the "active" communications satellite program. It appears that it has not done the job very well and that AT&T, Hughes Aircraft, IT&T and others are now becoming deeply interested in getting on with the job of putting together a communications satellite system. Some of this has leaked to the press and John Finney had a column on it in the New York Times within the past week. Already, we have had questions raised by congressional committees and George Kistiakowski's President's Science Advisory Committee has asked for reasons supporting our lack of activity. I think it is important that we now take on the job of developing an active satellite system for civilian purposes. This means a re-evaluation of our relationships with the Defense Department in this particular area and a change in the agreement we made some eighteen months ago. More than this, however, it means dealing with the many difficult and complex public policy issues that are involved. The communications business in this country has always been operated by private industry, albeit an industry regulated by the government. What is the responsibility of the government for carrying on research and development in an area such as this where it is already reasonably apparent - according to our own figures - that industry can make a profit using satellite relay systems? If the government does continue to conduct R&D activities in this area, just how long should this activity continue?
I had asked Johnson and Nunn to come in because we have had a study underway on some of these problems for some six months under Johnson's general supervision. This has been carried on by the Rand Corporation and, unfortunately, is nowhere near completion. Before I left for my holiday, I had asked Bob Nunn to get active in the field and he had called in several people from Rand during my absence and had elicited from them a promise that they would have a fairly complete but preliminary report in our hands by 15 September.
For some reason John Johnson was afraid my suggestion that we prepare this story in the form of a paper for the information of the cabinet and approval by the president would result in extended delay and excessive complications. I suspect that his problem was thinking of this paper as one in which the cabinet might become involved. Actually, I had in mind a statement of the present technological developments - the state of the art - as well as a statement of the problems that face us, both domestically and internationally. Following this, I would propose that we outline a program of action the president could approve. All of this would assume an earlier discussion with the Defense Department and an agreement between [195] Defense, the Bureau of the Budget and ourselves as to our responsibility in the development of an active communications satellite for civilian use. In any event, I finally asked Johnny to get on with the job of developing certain elements of the statement that I wanted and I expect that he will do his usual fine job.
At 10 o'clock, Ruben Mettler, president of Space Technology Laboratories, came in, fishing for information about future work his organization might expect from NASA. I took the opportunity to discuss with him the untoward activities of some of his people in the Zanzibar incident and to question seriously the desirability of his people making speeches about the shots they were doing for NASA. I am not sure that I made any progress, but at least I tried. At 10:30, Hjornevik and [Aaron] Rosenthal [NASA director of financial management] came in to give me the operating plan for 1961. This discussion took almost two hours. In the course of it, I learned a great deal about our organizational difficulties. In this short space of two days, I am beginning to doubt the validity of the position I took with our advisory committee on organization last Thursday. It seems clear that the director of each of our principal program offices needs to cooperate at a very much more effective level or in a more effective manner with his counterparts. When one thinks that each of them is responsible for the expenditure of several hundred million dollars, this sort of thing becomes even more important. In any event, the Bureau of the Budget is withholding about $50 million from our research and development appropriation - I think they are right in doing this. In our own house, we are going to withhold some $15 million as a reserve in my hands. I suspect all of this will be expended before the end of the year.
A quick lunch with Dr. W. O. Baker of the Bell Telephone Laboratories brought me up-to-date on their interests in the communication satellite field. Bill Baker is really an interesting person. It is very difficult for me to understand his rather devious way of talking and yet he is held in the highest esteem by his colleagues and by people generally throughout the government and the research and development echelon of industry. At 1:30, I met with the Federal Council on Science and Technology. Glenn Seaborg, chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley, presented a draft paper on the need for support of science through increased attention to graduate education and research. There followed an interesting discussion covering a period of 90 minutes, at least. [Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare] Arthur Flemming was in attendance and Jim Shannon of the National Institutes of Health was also present. I enjoyed this part of it very much indeed.
Home in a hurry, then on to a dinner at the home of Minister of the Australian Embassy Donald Monroe. He had as guests Prince Mohammed and wife of the Malayan Embassy, one or two others from the Australian Embassy and several people from the United States State Department. I was the only outsider there. Ruth and I enjoyed the evening very much. The prince and his bride were attractive and interesting people.
Wednesday, August 3: Once again, Bob King was in to discuss further the program management plan. Obviously, he has not been used to the kinds of [196] questions I have been handing to him, and he is beginning to react in a positive manner. I will keep up the pressure because he seems to be able to take it and to get results. Nick Golovin came in and we had quite a long talk about a variety of organizational problems. Once again, I am impressed by the man's thinking ability; I do wish he could handle himself better with other people.
At 1 o'clock, luncheon at the Shoreham for 10 Russian gentlemen who are over here to look at airports and civil aviation turned out to be a rather dull affair. Pete Quesada was their host and he did his best to make it a pleasant party.
At 2:30, our people gave us a presentation on the active communications satellite - a very convincing one. I think this program will move ahead fast and it is up to me now to get on with the job of resolving problems between ourselves, the Bureau of the Budget and the Defense Department. At 4 o'clock, Jack Wooldridge of Nation's Business came in, complete with assistant and steno-typist, to record an interview. Fortunately, I am to have a chance to correct the transcript and am sure that I can add a few questions they didn't think of. It wasn't a bad experience. At 4:45, Dr. Mesthene of the Rand Corporation, who has been loaned to George Kistiakowsky for several months, came over to discuss the preparation of a paper entitled "Managing Important New Technologies." This was supposed to be a paper prepared jointly by the AEC and ourselves as a "legacy of thought" to be given to the new administration when it appears. It seemed to me quite an erroneous point of departure and I suggested that it might be better for us to attempt to point out how we would now organize NASA if we had the chance to begin over again. This seemed to strike a responsive chord and we will start out this way in the hopes that it will result in a satisfactory product.3
I dashed off to George Kistiakowsky's apartment to meet Ruth for a cocktail. Walt Whitman, MIT's chairman of the department of chemical engineering, was in attendance. He has come to Washington to serve as the scientific advisor to the secretary of state replacing Wally Brode. I am sure that he can do a very much better job than Wally; it would be hard to do one any worse.4 That seems to have finished the work for today and I came on home with Ruth to my glass of Metrecal. I hope this doesn't last forever but I am going to keep it up as diligently as I can in the hopes of getting down to that 180-pound mark.
Thursday, August 4: The staff meeting lasted for a couple of hours this morning. We reviewed the recent NASA-industry conference and discussed, at [197] some length, the plans for the United Nation's space conference, which presently is being planned for late 1961. The exhibit area of 25 to 30 thousand square feet is scheduled to cost about $2 million. It will have a very high residual value, however. It is hoped that the Century Twenty-one Exposition to be held in Seattle two years from now will make substantial use of the same exhibits. There is always the desire to have such an exhibit here in Washington as a national activity so that the citizens may see the purposes for which their money is being expended.
Lunch today consisted of Metrecal. Immediately following lunch, Nation's Business sent a photographer in who took several pictures in a very short time and I hope got some that might be worth publishing. Today we were hosts to a group of 60 or 70 State Department people who were being given a briefing on our program. I greeted them and turned them over to Arnold Frutkin. Then I had a further talk with Shelby Thompson and Ned Trapnell. Ned is acting as a consultant to Shelby in putting together a briefing program that we must prepare for a variety of military installations. This is almost a professional activity and is certainly one for which we do not have the necessary staff readily available. At 3:30, John Corson and Jack Young of McKinsey, two of their men and a group of our own people sat down to review the proposed report on the contracting problem faced by NASA. Rather naturally, this particular study is related to the organizational study that McKinsey is also working on. I found their efforts in this instance more definitive and somewhat more practical than the comparable efforts in the organizational study.5
Friday, August 5: John Johnson in at 9 o'clock to discuss with me briefly the problems Bob Seamans faces with respect to his stock holdings. We agreed that since this is not a presidential appointment and therefore not subject to Senate approval, there was no need to make public disclosure of the actions to be taken by Seamans and yet, on the other hand, I urged Johnny to discuss informally with the office of the Attorney General the plan proposed to hold Seamans harmless from any future charges of "conflict of interest." The fact that we will undoubtedly be doing business with RCA, in which Bob owns considerable stock, is bothersome, of course. A way must be found to diminish substantially the impediments that are placed in the way of employing good people from industry.
