64. Report to the Congress from the President of the United States; Sivard to Goodwin, April 7, 1960.
65. Dulles, quoted in Jason C. Parker, Hearts, Minds, Voices: US Cold War Public Diplomacy and the Formation of the Third World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 107.
66. USIA to USIS Khartoum, August 15, 1960, Box 5, Entry P 243, RG 306, NARA.
67. Mr. Duggan to Secretary of State, February 27, 1961, Box 5, Entry P 243, RG 306, NARA.
68. “Project Mercury Installations in Africa: Bloc, Cairo and African Reactions,” July 15, 1960, Box 5, Entry P 243, RG 306, NARA.
69. Department of State to the US Embassy Lagos, January 11, 1961, Box 5, Entry P 243, RG 306, NARA.
70. Mr. Palmer joint Embassy-USIS message to the Secretary of State, January 5, 1961, Box 5, Entry P 243, RG 306, NARA.
71. Sunny Tsiao, “Read You Loud and Clear!” The Story of NASA’s Spaceflight Tracking and Data Network (Washington, DC: NASA History Office, 2008), 87.
72. Tsiao, “Read You Loud and Clear!,” 87.
73. The committee included USIA Director George Allen as well as State Department and Defense Department staff, an international officer from the Ford Foundation, and Eisenhower’s political advisor C. D. Jackson. Conclusions and Recommendations of the President’s Committee on Information Activities Abroad, December 1960, Box 4, Entry P 243, RG 306, NARA. See also Cull, The Cold War, 180–184; James Schwoch, Global TV, 53–56.
74. Henry Kissinger, “Psychological and Pressure Aspects”; Osgood, Total Cold War, 181–183.
75. Conclusions and Recommendations of the President’s Committee on Information Activities Abroad, December 1960, 1.
76. Hugh Odishaw, “The Meaning of the International Geophysical Year,” December 4, 1959, Box 6, A83–10, U.S. President’s Committee on Information Activities Abroad (Sprague Committee) Records, 1959–1961, DEPL.
77. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 1.
78. Goodwin left the USIA shortly after he prepared this report to become the director of NASA’s Office of Program Development. See C. P. Snow, The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1959); Harold L. Goodwin, “USIA and the Scientific Revolution,” 1961, Box 5, Entry P 243, RG 306, NARA.
79. USIA officials saw science as a useful public diplomacy vehicle because, according to one USIA official, it “inherently rouses little or no suspicion and hostility, [so] it can be an effective means for communicating other aspects of the total American image.” James Halsema to Mr. Wilson, undated (1961), Box 1, Entry P 243, RG 306, NARA.
CHAPTER 4: IF WE ARE TO WIN THE BATTLE, 1960–1961
1. Alan Brinkley, Liberalism and Its Discontents (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), 216.
2. Quoted in Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy 1917–1963 (New York: Little, Brown, 2003), 225.
3. Brinkley, Liberalism, 216.
4. Dallek, An Unfinished Life, 285.
5. John A. Farrell, Richard Nixon: The Life (New York: Doubleday, 2017), 284.
6. Theodore C. Sorensen, Kennedy (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), 196; Farrell, Richard Nixon, 270.
7. Dallek, An Unfinished Life, 286.
8. Sorensen, Kennedy, 198.
9. Dallek, An Unfinished Life, 285.
10. Sorensen, Kennedy, 197.
11. Donald M. Wilson, recorded interview by James Greenfield, September 2, 1964, John F. Kennedy Oral History Program, JFKL.
12. Hugh Sidey, John F. Kennedy, President (New York: Atheneum, 1964), 98.
13. Logsdon, John F. Kennedy, 10–12.
14. Remarks of Senator John F. Kennedy at Mormon Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Utah, September 23, 1960, Papers of John F. Kennedy, Pre-presidential Papers, Senate Files, Series 12, Speeches and the Press, Box 911, JFKL.
15. Stephen G. Rabe, “John F. Kennedy and the World,” in Debating the Kennedy Presidency, ed. James N. Giglio and Stephen G. Rabe (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), 9–10.
