17. Jean Edward Smith, Eisenhower: In War and Peace (New York: Random House, 2012), 640.
18. Smith, Eisenhower, 641.
19. Smith, Eisenhower, 643.
20. Osgood, Total Cold War, 71.
21. Osgood, Total Cold War, 71–75; David Callahan and Fred I. Greenstein, “Eisenhower and U.S. Space Policy,” in Spaceflight and the Myth of Presidential Leadership, ed. Roger Launius and Howard McCurdy (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997), 19–20.
22. Before 1953, a host of government agencies and private institutions took part in propaganda and psychological warfare studies and operations planning. The Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense, the State Department, and the White House, along with private institutions and universities, took part in immediate postwar propaganda and psychological warfare practices. The State Department handled the majority of overt and public propaganda, and the CIA organized covert propaganda programming.
23. Although the Jackson Committee recommended consolidating information activities under State Department jurisdiction, Eisenhower created an independent agency. The USIA officially came into being on August 1, 1953. Osgood, Total Cold War, 54–55, 88–89; Nicholas Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency: American Propaganda and Public Diplomacy, 1945–1989 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 94–96; Callahan and Greenstein, “Eisenhower and U.S. Space Policy,” 20.
24. A public affairs officer (PAO), working under the direction of the US ambassador, ran each post. Information officers, who primarily dealt with the local press and radio, and cultural affairs officers, who were in charge of working with local educational and cultural leaders, assisted these PAOs. Thomas Sorensen, remarks before the NASA Office of Public Information Staff Conference, June 27, 1961, Box 5, Entry P 243RG 306, NARA.
25. Sorensen remarks.
26. Osgood, Total Cold War, 98.
27. Cull, The Cold War, 101.
28. Osgood, Total Cold War, 74–75; Callahan and Greenstein, “Eisenhower and U.S. Space Policy,” 19–20.
29. Francis H. Clauser et al., “Preliminary Design of an Experimental World-Circling Spaceship,” Report No. SM-11827 (Santa Monica, CA: Douglas Aircraft Company, Santa Monica Plant Engineering Division, May 2, 1946).
30. McDougall, The Heavens and the Earth, 108.
31. Paul Kecskemeti, “The Satellite Rocket Vehicle: Political and Psychological Problems,” RAND RM-567, October 4, 1950. See also McDougall, The Heavens and the Earth, 108.
32. Walter Sullivan, “James A. Van Allen, Discoverer of Earth-Circling Radiation Belts, Is Dead at 91,” New York Times, August 10, 2006, C14.
33. “L. V. Berkner Dies,” New York Times, June 5, 1967, 43.
34. Teasel Muir-Harmony, “Tracking Diplomacy: The International Geophysical Year and American Scientific and Technical Exchange with East Asia, 1955–1973,” in Globalizing Polar Science: Reconsidering the International Polar and Geophysical Year, ed. Roger Launius, James Fleming, and David DeVorkin (New York: Palgrave, 2010).
35. Lloyd V. Berkner, Douglas Merritt Whitaker, and the National Research Council, Science and Foreign Relations: International Flow of Scientific and Technological Information, Federal Foreign Policy Series 30 (Washington, DC: US Department of State, 1950); Allan A. Needell, Science, Cold War, and the American State: Lloyd V. Berkner and the Balance of Professional Ideals (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic, 2000), 299; Audra J. Wolfe, Freedom’s Laboratory: The Cold War Struggle for the Soul of Science (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018), 44–45.
36. In the end, sixty-seven nations employed some four thousand research stations around the world during the IGY. The United States National Committee for the IGY fell under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), an honorific society of American scientists. The United States funded roughly one-fourth of the $2 billion cost of the entire program, with some of this financial support coming from the CIA. And Berkner and Chapman, who both attended Van Allen’s dinner party, served as president and vice president of the US National Committee, respectively. At first, the IGY organizing committee targeted nine areas of scientific research: meteorology, latitude and longitude determinations, geomagnetism, the ionosphere, aurora and airglow, solar activity, cosmic ray, glaciology, and oceanography. The committee added the launching of artificial satellites to the program for the support of geodetic and atmospheric studies of the Earth. Allan Needell, “Lloyd Berkner and the International Geophysical Year Proposal in Context,” in Globalizing Polar Science: Reconsidering the International Polar and Geophysical Years, ed. Roger Launius, James Fleming, and David DeVorkin (New York: Palgrave, 2010), 217; Needell, Science, 299. Roger Launius, “Toward the Poles,” in Globalizing Polar Science: Reconsidering the International Polar and Geophysical Years, ed. Roger Launius, James Fleming, and David DeVorkin (New York: Palgrave, 2010), 67; W. Patrick McCray, Keep Watching the Skies! The Story of Operation Moonwatch & the Dawn of the Space Age (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008), 58–63; McDougall, The Heavens and the Earth, 118–120; Osgood, “Before Sputnik,” 205.