At 9:30, the Project Mercury boys came in with a Mr. Burke of McDonnell to give me the sad news on Project Mercury. Obviously, as we come closer to flying the production capsule, troubles are bound to occur. I am quite certain that every reasonable effort is being made to keep this project on whatever schedule we want to set up. It does now appear that we will be delayed a few weeks in accomplishing the sub-orbital flight but there is no reason to believe that the orbital flight will be [198] delayed by any substantial amount. Of course, it is always possible that we can catch up the time we now appear to be losing. The loss of the Atlas-Mercury shot the other day when the Atlas blew up has started the usual round of threats of investigations on the part of Congressional committees.6 For this reason, and for this reason alone, I have asked George Low to put together a chronological history of the project with pertinent dates and schedules that have been published in the past together with the conditions under which those schedules were published. We must be ready for this kind of investigation at any time, and I propose that we take a positive stand rather than a defensive one. I had Gleason and Bonney in to talk over the possible impact of the possible change in schedule of Mercury with respect to public information and congressional problems. We agreed that there was no need for taking positive action of any kind at the moment. Certainly, if we can avoid this until after the election we will go a long way toward keeping space out of politics - an aim that I hold very strongly.
Lunch with Arthur Flemming was a pleasant affair. Apparently, he has a desire to stay on as Secretary of HEW if Nixon is elected although he has no feeling for his chances of being asked to stay on even though Nixon does win. He has no specific plans for his personal life following the ending of this administration but I know he won't be idle very long.7 I have spent most of the day attempting to get hold of Lyndon Johnson but without success. I have been trying to impress on him the need for dealing with our administrative legislation - even to the point of flying out to Johnson City, Texas, to see him. Finally, I found his press secretary in Louisiana and the message was relayed to Lyndon. Word has come back that Lyndon will see me early next week.
Admiral William D. Irvin, chief of the Defense Communications Agency and an old submarine friend, came in to talk about his problems. He is not a "communicator" and it seems to me a rather strange choice of a man to head an agency destined to find itself in trouble almost from the start. We agreed that he might get good support and suggestions from Tim Shea and Mervin Kelly. At 4 o'clock, Johnson, Dryden and I discussed the management plan for Project Nimbus and found it wanting.8 It is very difficult to be as rough as one should be in these cases when you know that the people concerned have done their best and [199] don't really understand the management problem. Nevertheless, this project is almost a year old now and we are really not underway as yet. Fortunately, I think we can pull the fat out of the fire, and I plan to do this early next week.
Abe Hyatt came in at 4:15 to talk over the organizational problems facing his office. It is clear that we are not getting hold of the "nubbins" of the problem and I suppose this means that I have to get into it with both feet myself. All of this is good for me and I am sure that I will be better able to counsel wisely with Bob Seamans when he appears on the scene in September. After a visit with Bob King about certain problems in the program management office, I stopped off home to help Ruth get ready for dinner. We are having [company].
Saturday, August 6: I had promised Buck Bowie that I would see one of his in-laws who needs help finding a job. Accordingly, even though I was very tired, I got up at 8 o'clock and Ruth with me. While I was shaving, she came in to ask if I had left my money clip in the living room and had taken one of her purses from the closet and left it on a chair near the kitchen door. Having no recollection of this sort of action, I immediately started to investigate and soon found that someone had entered our apartment during the night, had taken from my bureau, at a point within three feet of my head, my wrist watch and my money clip with somewhere around $75.00 in it. They had apparently reached into the closet in the hall and taken this one purse of Ruth's, which had nothing in it of any value. How he was able to enter the apartment, then our bedroom, and take these articles without our waking is hard for me to understand. It is a fact that I had taken a sleeping pill, but this seldom ever keeps me "under" for any length of time. I called the police at once and within ten minutes two patrolmen were in the apartment. They stated that this sort of thing had happened quite frequently recently and that there was a pattern being followed by what they presume to be a single individual. During the course of the day, two more detectives came by to get further information. Fortunately, my insurance will cover a substantial portion of the loss. Since this has occurred, I have wondered what I might have done had I wakened while the man was in my room.
The visit with Buck's in-law was a pleasant one and I hope that I'll be able to help him. I then had a three hour session with John Corson about our organizational study. Neither of us is very satisfied with it and I think I got him started on another course of action that may give us a better grasp of the problems.
Sunday, August 7: Up at 9:00 for the usual skimpy breakfast - I weighed in at 190 stripped this morning. Then an hour and a half with the newspapers and on to the work table where I managed to get several matters well planned for the coming week. Ruth and I took a walk for an hour and half and then came back to prepare for dinner with [friends]. Another detective came in to see us today. In the course of his conversation with us, he let us know that this was the 22nd robbery that had taken place in this general area, in apartment houses like ours, within the last two months.
Monday, August 8: At 9 o'clock, Abe Silverstein, Johnnie Johnson, Hugh Dryden and I sat down to try and deal with Project Nimbus. Actually, I thought Abe did an excellent job this morning. He professed - and I believed him - that he [200] wanted to do exactly what we did. As a matter of fact, I think he would have done more than seems reasonably possible to do. In any event, it is clear that we must have solid legal counsel on this matter of the management of Project Nimbus, and I am looking to John Johnson to give this to us. Hugh and I had lunch together and managed an interesting discussion with [Raymond J.] Steve Saulnier. Obviously, Saulnier (the chief of the president's economic advisors) is concerned about the health of the economy. Clarence Randall [special assistant to the president] came in and sat with us for a few minutes. Saulnier asked him about the level of activity in the steel industry and whether or not it could be expected to rise. Randall was not particularly optimistic. He raised questions about the administration's holding back of several hundred thousand tons in orders for steel pipe. Saulnier said that these orders had been released at the end of last week. In the debate that followed, Saulnier made clear his concern that the high cost of money [i.e., the interest rate] was deterring the developmental programs of industry. He pointed out that 5 percent money would not encourage any real industrial organization to go ahead with capital expansion. He wound up by asking whether or not we in NASA could expedite the commitment of funds for activities during the first six months of this year. This is about as close as I have been to the seat of power with respect to economic matters in this government.
At 1:30, Bob King came in to talk about the program management plan. It is obvious to me that he is not a really strong person even though Dick Horner recommended that we give him $17,500 a year. There are so many of these reasonably mediocre people in government who are paid in the range of $14,000-$18,000 a year that it sometimes makes one a little bit sick. Bob is not a total loss but he is certainly going to work for his money as long as I am here in Washington. I must say that he is willing and I believe that together we can make a reasonable operation out of the activities with which he is principally concerned.
I called Leonard Jaffe to talk about the communication satellite problem.9 This was a good three-quarters of an hour discussion in which I found him to be quite responsive and quite responsible. He admitted having overstated some of his claims for the non-military communication satellite program. I think we came to a good understanding of what needs to be done from this point on, and I wound up by dictating a memorandum to him asking for confirmation of certain facts and figures about which we had been talking.
Ruth came downtown and we had cocktails with Dan Kimball and the Aerojet crowd in honor of Homer Joe and Mrs. Stewart. Just why they were honoring the Stewarts I do not know. Actually, there could be questions raised as to the possibility of conflict of interest here. Stewart works for us and Aerojet is one of our contractors. I think we will get by without an investigation in this case, however. I had my usual dinner of Metrecal and off to bed since I feel a little bit weary tonight.
[201] Tuesday, August 9: The morning started with the usual set of discussions. I managed to be promptly on time at a television interview with Senator Wiley of Wisconsin at 10 o'clock. Wiley was brought up in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, just ten miles from Eau Claire. We had a right good time together and I think made good use of the opportunity to become better acquainted. I moved from there directly to the office of Senator Stennis to urge him to speak with Lyndon Johnson about getting on with our legislation. It is interesting to note the way in which these senior senators still defer to the majority leader. Apparently, there is a code to which they all subscribe. A chairman of a committee is a real power and actually controls, pretty much, the activities of that committee. Of course, this sort of thing is not universal and very often one finds a maverick who will upset the otherwise placid tenor of their ways.