16. Papers of John F. Kennedy, Pre-presidential papers, Senate Files, Speeches and the Press, Speech Files, 1953–1960, “U.S. Military Power,” Senate Floor, August 14 1958, JFK SEN-0901-022, JFKL; Douglas Brinkley, American Moonshot: John F. Kennedy and the Great Space Race (New York: Harper, 2019), 166–167.
17. Sorensen, Kennedy, 177–178.
18. Papers of John F. Kennedy, Pre-presidential papers, Senate Files, Speeches and the Press, Speech Files, 1953–1960, “Municipal Auditorium, Canton, Ohio,” September 27, 1960, JFK SEN-0912-006, JFKL.
19. Sidey, John F. Kennedy, 95–96.
20. John F. Kennedy, “Address of Senator John F. Kennedy Accepting the Democratic Party Nomination for the Presidency of the United States—Memorial Coliseum, Los Angeles,” July 15, 1960, American Presidency Project, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25966.
21. Robert A. Caro, The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012), 109–110.
22. Sorensen, Kennedy, 176.
23. Logsdon, John F. Kennedy, 12–13.
24. Nixon, quoted in Brinkley, American Moonshot, 201.
25. Nixon, quoted in Haefele, “John F. Kennedy,” 69.
26. Sorensen, Kennedy, 203; Cull, The Cold War, 182.
27. “U.S. Survey Finds Others Consider Soviets Mightiest,” New York Times, October 25, 1960, 1.
28. Nixon, quoted in William Jorden, “Campaign Issues—V: Debate on Status of Prestige Rouses Sharp Conflicts at Home and Abroad,” New York Times, October 31, 1960.
29. Logsdon, John F. Kennedy, 12.
30. Haefele, “John F. Kennedy,” 70; Logsdon, John F. Kennedy, 13.
31. “Donald Hornig, Last to See First A-Bomb, Dies at 92,” New York Times, January 27, 2013, A20.
32. President’s Science Advisory Committee, “Report of the Ad Hoc Panel on Man-in-Space,” December 16, 1960, NASA Historical Reference Collection, History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.
33. T. Keith Glennan, The Birth of NASA: The Diary of T. Keith Glennan (Washington, DC: NASA History Office, 1993), 292.
34. It is worth noting that there is some ambiguity about the decision process that went into giving Johnson the chairmanship of the Space Council. John Logsdon details the discussions and the players involved in John F. Kennedy, 29–30. See also Caro, The Passage of Power, 172; Logsdon, John F. Kennedy, 22–23; Robert Dallek, Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1961–1973 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 8–9.
35. President’s Science Advisory Committee, “Report of the Ad Hoc Panel on Man-in-Space.”
36. Eisenhower, quoted by Associate Administrator Robert Seamans in Logsdon, John F. Kennedy, 28.
37. Glennan, The Birth of NASA, 292.
38. Eisenhower, paraphrased by Glennan, The Birth of NASA, 292.
39. Logsdon, John F. Kennedy, 28.
40. Hubert Humphrey, paraphrased by Tam Dalyell, “Obituary: Jerome Wiesner,” Independent, October 27, 1994.
41. “Report to the President-Elect of the Ad Hoc Committee on Space,” January 10, 1961, NASA Historical Reference Collection.
42. “Report to the President-Elect.”
43. Sorensen, Kennedy, 240–248.
44. Cull, The Cold War, 189–191.
45. President Kennedy’s memorandum to the director of the USIA explained that “the mission of the United States Information Agency is to help achieve United States foreign policy objectives by (a) influencing public attitudes in other nations, and (b) advising the President, his representatives abroad, and the various departments and agencies on the implications of foreign opinion for present and contemplated United States policies, programs and official statements.” See “Memorandum from President Kennedy to the Director of the U.S. Information Agency (Murrow),” January 25, 1963, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, vol. XXV, Organization of Foreign Policy; Information Policy, United Nations; Scientific Matters. See also Cull
, The Cold War, 192–193.
46. Sorensen, Kennedy, 240–248.
47. Sorensen, Kennedy, 292–293.
48. Edward Murrow to McGeorge Bundy, April 3, 1961, Papers of President Kennedy, National Security Files, Subjects, Box 307, “Space Activities, General, 4/61–6/61,” JFKL.