37. Grosse to Quarles, August 25, 1953, in Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in the History of the U.S. Civil Space Program, ed. John M. Logsdon et al. (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1995), 1:236–244, 1:267–269; Osgood, “Before Sputnik,” 202–203.
38. Frederick I. Ordway II and Mitchell R. Sharpe, The Rocket Team (New York: Crowell, 1979), 376.
39. McDougall, The Heavens and the Earth, 119.
40. Osgood, “Before Sputnik,” 203; Dwayne A. Day, “Cover Stories and Hidden Agendas: Early American Space and National Security Policy,” in Reconsidering Sputnik: Forty Years Since the Soviet Satellite, ed. Roger Launius, John Logsdon, and Robert W. Smith (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic, 2000), 163-165.
41. MacDougall, The Heavens and the Earth, 108–111.
42. Historian Kenneth Osgood makes this point in Osgood, “Before Sputnik,” 205. See also Zuoyue Wang, In Sputnik’s Shadow: The President’s Science Advisory Committee and Cold War America (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2009), 49–54.
43. “Donald A. Quarles,” Washington Post, May 9, 1959, A8.
44. Jack Raymond, “Quarles Dies in Sleep at 64; McElroy May Now Stay On,” New York Times, May 9, 1969, 1.
45. “Mild Man Up in Arms: Donald Aubrey Quarles,” New York Times, March 27, 1957, 20.
46. “Donald A. Quarles,” A8.
47. Day, “Cover Stories,” 166.
48. Siddiqi, Red Rockets’ Glare, 320–322.
49. Henry Kissinger, White House Years (Boston: Little, Brown, 1979), 4.
50. Richard Norton Smith, On His Own Terms: A Life of Nelson Rockefeller (New York: Random House, 2014), 29.
51. “Memorandum of Discussion at the 250th Meeting of the National Security Council, Washington, May 26, 1955,” FRUS, 1955–1957, vol. XI, United Nations and General International Matters, Document 341.
52. Annex B, Memorandum from the President’s Special Assistant (Rockefeller) to the Executive Secretary of the National Security Council (Lay), May 17, 1955, draft in the White House; Memorandum of Discussion. See also Osgood, “Before Sputnik,” 208.
53. McDougall, The Heavens and the Earth, 120–121.
54. The report’s guidelines for a US scientific satellite program were in line with many of Rockefeller’s recommendations. In addition to not interfering with military ballistic missile and reconnaissance satellite development, the scientific satellite program should demonstrate the United States’ peaceful intentions in space, according to the council. To accomplish this, the satellites should be launched during the IGY and collect valuable scientific data. National Security Council Report 5520, May 20, 1955, FRUS, 1955–1957, vol. XI, United Nations and General International Matters, Document 340. See also Osgood, Total Cold War, 328–329.
55. “Memorandum of Discussion.”
56. William I. Hitchcock, The Age of Eisenhower: America a
nd the World in the 1950s (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2018), 268–272.
57. Smith, On His Own Terms, 239–242.
58. Quoted in Osgood, Total Cold War, 192–198.
59. Siddiqi, Red Rockets’ Glare, 322–323.
60. R. Cargill Hall, “The Origins of U.S. Space Policy: Eisenhower, Open Skies, and Freedom of Space,” Colloquy 14 (December 1993): 17. Press release, statement by White House Press Secretary James C. Hagerty on earth-circling satellites as part of IGY program, July 29, 1955, Records of the President, Official Files, Box 624, OF 146-E International Geophysical Year (1), NAID #16646172.
61. Research and Reference Service West European Public Opinion Barometer Study, September 29, 1955, Box 4, Folder “WE-17,” RG 306, Entry 1010, NARA.
62. John Hillaby, “Soviet Planning Early Satellite,” New York Times, August 3, 1955, 8; “Russians Claim They’ll Launch First Satellite,” Los Angeles Times, August 3, 1955, 11; Siddiqi, Red Rockets’ Glare, 323.