At 11:30, Hugh and I met with the president, chairman of the executive committee, chief engineer and Washington representative of Grumman Aircraft. They simply wanted to let us know that they were very much interested in the orbiting astronomical satellite project.10 They took us to lunch at the Washington Hotel roof and we enjoyed the visit. For some reason, I was quite relaxed and really did enjoy it. Back to meet with General Ostrander, who came in for a short session with me even though he is on leave. I was discussing with him his interests and concerns about the organizational set-up. He is an able person and one for whom one must have respect. At 2:30, the vice president for engineering and the Washington representative of Boeing came in to give us the same sort of pitch about their activities. The day wound up pretty much with my going to the office of the deputy secretary of defense to discuss with him and with one of Herb York's people the desirability of our undertaking an "active" satellite program. As is always the case with Jim Douglas, we had no difficulty in coming to a reasonable agreement, and paperwork will be hammered out to support it.
Just before I went over to the Department of Defense, Dan Kimball of Aerojet came in at my request. Formerly the secretary of the navy under Truman, Dan is a strong Democrat and has some influence on the Hill. I asked him to attempt to secure action from Lyndon Johnson on our bill. Actually, these industrialists have a good bit at stake because we have been able to get the House to accept a favorable patent clause. If the bill does not pass this session, it will have to be argued all over [202] again and I guess I should be happy that I won't be here to participate. Tonight, we had dinner with Millard Richmond and Ray Smith of Western Electric Company in New York at a new French restaurant called Paul Youngs. It was very good indeed. A pleasant evening and off to bed.
Before doing that though, let me talk a little bit about this matter of getting our bills through Congress. I have attempted for a month now to reach Lyndon Johnson. I have a continuous call in to his office to try and talk with him. I know that he is busy with other things, but I suspect that he is busy principally with keeping his political lines straight. Certainly, the first two days of the Senate have seen speeches by Lyndon attacking the administration rather than getting on with the job of passing the legislation that is needed. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for me to reach him. At this juncture, I should say that I have not had a strong support from the White House, either. Perhaps this is my own fault; if it is, I intend to remedy it tomorrow.
Wednesday, August 10: This was another of those days. At 9:30, Gerald Lynch and Dr. Krause of the Ford Aeroneutronics Division came in. They wanted to explain their deep interest in our activities. They are a responsible group and are already involved in the program. For some reason I did not seem to resent their discussions. At 10 o'clock, Dr. Clark Randt discussed with me various aspects of the life science program. I admire this man very much indeed. He has given up an important professional career and substantial income to join with us in attempting to push this program forward because he believes in it. Unfortunately, I am not able to give him the assurance I would like or to answer all of his questions. These relate to the necessity for his hiring a few men to get on with the planning of a life sciences center, etc. I shall try to get this matter in hand soon.11
At 11 o'clock, Francis Reichelderfer of the Weather Bureau came in to talk with several of us about the on-going problems in the weather satellite field. I am determined that we take a long-range view and set our sights on the development of an operating system or at least the prototype of an operating system at some specified time in the future. If we do not do this, I am sure that our own people will want to continue to research and experiment while the Weather Bureau will want to continue to talk about things rather than doing something about them. It was not easy to make this point clear and I am not sure that I succeeded. However, I am going to take the initiative in this matter.
At 12 o'clock, Dryden, Silverstein, Hyatt, Siepert, Rosenthal, King and I sat down for a quick lunch and a discussion of several problems. I am anxious that we make good use of our program management man and I am setting up formalized meetings for a review at stated intervals of the activities we have under way. There are some operating plan difficulties I hope we straightened out at this meeting [203] although I think I was the one to be straightened out rather than the other participants. I broke the meeting off a little early so that I could go up on the Hill with Jim Gleason to see Senator Styles Bridges. I was trying to get him to convince Lyndon Johnson to put our legislative act on his calendar. Bridges was quite happy to see us and promised cooperation, but I doubt that anything useful will come of it. Once again, the protocol in the Senate is something to behold. Actually, I guess it is necessary for it to be this way - but it is frustrating. I dropped by the Johnson office and was happy to find that I have an appointment for Friday at 10:30 in the morning. Back to the office then for a long session with Siepert and Hjornevik. They have been doing some very good thinking on our organizational problems and presented a somewhat long-winded but excellent picture of their thinking on project management. While this is only one aspect of our organizational problem, it is a very important one. I must get them now to deal with John Corson and others so that we get some unified and positive thinking on this matter.
At 4:30, Homer Joe Stewart came in to say that he was going west on holiday and wanted to clear up some matters with me before he departs. The discussion was a fruitful one and I hope it will lead to definite progress on things Homer Joe is supposed to be doing for us. Off home at 5:30 and nothing much to say about the evening except that I did some more work.
Thursday, August 11: The staff meeting this morning was a long one devoted completely to the results of an ad hoc committee study of our procurement and source evaluation board procedures. It was a really fine discussion, and I think real progress was made. The willingness of the staff to participate in these discussions is very satisfying. At 11 o'clock, G. L. Best, Harold Botkin and Dr. John Pierce of the AT&T and Bell Laboratories came in to talk with Dryden, Johnson, Frutkin, and Jaffe of NASA. Botkin had been discussing with the communications people of England, France and West Germany the possibility of cooperative satellite communications research projects. He found a willing and even enthusiastic audience. We spent almost two hours discussing both public and operating policy questions and finished up with an agreement that AT&T would provide us with an informal statement of its proposed course of action. If, indeed, the AT&T is willing to support research in this field, it is not clear that the government should do more than a minimum. On the other hand, I doubt that AT&T realizes how costly this research will be. In any event, this project must go forward and it is my task to see that it does.
We went to lunch with these good people and I returned just in time to spend an hour and a half with Shelby Thompson in a discussion of his program for handling technical information and educational assistance. He had outlined a $4 million program, which I accepted at $3 million. Now we will have to find a substantial portion of the $3 million because there was no provision in our FY 1961 budget for this activity. We can pull together the money without too much difficulty, I am sure.
Gleason came in to try to work out the strategy for our discussion with Johnson tomorrow morning. We agree that the best possible approach would be to attempt to convince Lyndon that the Republicans would make no political hay out [204] of his refusal to act and that there was not enough real hay in it for the Democrats in case he did act but, really, we were simply trying to get on with the job he had given us. Further, I intend to press him with the statement that he, in effect, promised the president that this legislation would go through as early as last January. I doubt that I am going to get any place with it but I can do no less than try.
Off home then for a pleasant evening with Sally and Ruth. We went over into Maryland to let Sally use the trampoline. She does quite well on it but she split her britches! Much kidding, only a part of it received by Sally with good grace. Off to bed then about 10:30. The family is going up to Atlantic City to spend a little time with Polly and to meet the MacGregors and I shall join them by air tomorrow evening.
Friday, August 12: This was really quite a day. Having been awakened rather early each morning for the last several mornings to be told that Echo I was not going to be launched, I was delighted to get the word at 6:30 that the launch had taken place. A series of telephone calls kept me advised of the situation until I reached the office at 8:15. By this time, the launch was confirmed and it appeared clear that we had an orbit. Actually, a press conference had been set up for 8:30, but the success of the transmission of the president's message from the Goldstone Station in the desert outside of Pasadena to the Bell Telephone Laboratories station at Holmdel, New Jersey, [via Echo I] was so complete that I decided to hold the reporters until such time as we had a copy of the recording. It had been phoned from Holmdel to our Goddard station where it was recorded on tape. A motorcycle escort brought it into the office and I listened to it with great glee before going to the press conference at 9:10.
While waiting for the tape to arrive, I had alerted the White House and arranged to have the privilege of taking the tape into a meeting of the National Security Council so that all present might hear it. This was done about 9:30 and the president and the members of the NSC were delighted. A little later, pictures were taken in the president's office with Dryden, Jaffe, and myself together with the president. It was a great day, coming as it did upon the heels of the success of Discoverer XIII and followed later in the day by the establishment of a new altitude record by the X-15.12 At 11:15, I went up the Hill to see Senator Johnson along with [205] Jim Gleason. We spent about fifteen minutes trying to convince him that our legislation should be dealt with by this rump session, but to no avail. However, I did impress upon him that he had told the president this bill would be acted upon, and I finally got out of him the promise that the staff would prepare all necessary documents and take whatever steps could be taken, so that if the opportunity presented itself, the bill might be dealt with speedily.