49. Hugh Sidey, “How the News Hits Washington—with Some Reactions Overseas,” Life, April 21, 1961, 26; Sidey, John F. Kennedy, 92–93.
50. Slava Gerovitch, “The Human Inside a Propaganda Machine: The Public Image and Professional Identity of Soviet Cosmonauts,” in Into the Cosmos: Space Exploration and Soviet Culture, ed. James T. Andrews and Asif A. Siddiqi (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011), 77–78.
51. Sidey, John F. Kennedy, 93.
52. In many ways, Gagarin was the ideal choice for the first Soviet human spaceflight mission. He came from a peasant family and had lived under Nazi occupation during World War II. Unlike his American counterparts, Gagarin had very little flying experience: just 230 hours. Gerovitch, “The Human Inside a Propaganda Machine,” 81; Asif Siddiqi, Sputnik and the Soviet Space Challenge (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2003), 273–274.
53. Gerovitch, “The Human Inside a Propaganda Machine,” 83.
54. Sidey, John F. Kennedy, 94.
55. Theodore C. Sorensen, oral history interview, March 25, 1964, National Archives and Records Administration, Office of Presidential Libraries, John F. Kennedy Library, JFKOH-TCS-01.
56. John F. Kennedy, “The President’s News Conference,” American Presidency Project, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/234594.
57. All quotations are from John M. Logsdon, The Decision to Go to the Moon: Project Apollo and the National Interest (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1970), 103–104. See also U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Science and Astronautics, Discussion of Soviet Man-in-Space Shot, 87th Cong. 1st sess., 1961, 7–13, 375–378.
58. Robert Kennedy, quoted in Tim Weiner, “Theodore C. Sorensen, 1928–2010; Kennedy Wordsmith and More,” New York Times, November 1, 2010, A1.
59. Sorensen, Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History (New York: Harper, 2008), 335.
60. Cabinet Room, April 21, 1961, Robert Knudsen, White House Photographs, JFKL.
61. Sidey, John F. Kennedy, 101.
62. Sidey, John F. Kennedy, 100.
63. Sidey, “How the News Hits Washington,” 27.
64. Sorensen, quoted in Logsdon, The Decision to Go to the Moon, 107.
65. Rabe, “John F. Kennedy and the World,” 13–14.
66. McGeorge Bundy, recorded interview by Richard Neustadt, March 1964, JFKL Oral History Program.
67. Sorensen, Kennedy, 310, 327.
68. Bundy interview.
69. Donald Wilson to McGeorge Bundy on the initial world reaction to Gagarin’s flight, April 21, 1961, Papers of President Kennedy, National Security Files, Subjects, Box 307, JFKL.
70. Wilson to Bundy on the initial world reaction to Gagarin’s flight.
71. Sidey, “How the News Hits Washington,” 26.
72. “A Man in Space,” Washington Post, April 13, 1961, A18; Harry Schwartz, “Moscow: Flight Is Taken as Another Sign That Communism Is the Conquering Wave,” New York Times, April 16, 1961, E3; Hanson Baldwin, “Flaw in Space Policy: U.S. Is Said to Lack Sense of Urgency in Drive for New Scientific Conquests,” New York Times, April 17, 1961, 5.
73. Sorensen, Kennedy, 294.
74. John F. Kennedy, “Memorandum for Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson,” April 20, 1961, Presidential Files, JFKL.
75. Logsdon, John F. Kennedy, 80–84.
76. Logsdon, John F. Kennedy, 84–85.
77. Robert S. McNamara, Secretary of Defense, Memorandum for the Vice President, “Brief Analysis of Department of Defense Space Program Efforts,” April 21, 1961, LBJL.
78. Von Braun stressed that he was sharing his recommendations as a private citizen, not as the director of the Marshall Space Flight Center. Wernher von Braun to the Vice President of the United States, April 29, 1961, NASA Historical Reference Collection, History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.
79. Walter Rostow memo to President Kennedy, “The Problems We Face,” April 24, 1961, Papers of John F. Kennedy, Presidential Papers, National Security Files, Meetings and Memoranda, Staff memoranda: Rostow, Walt W., December 1960–June 1961, JFKNSF-323-006, JFKL.