63. Siddiqi, Red Rockets’ Glare, 324.
64. Asif Siddiqi, “Korolev, Sputnik and the IGY,” in Reconsidering Sputnik: Forty Years Since the Soviet Satellite, ed. Roger Launius, John Logsdon, and Robert W. Smith (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic, 2000), 49–50.
65. Siddiqi, Red Rockets’ Glare, 324–331.
66. The Stewart Committee’s decision is treated in depth in Michael J. Neufeld, “Orbiter, Overflight, and the First Satellite: New Light on the Vanguard Decision,” in Reconsidering Sputnik: Forty Years Since the Soviet Satellite, ed. Roger D. Launius, John M. Logsdon, and Robert W. Smith (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic, 2000), 231–257. On the Eisenhower administration’s broader approach to early space policy, see McDougall, The Heavens and the Earth, 122.
67. “Memorandum of Discussion at the 322nd Meeting of the National Security Council, Washington, DC, May 10, 1957,” FRUS, 1955–1957, United Nations and General International Matters, vol. XI.
68. Osgood, “Before Sputnik,” 206, 219.
69. Korolev, quoted in Siddiqi, “Korolev, Sputnik and the IGY,” 56.
70. Siddiqi, “Korolev, Sputnik and the IGY,” 56–57.
71. The quality of Sputnik’s surface was important for reflecting heat and ground tracking, but polishing the mock-up’s surface was an aesthetic priority, not an engineering one. James J. Harford, “Korolev’s Triple Play: Sputniks 1, 2, and 3,” in Reconsidering Sputnik: Forty Years Since the Soviet Satellite, ed. Roger Launius, John M. Logsdon, and Robert W. Smith (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic, 2000), 81–82.
CHAPTER 2: SPUTNIK AND THE POLITICS OF SPACEFLIGHT, 1957
1. Benjamin Fine, “Arkansas Troops Bar Negro Pupils,” New York Times, September 5, 1957, 1; Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights, 119; National Park Service, “Little Rock Central High School: National Historic Site,” www.nps.gov/articles/little-rock-central-high-school-501428.htm#4/35.46/-98.57.
2. Odd Arne Westad, The Cold War: A World History (New York: Basic Books, 2017), 277; Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights, 118–125; Cull, The Cold War, 147.
3. John Foster Dulles, quoted in Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights, 118.
4. Robert Divine, The Sputnik Challenge: Eisenhower’s Response to the Soviet Satellite (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).
5. Paul Dickson, Sputnik: The Shock of the Century (New York: Walker, 2007), 12.
6. Anton L. Hales, “Lloyd Viel Berkner,” in Biographical Memoirs (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1992), 61:3.
7. Walter Sullivan, “Soviet Embassy Guests Hear of Satellite from an American as Russians Beam,” New York Times, October 5, 1957, 3; Dickson, Sputnik, 12–13.
8. Lyndon B. Johnson, Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963–1969 (New York: Random House, 1971), 272; Robert Caro, Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson (New York: Knopf, 2002), 1021; Dickson, Sputnik, 18.
9. Caro, Master of the Senate, 1022.
10. Divine, The Sputnik Challenge, xiv.
11. Dickson, Sputnik, 9.
12. “The Impact of ‘Sputnik’ upon the Press of Western Europe,” October 18, 1957, Box 9, Entry P 243, RG 306, NARA.
13. McDougall, The Heavens and the Earth, 143.
14. Quoted in Cull, The Cold War, 135.
15. Vance C. Pace oral history interview by David Reuther, May 15, 2015, the Association of Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, 13.
16. Cathleen Lewis, “The Red Stuff: A History of the Public and Material Culture of Early Human Spaceflight in the U.S.S.R.” (PhD diss., George Washington University, 2008), 45.
17. Khrushchev, quoted in Taubman, Khrushchev, 378.
18. Khrushchev, quoted in Taubman, Khrushchev, 378.
19. Oliver M. Gale, “Post-Sputnik Washington from an Inside Office,” Cincinnati Historical Society Bulletin 31, no. 4 (1973): 226.
20. Both quotations are from Robert Dallek, Lone Star Rising: Lyndon Johnson and His Times (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 529–534.