Back to the office to find that things continued to go well and Bonney made the suggestion that recordings be made of each of the foreign ambassadors for the purpose of transmitting them via Echo I from coast to coast. These transmissions, recorded on tape, could then be used by the United States Information Agency in its foreign broadcasts activities. I called George Allen and received his hearty endorsement; the deal was made and steps are already underway to accomplish the desired result. At 12:30, Silverstein, Newell, Goett, and John Johnson came in to go over the papers on Project Nimbus. Finally, I believe we've got a document that will allow us to get the best possible management set-up under the circumstances. It is a little bit like pulling teeth but one must be both deliberate and stubborn.
At 1:00, I had lunch with Dick Harkness of NBC. We went to Jack Hunt's Raw Bar where we were greeted with open arms. It turned out that Dick Harkness had not heard of the success of Echo when I had called him earlier in the morning. He was much more excited about it than I. At 2 o'clock I visited the White House for discussions with General Persons. It appears that Leonard Hall, Nixon's campaign manager, had brought to the attention of General Persons the desire of Hughes Aircraft Company for some of NASA's money. Actually, it has a project in communications of interest to us.13 I suppose there must be some valid reason for undertaking these excursions to bring political pressure to bear or else the activity would not be undertaken.
I broke off at 3 o'clock and started for the airport where I was able to spend an hour quietly having a drink before going to Atlantic City. The MacGregors and Ruth and Sally met me at 7:30 and we dashed on into Atlantic City because Polly's Hotel Morton dining room closed at 8:00. The girls were waiting for us - that is Polly and Kady MacGregor - and seemed genuinely glad to see us.14 After dinner, we spent some time on the boardwalk and then retired to our motel and bed.
Saturday, August 13: Up at a leisurely hour and off to a Howard Johnson for a quiet breakfast with Ruth. We sat around in the mist that finally turned to rain and waited until noon before we went to do a bit of shopping. It had been our plan [206] to barbecue a steak for the two girls who were to have this day off. Sally had stayed the night with Polly and about 1:30 they put in an appearance. We managed a bit of lunch of crackers and cheese and then the kids went swimming even though it was raining. There was a good pool there at the motel. We had been able to get a very good steak, and the rain let up enough so that we managed steak and corn in the best picnic fashion. All of us ate too much. One of Mac's friends had called to say that we could have tickets to the Ice Capades, so we drove on into Atlantic City and enjoyed this show very much. Back to the motel at midnight and a somewhat restless sleep. I have forgotten to say that, during the course of the day, Attorney General Bill Rogers called me to ask why I did not prepare a statement for the president to give out on the tremendous success that had attended the nation's efforts in space over this weekend. I did just this and telephoned it back to Bonney for coordination with the White House. It sounded like a good idea and maybe it will get used.
Sunday, August 14: Up again at a leisurely hour. After packing, we drove in to Atlantic City where we met the girls who were enjoying the sun on the beach. Polly and Kady had worked this morning, of course. We finally got them off the beach and into a restaurant for a quick bite of lunch after which (now almost 4:30) Ruth, Sally and I drove back to Washington. It has been a good weekend. I should have recorded the discussion last night - or rather Friday night - when Polly and Kady presented their case for leaving the Morton Hotel before their agreed-upon time of servitude had expired. They had drawn up a list of eighteen points, most of which were the usual gripes of anybody who has to work for a living. It was clear, however, that the girls were quite unhappy and that they were operating under conditions much less than desirable. Mac and I finally agreed that they might leave at the end of another two weeks but made as certain as we could that the girls understood we were not impressed by their arguments of persecution. Being a father in a situation such as this has its drawbacks; one wants to do what is right in the best sense of that term and yet one has real sympathy for the child.
Monday, August 15: The weekend news of Echo has been excellent. I have not been able to see it as yet because of the cloud cover each night, but I continue to hope that I will have a glimpse of it.
At 1O o'clock we had a review of the Saturn Project and I find myself now with the task of rationalizing an increase of $25 million in the budget we have requested for 1962. The plain facts are that von Braun and his staff oversold the project just as they had while they were with the Army. Why does government make people just a little "dishonest"? At 11:30 Wyatt and Newell came in to talk about the terms of reference I had prepared for the office of program planning and evaluation. This was resolved rather easily and they are going to give me some help on rewording the statement. At 12 o'clock, at the invitation of Secretary [of the Air Force] Dudley Sharp, I attended a White House gathering where a flag from the capsule of Discoverer was presented to the president by [General] Tommy White of the Air Force and Secretary Gates. It was a pleasant ceremony in front of the cameras and I think the president was genuinely pleased. Certainly, the sight of the capsule, which looked like a kettle drum, gave me a thrill.
[207] At 2 o'clock, we continued with the Saturn meeting but I did not come to any conclusion. This is going to be a rough decision. Congressman Chet Holifield and Eugene and Barbara Zuckert came for dinner. It was lots of fun and they stayed until 11:30. After that, I was so stirred up from conversation and argument that I did very little sleeping.
Tuesday, August 16: This was another day! The morning was given over to presentations by the Hughes people and by the Bell Telephone Laboratory people on an "active" communications satellite. There is real pressure on the part of industry to get into this business, and it is reasonably clear that the AT&T is serious about driving toward a communications system using satellites. I asked our people to develop a program for the next three or four years that would involve participation by both of the organizations we have been talking with.
After lunch with Dryden and Silverstein, I went out to the home of a Finnish sculptor named [Kalervo] Kallio to see a bust of the late General George C. Marshall. We are thinking about buying the bust to be placed at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. It was really a delightful experience and I think we will buy it even though the price is high.15
At 3:14, Norris Bradbury [professor of physics at the University of California and director of the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory] came in to talk with Dryden, Ostrander and Finger about the Rover program. We are still trying to get John McCone into the corral on the organizational problems. Everybody has now agreed that our nomination of Harold Finger is the only sound one. McCone simply won't light long enough to deal with the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy as he should before public announcement is made. I left the office a little early - about 5:30 - because I was less than full of life.
Wednesday, August 17: I started off the morning with a talk to a group of people who are going to take part in a drive to encourage the purchase of United States Savings Bonds. I guess these things have to be done, but I wish my heart were a little more in tune with an activity of this kind. At 10 o'clock, I talked with Stans and Staats of the Budget Bureau. I told them of my difficulty in presenting them with a $1 billion budget that made any sense but expressed complete willingness to talk for several hours with staff members in order that they might get a complete picture of our dilemma. I think the budget at $1.23 billion is going to be tight.
I also told Stans about the communications satellite business and our determination to go into the active communications satellite program. He seemed to agree with this as long as we coordinated properly with the Defense Department. I have worked this out with Jim Douglas as I have said earlier, and I think there is no problem on this score.
[208] At 11:15, I met with the president and General Persons. I was asking the president to fly to Huntsville, Alabama, to dedicate the Marshall Space Flight Center on 9 September. He has the utmost respect for George Marshall and agreed to do it but wants it to take place on 8 September. This being my birthday, who am I to kick? I told the president about our determination on the communications satellite business, and he seemed in complete agreement. I discussed with the president my problems about the legislative changes Lyndon Johnson has thus far refused to bring to the Senate committee. The president said Lyndon was not to be trusted in any sense of the word but suggested that I keep after the matter. He recalled, too, that Lyndon had said the president's desires with respect to changes in the Space Act would be dealt with in a favorable fashion.
Returning to the office, I found Admiral Bennett waiting for me. We went over to Jack Hunt's Raw Bar for lunch where Jack took good care of us again. I talked with Rawson about the problems we were facing at Case with respect to the financing of our activities in the materials field. He may be able to do something for us in this matter. At 3:00 in the afternoon, Gleason and Jerry Siegel came in to see me. The latter is a research worker and soon will be teaching at the Harvard School of Business Administration. He was a member of the staff of the Senate committee at the time of the drafting of the Space Act. I was appealing to him to do whatever was necessary to assure Lyndon that we needed the changes in the act. Siegel does not agree with me on this matter but I think I convinced him that we had no ulterior motives - simply a desire to be sure that my successor had a good, operating organizational arrangement.