21. Robert Divine, The Johnson Years (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1987), 2:223.
22. Caro, Master of the Senate, 1024.
23. Most historical scholarship that recounts the early space race centers on questions of whether or not Sputnik surprised and shook the world. Did Sputnik mark or usher in a change? Was Sputnik the shock of the century? Was it a “Pearl Harbor”? These are questions that drive many accounts. But the answers are not essential to this book or, as I will argue, twentieth-century history. The critical element of this story for how and why spaceflight assumed national priority in the late 1950s and 1960s is revealed in how politicians within the United States, Soviet Union, and around the world used Sputnik for political ends. Robert Divine examines the response of Eisenhower to Sputnik and suggests that he failed to meet this test of his presidential leadership. Matthew Bille reviews US efforts to launch a satellite and explains that little was known of the Soviet missile capability before Sputnik was launched. Paul Dickson argues that “just when Americans were feeling self-confident and optimistic about the future, along came the crude, kerosene-powered Sputnik launch.” Matthew Brzezinski’s Red Moon Rising looks at both US and Soviet perspectives, but the book is centered on the question of whether or not the “shock” was justified. Matthew Bille, Erika Lishock, and James Van Allen, The First Space Race: Launching the World’s First Satellites (College Station: Texas A&M Press, 2004); Matthew Brzezinski, Red Moon Rising: Sputnik and the Hidden Rivalries That Ignited the Space Age (New York: Times Books, 2007); Michael D’Antonio, A Ball, a Dog, and a Monkey: 1957—The Space Race Begins (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007); Dickson, Sputnik; Divine, The Sputnik Challenge; Roger Launius, John Logsdon, and Robert W. Smith, eds., Reconsidering Sputnik: Forty Years Since the Soviet Satellite (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic, 2000). Asif Siddiqi’s account of Sputnik reveals that it was not technologically determined, nor was it a “shock” to American scientists and the media. Scientists, engineers, government officials, and the public were at least minimally informed about the space programs in each country. Siddiqi, Red Rockets’ Glare.
24. Charles J. V. Murphy, “The White House Since Sputnik,” Fortune, January 1958, 100.
25. The NSF briefed Eisenhower first thing on Monday, October 7; on Tuesday he met with key members of his staff about Vanguard; he held a press conference on Wednesday; Thursday it was the NSC meeting; and then on Friday his Cabinet discussed the federal budget in the new post-Sputnik climate. The following week, in a meeting with the Science Advisory Committee he discussed funding scientific research, military preparedness, the status of science education, science collaboration with allies, and how to create a more fertile environment for the development of US science. Even though Sputnik dominated Eisenhower’s agenda in the weeks following the launch, to many—especially within the opposing political party—the president was not doing enough. “Memorandum of Conference with the President on American science education and Sputnik, October 15, 1957” (dated October 16), DDE’s Papers as President,
DDE Diary Series, Box 27, October ’57 Staff Notes (2); NAID #12043792, DEPL.
26. “Memo of Conference with the President on October 8, 1957,” 8:30 a.m. (dated October 9), DDE’s Papers as President, DDE Diary Series, Box 27, October ’57 Staff Notes (2); NAID #12043774, DEPL; “The Weather,” Washington Post, October 8, 1957, A1.
27. “Memo of Conference with the President on October 8, 1957,” 5:00 p.m. (dated October 9), DDE’s Papers as President, DDE Diary Series, Box 27, October ’57 Staff Notes (2); NAID #12043783, DEPL.
28. Official White House transcript of President Eisenhower’s Press and Radio Conference #123 concerning the development by the U.S. of an earth satellite, October 9, 1957, DDE’s Papers as President, Press Conference Series, Box 6, Press Conference Oct. 9, 1957; NAID #12086488, DEPL.
29. W. H. Lawrence, “President Voices Concern on U.S. Missiles Program, but Not on the Satellite,” New York Times, October 10, 1957, 1; Edward T. Folliard, “U.S. Sets Tests in December and March: Sputnik Fails to Alarm Ike,” Washington Post, October 10, 1957, A1.
30. During the Eisenhower administration the NSC was made up of the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, the chairman of the joint chiefs, the director of central intelligence, the director of defense mobilization, the vice president, the director of the Bureau of the Budget, the secretary of the Treasury, and the director of foreign aid. Smith, Eisenhower, 568.
31. Hitchcock, The Age of Eisenhower, 148–153.
32. “All his propaganda guns” is a reference to the combination of Sputnik and the announcement of an ICBM test as well as a large-scale hydrogen bomb test in Novaya Zemla. National Security Council, “Discussion at the 339th Meeting of the National Security Council, Thursday, October 10, 1957,” October 11, 1957, NSC Series, Box 9, Eisenhower Papers, 1953–1961 (Ann Whitman File), DEPL. Allen Dulles, quoted in James Schwoch, Global TV: New Media and the Cold War, 1946-69 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 51.
Operation Moonglow Page 31