At home at 4:30 to be photographed with Ruth by Bob Quinlan of the [Cleveland] Plain Dealer. Apparently, the paper wants to do a full-page story on Ruth with some atmosphere provided by her husband and possibly by Sally. Sally did come home in time so that we were able to have some pictures made of her in Rock Creek Park. Tomorrow, Johnnie Simmons will arrive. Cora has just called from the West Coast to tell us that Gordon has gone over to Arcadia to bring him back for the night. It's his first trip away from his mother and his first airplane ride. He should arrive "full of beans."16
Thursday, August 18: The staff meeting this morning went rather rapidly. Nick Golovin did a fine job of presenting the reliability program. This is suspect from the start but must be carried through to a rational and, hopefully, successful conclusion. Everyone is a little fearful of its becoming a "fetish."17 At 11:00, three men from Westinghouse came in to tell us how much they wanted the orbiting astronomical observatory job. Lunch followed with General Ostrander. We talked [209] about a good many problems, including particularly those concerned with organizational arrangements. Don is not a forceful person but is thoughtful and considerate. I doubt that he chooses men as well as he might. At 2 o'clock, the Lockheed people came in to tell me how much they wanted the orbiting astronomical observatory. Later on, Hugh and I spent two hours discussing a variety of matters relating to organizational arrangements, program decisions, etc. The agreement with the Defense Department on the active communication satellite program has been found to be acceptable by staff people in the Pentagon. It is expected that it will be signed on Monday or Tuesday of next week.
A long discussion with John Johnson regarding the policy problems that will be involved in the further prosecution of the active communication satellite program proved to be interesting. He is thoughtful and somewhat stubborn. On the way home by 5:15 to find that Ruth and Johnnie had arrived safely from the airport. He seems to be in fine shape. A pleasant dinner was followed by a separation of forces - John and Sally drove down to the Watergate Concert at which the Navy Band was playing. They stayed through only half the concert and then took a little trip looking at the Capitol, the Marine statue, the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. Ruth and I managed to see Echo pass over twice tonight. I cannot get over the wonder of this experiment - 140 lbs. of a balloon, 100 feet in diameter, 1,000 miles above the surface of the earth and travelling almost 16,000 miles per hour. What a business!
Friday, August 19: Awakened to a call from Frank Phillips to tell me that the Soviets have launched something at 4:55 a.m. our time. No Russian announcement has been made as yet. We were certain they had something in orbit but not sure what it was.18 And yesterday the Air Force launched a Courier from Cape Canaveral - it blew up two and a half minutes later - and a Discoverer XIV from Vandenburg Air Force Base. Discoverer XIV went into orbit, and an attempt was made today to recover it. Let me say right now that it was recovered, successfully, in midair!19 Thus, for once, the Soviet Union is put into the shade even though it did put two dogs into orbit this morning. What a wonderful day! Now back to the business end of this activity - it was a very full morning. George Metcalf, a vice president of General Electric came in to tell me about his company's interest in the [210] possibility of developing a service to provide launching and data acquisition facilities for commercial use. General Electric is the company that has employed the Bechtel Corporation to search for a Pacific Ocean site suitable for launching satellites into an equatorial orbit. I called John Johnson in so that he might get some of the flavor of this expression of interest. It is obvious that there will be more questions raised about activities of this sort and we must be prepared to discuss them sensibly.
A lengthy discussion with Morris Tepper of the meteorological satellite program was most helpful to me. I am anxious that we bring together all of the organizations that make use of meteorological data so we can be as certain as possible that our satellite program makes good sense. Tepper seems to be a reasonably aggressive young man - he is a meteorologist in his own right. Naturally, each of these men likes to keep the program completely under his own control. I think we are making progress in this field, however. Bob King came in to talk about the agenda for tomorrow's program discussion and his planning for the first of the monthly meetings at which the administrator will be brought up-to-date on problems and schedule changes in each of the operating projects.
A lunch with Karl Harr was pleasant enough. Usually, he has a good many things about which he wants to give me advice - in a most helpful way, really. Today, he had nothing but praise for our program and the manner in which we are handling our relationships with the USIA, etc. At 1:30, Modarelli came in with nine different designs for a commemorative stamp I am trying to get the Post Office Department to issue in connection with our Echo Project. I have been on the phone trying to get [Postmaster General] Arthur Summerfield, but I find that he has gone to New York. Finally, I did reach him on his boat and have made a date to see one of his top aides on Monday morning.
As a followup on my Wednesday morning meeting with Stans, we had a session this afternoon with Messers. [William F.] Schaub, [Don D.] Cadle and one other from the Bureau of the Budget. I had them sit through a presentation of the Saturn problem and then told them that I was going to increase my request for FY 1962 by $20 million. This amount is somewhat less than is necessary to meet the requirements for Saturn - by about $6 million - but I think we can manage the absorption of some portion of the added requirement. I had been reluctant to give the Bureau of the Budget a program priced at $1 billion and I believe that we were able to show our guests the futility of attempting to approach the problem that way. What really will happen is yet to be determined, however. Hugh Dryden and I worked with Bob King and Al Siepert over the agenda for the Williamsburg conference. We cut it down by one day and have achieved a very much better balance and I think a better plan for the conference.20 That ended the discussion and nearly brought the day to an end.
[211] Dinner at home and a game of backgammon with John filled in the time until Echo came across the heavens once again.
Saturday, August 20: This being the 350th monthly anniversary of our marriage, I left in my bed when I went down to work a set of records for Ruth. These were Spanish language records and might help her in her studies. A large group assembled at the office at 8:30 and we had a six-hour discussion of various elements in the program. I think these program discussions are an excellent medium for bringing everyone up-to-date and providing for a much better understanding of objectives, both at the administrative and the technical level.
Back at home about 2 o'clock with nothing to do but loaf for the rest of the day. Word has just come in that the Soviet Union brought back to earth its satellite with the two dogs, live and well. The dispatch states that the capsule was brought back within six miles of the pre-designated spot. If this is the case, the Soviets really have achieved a significant advance. For a nation that has consistently put out propaganda by its most eminent scientists that the re-entry problem had not been solved, they are doing awfully well. As Ruth has said, it strikes us that the Soviet people - at least, their government - do not know the meaning of truthful discussion.
Sunday, August 21: Up at an early hour and off to Gettysburg to show John the battlefield. He seemed to enjoy the countryside through which we drove. It was a hot day but a pleasant one. We found a good place in the shade of some trees and among some large rocks for a "cook-out" breakfast. We did not do too much out at the battlefield but did enjoy the electric map that gave a graphic portrayal of the three-day battle described by tape recorder. Returning home in the afternoon, I attempted to get at some of my work but without much success. Edward Teller was on "Meet the Press" and did a rather outstanding job - one much more nearly objective than most of the discussions in which he engages. After some argument, I accompanied Ruth and the children to the Carter Barron outdoor amphitheater to witness and hear a performance by Victor Borge. He is really a very accomplished artist although I was not in a mood to enjoy the patter accompanying his rather amazing feats of piano magic. Home and in bed somewhat after midnight with the realization that everyone had to be up at 6:45 in the morning since Ruth and the kids were going to fly to Langley and then take a car over to Williamsburg for the afternoon.
Monday, August 22: This was a reasonable day - except for the fact that I was awakened at 4 o'clock in the morning by a reporter from the Journal-American in New York. I believe his name was Foley. He had a UP dispatch quoting me as saying that the U.S. far outstrips the Russians at the present time in space activity. Half asleep and very angry, I told him I would comment in the morning - that this was not a quotation from anything I had said and that I would have nothing further to say at the moment. I slammed up the receiver and was not bothered until 7 o'clock in the morning when Foley called me back. Apparently, a telecast I had taped with Senator Wiley of Wisconsin had been played on Sunday in that area and, in [212] commenting on the beneficial aspects of space research, I had said that the United States was far ahead of Russia. Actually, this is a fact. Of course, the newspaper men wanted to stretch this into a controversial statement in the face of the Saturday accomplishment of the Russians in bringing back to earth their Sputnik V with the animals. I am not sure that I accomplished my purpose with Foley in straightening him out, but at least I tried.
I visited Roy Walker, staff assistant and public relations man for Postmaster General Arthur Summerfleld, to talk with him about the possibility of issuing a commemorative stamp on Echo I.21 After a thorough discussion of the problems that face the Post Office in matters of this kind, he led me to believe that such a stamp might be issued for us. Fortunately, I had asked some of our people to suggest some designs, one of which seemed to please Walker. At least, he asked me to prepare a statement for Summerfield and one by myself explaining to the public the reason for issuing the stamp. Hopefully, this can be done - the issuance, I mean, during the month of November.22
George Kistiakowsky was back from his vacation, and I visited with him for three-quarters of an hour. I brought him up to date on the communications business and discussed at some length the problems of inadequate knowledge on our part of what the Discoverer satellites and the state of knowledge of other branches of the government might be on space activities, both at home and abroad. At noon, joined by Al Siepert and Al Hodgson, I was the guest of former Governor Leo Hoegh [of Iowa], who is now the director of the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization. We flew by helicopter to the relocation center to which I have been assigned in event of serious enemy action. This was an amazing experience. I came away in much the same mood as I have from recent visits to atomic energy installations. The amount of money, thought and genius that has gone into the creation of these elements in our developing national strength is distressing when one considers that its entire purpose is defensive or destructive. Nevertheless, it must be done and I am of the opinion that this one is a good exercise.
Back at the office at 4:30 to visit with Hugh Dryden and others about some of our problems arising out of the Russian accomplishment. We are going to lay on a discussion with several of our people to try to fathom the methods of operation now being employed by the Russians. Naturally, we have little or nothing to go on except our own reasoning of the events so sketchily described by the Russians. At home about a quarter of six to wash the dishes, make the beds and prepare the apartment for the return of the prodigal's family members following their day at Langley Research Center and Williamsburg. Perhaps I'll have a chance to get some of my own work done before the evening is over.
[213] Tuesday, August 23: This morning wasn't too bad. The usual early morning discussions and then at 10:30, Steve Bechtel of the Bechtel Corporation and several of his people came in to talk about their interest in making available their services to NASA. Note how I stated that - it is exactly as stated by Bechtel. This is not intended to be a derogatory statement. Certainly, his discussion of the manner in which they handle their jobs was most interesting. An extremely successful contracting firm operating in a variety of heavy construction and engineering fields, Bechtel Corporation is one of the great success stories of the land. It is really a pleasure to listen to this sort of presentation.23
At 11:15, Kistiakowsky, [Richard] Bissell, Dryden and I talked about a variety of problems that are classified.24 Suffice to say that they were concerned with matters that took place during the past two weeks.
Lunch at 12:30 with Dick Harkness was a difficult one. Dick had asked me to lunch with him because he wanted to seek my cooperation in a project. Imagine my surprise when he told me that NBC was planning to do a one-hour television show on the U-2 after the election. He had a series of questions prepared by his New York office that he showed to me. They revealed a desire to get at the sort of confused issues that had never been wholly explained - and probably never will be completely explained. As may seem evident to the readers of this chronicle, I reacted by saying that I could see no reason for such a show. What was the purpose? Dick could not give me an answer. The tenor of the questions suggested that the goal was to have a show with wide audience appeal. My own conviction is that where espionage is involved - even though acknowledged espionage - nothing is gained by further discussion of an issue of this kind. Allen Dulles is to be interviewed by Harkness on this same question. It will be interesting to see what his reaction is.
Back at the office for a discussion of the necessity for the undertaking of research on environmental simulation devices. I happen to believe that we really don't know as much as we should about the technology involved. However, the staff concerned - and there are some good people involved - are convinced that the only way to acquire this technology is through actual construction of an increasingly larger and increasingly more complex series of environmental test chambers. This whole discussion was triggered by complaints of Litton Industries that we were so poorly organized that we couldn't deal properly with a proposal they have made for research of this kind. After about an hour's talk on the subject, I concluded that we had better avoid undertaking a research program for which the staff had little desire. Only one man stood out for the type of research under discussion and he was asked to prepare a proposal, a work statement, for further consideration by Dryden and myself.
[214] At 4 o'clock, Bonney, [Chief of the News Division Joseph] Stein, Ostrander, Gleason and others came in for a discussion of the program for the proposed Marshall Space Flight Center dedication, which is now scheduled for 8 September. I had envisaged a very brief and closely held operation - closely held in the sense of having it completely within the confines of the Redstone Arsenal and without a great deal of fanfare. Imagine my surprise to learn that this had now grown to the point where the president would land at the Huntsville city airport and would drive in a motorcade to the arsenal. Reason - 70,000 people of Huntsville would have an opportunity to see the president of the United States for the first time. Some 67 legislators would be invited, the governor would be invited to speak briefly, city and county officials would be invited, etc. Finally, it appears as though these matters are well understood by people such as Jim Hagerty and others in the public information and press relations operations of the White House. I gave in, regretfully.
At 5 o'clock, Gilruth, Silverstein, Low, North, Mengel, Dryden, Kistiakowsky and I discussed the Mercury project and the possible implications of the recent Russian success in recovering their dogs. An hour of discussion brought forth no new light on the subject, but we did reaffirm our determination to proceed with our program with a strong sense of urgency but without hysteria. Coming home a little bit late, I found things in good shape for a dinner with Congressman and Mrs. Albert Thomas. It may be remembered that Albert is the Chairman of the subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee that deals with our money bill. I cooked a steak on the grill and it turned out to be excellent. Ruth had one of her usual fine dinners, which elicited much favorable comment from the Thomases. It was a good evening and I continue to have some admiration for the congressman.
Wednesday, August 24: This day started off with an hour and a half of photography. Yousuf Karsh of Ottawa, Canada, came in to make a series of color and black and white photographs of me, presumably for use on the cover of the Sunday magazine, Parade. If it is like any of the other of these accumulations of material to be presented in magazines, this will gather dust in the files. But it was an interesting experience. It is obvious that Karsh is an artist of great ability. At luncheon with the people of the National Geographic Society, he was described as the successor to the mantle of [Edward] Steichen and probably greater than Steichen ever was. I found myself at complete ease with him; this speaks volumes as compared with the experiences I have had with other cameramen or photographers.
Off to the Hill for a filmed interview with Congressman Riehlman of New York. This went very well and allowed me to get to the next appointment a little bit early. This was with Congressman Lindsay of New York, who is a freshman congressman. It was a matter of discussing with Lindsay the space program of NASA and the United States, and I found it enjoyable. Not very stimulating though! Lunch at the National Geographic [Society] with Dryden and Thomas McKnew [executive vice president and secretary of the Society] was a pleasant experience. We did a short tour of the building afterwards and found the usual progressive professional activities being carried out.
[215] Back at the office at 1:45 for a meeting with Hodgson, Jack Young and one other man from McKinsey and Co. We are coming down the home stretch on the report of the advisory committee on organization and I wanted to get some ideas across to Young before the report gets too far crystalized. It was a useful discussion.
At 3 o'clock, Dr. Si Ramo of Thompson-Ramo-Wooldridge came in for a pleasant 60-minute conversation. Si was doing a fine job of giving me the soft sell on three projects in which I have really great interest. It was a good discussion and I think I may have aroused his interest in coming to Washington - provided Nixon is elected.
In between times today, I have been over to the White House twice to try and get settled the important matters relating to the president's visit to Huntsville. This is a very complicated procedure and requires coordination at every turn of the road. What is most important at the present time is to secure a final sign-off from the president to the effect that he is actually going to make the trip. It appears that he will; I hope I can get this settled tomorrow.
Thursday, August 25: This morning we had a staff meeting that was quite uneventful. I had planned to be at the meeting of the Naval Research Advisory Committee (NRAC) at the David Taylor Model Basin (DTMB) for the entire day. This did not work out. There was much to be done about the trip to Huntsville and during the course of the day, it was decided and announced that the president would be there on 8 September - my birthday. Now comes the rest of the mechanism necessary to a trip of this sort. It is really quite an operation. Arrangements must be made to take along the White House correspondents, give them ample time to reach Huntsville before the president arrives, provide them with a special location for their cameras and writing tables, provide trucks to allow them to precede the president to the various places on the reservation where he will stop for inspection. How he stands it, I will never know.
Finally, at about 12 o'clock, I dashed off to the DTMB for lunch. I stayed through an hour and a half of discussion in the afternoon and then came back to the office to try and clear the desk once more. At 6:45, I boarded the USS Sequoia for dinner with the NRAC crowd. It was a pleasant evening with Arleigh Burke assuming the role of moderator of a long and serious discussion. Home at 11:30 to find that Ruth had finished most of the packing and was really pretty well prepared for the morrow.
Friday, August 26: Up at 6:30 and helped with the breakfast while Ruth finished up the last bit of packing and making of sandwiches for lunch, etc. They had planned to be off at 8 o'clock and actually made it about 8:05.25 Arriving at the office, I called General Persons to alert him to the necessity for asking Mrs. Marshall [if she would be willing to travel to Huntsville for the ceremony of dedicating the space flight center to her husband]. He begged off and suggested that I do it instead [216] in order not to put too much pressure on Mrs. Marshall of the type that would occur were the invitation to come from the White House from such an old friend of the general's. So be it. I reached Mrs. Marshall's daughter on Nantucket Island late in the evening and will get an answer from Mrs. Marshall next week. It begins to look as though Ruth will not have to make the trip.
I did get over to the NRAC meeting this morning, which started out with Admiral "Red" Raborn [director of the Polaris program] giving us a briefing on the Polaris weapon system. He is a positive, optimistic and extremely confident man. Perhaps he ought to be! The rest of the morning was given over to an executive committee meeting, and I must say I have considerable respect for the way this particular advisory committee works. Hugh and I had lunch at the White House mess and then back for a meeting at 2 o'clock with several of the people from the office of launch vehicle programs and the office of space flight programs. I am concerned about the Saturn project and the necessity for pushing it ahead of a variety of other activities. If, indeed, the spacecraft will be ready for the Saturn, we ought to move ahead without hesitation. On the other hand, it appears that the Saturn is really destined principally for manned space flight and some of the more difficult space science missions. I am not at all sure that these craft will be ready to be flown on the Saturn. As a result of the discussion, I asked to have such a group established for the purpose of integrating the planning on Saturn, man-in-space beyond Project...
[217] ....Mercury, and the other activities requiring thrust of the sort we should get from Project Saturn.
At 4 o'clock, some of our friends from "down the street" came in to talk about the Russian landing of the space capsule with the dogs. This is still an enigma to most of us but there are some reasonably good theories about the variety of the circumstances surrounding this flight. Back home at 6 o'clock to an empty apartment and the "thrill" of making the beds, washing the dishes, etc. Oh well, it won't be for too long a period, anyway. During the course of the day, it became quite apparent that Congress is not going to stay in session for many more days. This means that our legislative amendments will not be handled this session and thus a great deal of work goes down the drain. My successor will certainly have quite a task to convince Congress that it should take up this bill in the early days of the next session. There has been so much work done on the part of the House of Representatives, however, that it may be that he can get it through that body without too much trouble. Surely, the patent clause will cause some debate once more and it may well be that we will lose it on this second run. This might be a good time for me to say something about the political campaign. I have tried to see Dick Nixon for several days now to bring him up to data on our program and to talk with him about the necessity for the legislative amendment actions I have been trying to force upon Lyndon Johnson. All this without any success; the vice president is very busy, of course. It appears to me as though Kennedy and Johnson are not doing too well with this session of Congress and that their stock has drifted downward while Nixon's has begun to rise. This is an impression but one that seems to me to suggest the Democrats are going to have to work pretty hard on this one. My discussions with Lyndon Johnson continue to give me respect for the man as a politician, a recognition of his great desire for power, an appreciation of and for his willingness to put the important needs of the country before his own desires and generally a concern over what he would do were he to be elected president. I question seriously whether he would make a very good president even though I think he is a better man than Kennedy.
Tomorrow, I am off to the West Coast for a couple of days. I look forward to next week since it will be the beginning of a new era at NASA. Bob Seamans will be on board!
Saturday, August 27: Up at a reasonable hour and over to Walter Reed hospital to see Herb York. At age 39, he had himself a heart attack - a coronary thrombosis - and then found himself in a good deal of trouble with reactions to antibiotics. He is now on the mend but will be out of action for at least two more months. He seemed very cheerful and resigned to his enforced idleness. I suspect he will do a fair amount of work from his telephone at home. Off to the airport and the flight to the West Coast. I had refrained from taking any cocktails - simply had a glass of wine with my meal - and felt fine when I arrived. Gordon and Cora joined me at the Knoxes for dinner with Tom and Martha, Rosella and one other. It was an exceedingly pleasant evening and the chicken was just right. As of tonight, no indications of a new Glennan [meaning his first grandchild]!
[218] Sunday, August 28: A reasonably good night's sleep and up at 9 o'clock to talk with Cordon and Cora. At 11:00 I dashed off to Los Feliz to be with Tom and Martha and the Knoxes for the rest of the day. Tom and I indulged in a two hour discussion that might have been termed an argument. He was defending the government's practice of employing organizations such as the Rand Corporation to do operational analysis and long range studies. I was not really arguing that point - rather I was trying to convince him that Rand should not be allowed to out-bid governmental organizations for good people. His reply was a pragmatic one: if the government couldn't handle the situation within its own regulations, it should not be deprived of the good offices of an organization such as Rand. I think I must admit to carrying the argument to some lengths without real conviction but I am convinced that an answer to this problem must one day be had. Perhaps these university and non-profit institutions are a necessary part of the present scene. Perhaps the government can never provide the right kind of an atmosphere for the people whose advice it must have. If this be the case, then Rand and others should have a brilliant future. With no responsibility for their decisions or their recommendations, they can go on dreaming and recommending and perhaps influencing the course of history by a measurable amount. Not a bad job if you can get it!
Monday, August 29: Up at 7 o'clock and a pleasant breakfast with Gordon and Cora before Tom picked me up at a quarter of nine. We drove over to the University of Southern California campus where the Aerospace Corporation, the Ballistic Missile Division of the Air Force, and the Space Technology Laboratories were sponsoring a ballistic missiles and space symposium for the fifth year in a row. I had appeared on this program last year and had talked rather bluntly about the desirability of taking a more realistic view of our shortcomings in the space business. Today, I am the luncheon speaker and I have chosen to avoid discussing program matters and to talk about philosophy and the reasons behind the program we presently are following. The audience was very responsive and I felt well repaid for the effort.
Immediately after lunch, Tommie drove me down to our West Coast operations office and I called on Bob Kamm. He has been deathly ill and certainly looks it. He lost some fifty pounds and is slowly regaining his strength. It appears that he will be back at the office in another three or four weeks. Dick Horner came by and we drove together over to Jimmie Doolittle's for a cocktail with a good many friends from the Ballistic Missile Division and the Space Technology Laboratories. Dick then took me to dinner at the Miramar and finally deposited me at the airport at 9:30 where I waited until midnight for my plane.
Tuesday, August 30: We arrived on time this morning but without very much sleep. I drove on home and went to bed for a couple of hours after which I felt reasonably well refreshed. There wasn't much on my schedule for the day but I did manage to make a United Giver's Fund luncheon for which I received a very kind letter from Bob Anderson who is chairman of the UGF drive for this year. The afternoon was spent in discussions with a variety of people - nothing of very great interest. Home at 5:30 and my usual diet dinner, which didn't enthuse me very much.
[219] Wednesday, August 31: The last day of the month and only four and a half months remaining in this maelstrom! I had several meetings during the day - none of them very exciting. At 3 o'clock I answered a good many questions put to me by Mr. Fred Blumenthal of Parade magazine. It appears that I am to have the cover spot on 23 October, and they want some sort of a question and answer story to go with the physiognomy.26 During the course of the day I became very much concerned about the inability of some of our people to understand problems relating to control mechanisms such as report systems, etc. It does appear that our technically-minded people need a good bit of assistance in this area. I guess one shouldn't get too excited about it but I mean to have a whack at the problem before too many days have passed. Back home at 5:30 to another diet dinner and then some reading.
1. Actually, it was the Juno I that launched Explorer I on 31 January 1958. Like Juno II (see note 2 below), it employed Sergeant rockets for its upper stages but used a modified Redstone rather than an extended Jupiter as its first stage. As the name would suggest, both launch vehicles were in the same family of rockets. (NASA Historical Data Book, Vol. II, pp. 46-47.)
2. Juno II consisted of an extended Jupiter intermediate-range ballistic missile (developed by the ABMA in the 1950s) as its first stage. This was a liquid-fueled booster powered by a Rocketdyne engine. The second, third, and fourth stages of the launch vehicle consisted respectively of 11, 3, and 1 scaled-down, clustered Sergeant solid-fueled rockets (developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory). Because of the separate development of the liquid and solid stages, Marshall and JPL had shared responsibility for Juno II until this decision by Glennan. As he states, the launch vehicle had had poor results, its total record being only 3 successful missions in 10 attempts. Once Marshall took over full responsibility, the record improved from 1 successful launch (Explorer 7) in 6 attempts under joint responsibility to 2 successful launches (Explorers 8 and 11) in 4 attempts. Nevertheless, NASA replaced Juno II with the Scout launch vehicle (developed by Langley Research Center) as the primary launcher for the Explorer series. (NASA Historical Data Book, Vol. II, pp. 46-48, 61.)
3. The apparent result of this effort was a paper entitled "Managing Major New Technologies," prepared by Walter D. Sohier, NASA assistant general counsel, dated 1 Oct. 1960. It is available in a folder marked "Federal Council on Science and Technology" in the Glennan subsection of the NASA Historical Reference Collection and ranges widely over a whole series of problems and issues having to do with organization, management, and operations. On this paper, see also diary entry for 10 Sept.
4. Whitman remained science advisor to the secretary of state through 1963. According to Allan A. Needell, who has researched the subject, Brode angered many scientists by putting foreign policy concerns ahead of purely scientific ones. This may have been what Glennan was referring to here.
5. On the contracting report, which McKinsey & Co. completed in October 1960, see Rosholt, Administrative History of NASA, pp. 154-160.
6. On 29 July 1960 an Atlas launch vehicle carrying an unmanned Mercury capsule exploded about a minute after launch from Cape Canaveral. (James M. Grimwood, Project Mercury: A Chronology [Washington, DC: NASA SP-4001, 1963], pp. 105-106.) This was not the only setback for Project Mercury, but on 5 May 1961 Alan Shepard completed NASA's first suborbital mission, and on 20 February 1962, John Glenn carried out NASA's first manned orbital mission. While Mercury showed that "final launch preparations took far more time than anyone had anticipated in 1958 to ensure perfect readiness and reliability of the machines and men," for a total cost of a bit more than $400 million the project prepared the way for Gemini and Apollo. (Swenson, Grimwood, and Alexander, This New Ocean, pp. 352-358, 422-434, 505-511, quotation from p. 508.)
7. A former president of Ohio Wesleyan University, he became president of the University of Oregon in 1961.
8. On Project Nimbus, see note 7 of Chapter Eight.
9. See note 17 of Chapter Eight for background.
10. This evidently is a reference to the orbiting astronomical observatories project. Langley had done a preliminary study of the concept in May of 1958. In February 1960, NASA assigned technical management of the project to Goddard Space Flight Center. In October of the same year, NASA announced plans to negotiate with Grumman for a contract to build a 1360-kilogram observatory, with that firm getting a subsequent contract for follow-on satellites and subcontracting their subsystems. The first observatory was launched successfully and entered a circular orbit on 8 April 1966, but after 22 orbits, its power system failed before it could return any data. On 7 December 1968 the second observatory was launched successfully and placed in orbit. All systems and experiments functioned as planned, and the spacecraft provided a great deal of information on ultraviolet, gamma ray, x-ray, and infrared radiation; the structure of stars; and the distribution and density of the interstellar medium. (NASA Historical Data Book, Vol. II, pp. 259-262.)
11. NASA appears never to have established a life sciences center per se, but there were fairly extensive activities at both Ames Research Center and the later Johnson Space Flight Center. See Hartman, Adventures in Research, pp. 321-323, 426-428, 478-485, and 500-503; and John A. Pitts, The Human Factor: Biomedicine in the Manned Space Program to 1980 (Washington, DC: NASA SP-4213, 1985), passim.
12. With Major Robert M. White (USAF) at the controls, the X-15 established a new altitude record for a manned vehicle of 136,500 feet on 12 August 1960 - more than 10,000 feet higher than the previous record for the X-2 on 7 September 1956. And the first man-made object recovered from an orbiting satellite was the 85-pound, instrumented capsule from Discoverer XIII. It was retrieved from the ocean off Hawaii after 16 orbits on 11 August 1960. (Emme, Aeronautics and Astronautics . . . 1915-1960, p. 126.) The Discoverer program consisted of a series of research satellites launched by the DOD. It tested components, propulsion, and guidance systems and techniques for later use in various U.S. space projects, according to a report issued at the time. (NASA, Third Annual Report in the Fields of Aeronautics and Space, p. 24.) Its most important mission, however, was as a reconnaissance satellite, part of the Air Force effort to develop a spy satellite to replace the U-2 in the 1960s. The purpose of the Discoverer program in general was to determine the best way to employ cameras on satellites and recover the film after it had been exposed. Discoverer XIII and XIV, the latter launched on 18 August 1960, recorded some revealing photographs of Soviet territory. (Robert A. Divine, The Sputnik Challenge: Eisenhower's Response to the Soviet Satellite [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993], pp. 11, 190.)
13. This was the Syncom communications satellite project on which Hughes had been working since 1958. On 16 August 1960, Hughes made a presentation to NASA and Glennan suggested the company pursue the idea further with the goal of obtaining experience in using such satellites in synchronous orbit. Syncom 1 was launched on 14 February 1963. It achieved orbit, but communications with the satellite lasted only 20 seconds. Syncom 2 and Syncom 3, launched on 26 July 1963 and 19 August 1964, were successful; thereafter, NASA transferred the Syncom system to the DOD. (NASA Historical Data Book, Vol. II, pp. 378-384.)
14. As emerges below, Polly and Kady had summer jobs at the shore. The MacGregors were evidently family friends of the Glennans.
15. The Kallio bust was the one used in the dedication ceremony. See photos below in the next chapter. (Ltr., T. Keith Glennan to Forrest C. Pogue, Director of the Research Center, George C. Marshall Research Foundation, 14 September 1960, Marshall Space Flight Center folder, Glennan subsection, NASA Historical Reference Collection.) Pogue, the famous biographer of Marshall, called the bust to NASA's attention.
16. See above, entry for July 25 and notes 10 and 11 to Chapter Eight.
17. As originally established, the program had as its objectives to "measure the reliability of existing components, to determine what had to be done technically to increase reliability, and to devise a method for assuring that what should be done was done." There were supposed to be individually-tailored programs for each system, implemented by field centers and NASA contractors under the guidance of reliability steering committees. (Rosholt, Administrative History of NASA, p. 149 n. 134.)
18. This was initially called Spacecraft II and later designated Sputnik V, a satellite weighing 10,120 pounds and containing 2 dogs, mice, rats, flies, plants, fungi, seeds, etc. Designed to test the capsule and recovery system for development of manned space flight, the satellite was recovered after 18 orbits on 20 August, having travelled 437,500 miles. (Emme, Aeronautics and Astronautics . . . 1915-1960, p. 149; Satellite Situation Report, 31 August 1960, NASA Historical Reference Collection.)
19. Discoverer XIV weighed 300 pounds and was designed, according to information available publicly at the time, to gather data on propulsion, communications, orbital performance, stabilization, and recovery techniques, just like Discoverer XIII. On 19 August, as Glennan states in part, an Air Force C-119 transport recovered the satellite from midair at 10,000 feet, the first such recovery of an object from space. The Courier was designated IA and was a communications satellite that failed to orbit due to the premature shutdown of the first stage of the Thor-Able-Star launch vehicle. (Emme, Aeronautics and Astronautics . . . 1915-1960, pp. 126, 149.) On Discoverer's role as a reconnaissance satellite, see note 10.
20. See entry for 16 October 1960 below in diary.
21. "Roy Walker" is probably a transcription error for L. Rohe Walter, Special Assistant to the Postmaster General (Public Relations), with whom Glennan later corresponded on this issue.
22. As discussed below in the diary, the stamp was issued 15 December 1960.
23. By FY 1963 Bechtel had become one of NASA's top 100 contractors. (NASA Historical Data Book, Vol. I, p. 211.)
24. Glennan identified Bissell as a CIA employee who handled the U-2 program and also was involved, he believed, with the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in April 1961 during the early Kennedy administration. (Comments on draft Ms. of this chapter, June 1993.)
25. They apparently went to Cleveland. See the entry for 2 September.
26. The interview did appear in Parade on 23 October 1960. (Glennan biographical file, Glennan subsection, NASA Historical Reference Collection.)