80. Sorensen interview, 16.
81. Sorensen, quoted in John Logsdon, John F. Kennedy, 79.
82. With input from the secretary and deputy secretary of defense; General Schriever (Air Force); Admiral Hayward (Navy); Wernher von Braun (NASA); the administrator, deputy administrator, and other top officials at NASA; the special assistant to the president on science and technology; and representatives from the Bureau of the Budget. Johnson had also sought advice from George Brown (Brown & Root), Donald Cook (American Electric Power Service), and Frank Stanton (Columbia Broadcasting System), three businessmen and old friends who had helped his political career in one way or another. Lyndon B. Johnson, Vice President, Memorandum for the President, “Evaluation of Space Program,” April 28, 1961, 2, Presidential Papers, JFKL.
83. Logsdon, John F. Kennedy, 92–94.
84. Swenson, Grimwood, and Alexander, This New Ocean, 350; Logsdon, John F. Kennedy, 96.
85. Sorensen, Counselor, 338; Logsdon, John F. Kennedy, 97.
86. Thomas C. Sorensen, The Word War: The Story of American Propaganda (New York: Harper & Row, 1968), 180–181.
87. Merrill Mueller to Lawrence O’Brien, May 10, 1961, Box 655, John F. Kennedy Presidential Papers, White House Central Subject Files, JFKL.
88. Sorensen, The Word War, 181; Cull, The Cold War, 198.
89. Press release, “Remarks of the President to Astronaut Comdr. Alan B. Shepard in the Rose Garden and the Latter’s Reply,” May 8, 1961, Box 654, John F. Kennedy Presidential Papers, White House Central Subject Files, JFKL.
90. The report also answers the question of sending robotic probes versus sending people: because “it is man, not merely machines, in space that captures the imagination of the world.” James E. Webb, NASA administrator, and Robert S. McNamara, secretary of defense, to the vice president, May 8, 1961, with attached: “Recommendations for Our National Space Program: Changes, Policies, Goals,” NASA Historical Reference Collection, History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.
91. John F. Kennedy, “Special Message to the Congress on Urgent National Needs,” May 25, 1961, American Presidency Project, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=8151.
92. President John F. Kennedy, excerpts from “Urgent National Needs,” speech to a Joint Session of Congress, May 25, 1961, Presidential Files, JFKL.
93. Sorensen, Counselor, 337.
94. Sorensen, Kennedy, 526.
95. McDougall, The Heavens and the Earth, 305.
96. John M. Logsdon et al., eds., Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in the History of the U.S. Civil Space Program (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1995), 1:381; Logsdon, John F. Kennedy, 116.
97. Sorensen, Counselor, 337.
CHAPTER 5: JOHN GLENN AND FRIENDSHIP 7’S “FOURTH ORBIT,” 1961–1963
1. Edward R. Murrow, quoted in “Shepard’s Capsule Flown to Paris Show,” Baltimore Sun, May 28, 1961, 11.
2. USIA, 16th Report to Congress, January 1–June 30, 1961 (Washington, DC, 1961), 7.
3. Dallek, An Unfinished Life, 396.
4. Memorandum of Conversation, June 3, 1961, Vienna, drafted by Akalovsky and approved by the White House on June 23. The meeting was held at the American ambassador’s residence. Kennedy Library, President’s Office Files, USSR, Secret; Eyes Only, JFKL.
5. Sorensen, Kennedy, 543–544.
6. Report to the Congress from the President of the United States, US Aeronautics and Space Activities for 1961.
7. Teasel Muir-Harmony, Apollo to the Moon: A History in 50 Objects (Washington, DC: National Geographic, 2018), 46–49.
8. Frederic O. Bundy a
nd Harry Kendall to Thomas Sorensen, June 15, 1961, Box 5, Entry P 243, RG 306, NARA.
9. Cull, The Cold War, 205.
10. John Glenn and Nick Taylor, John Glenn: A Memoir (New York: Bantam, 1999), 250–275.
11. “The Nation,” Time, March 2, 1962.
12. “Glenn Puts U.S. Back into the Space Race,” Los Angeles Times, February 2, 1962, F4. In Japan alone, more than two hundred radio and TV stations carried coverage of the flight. Report to the Congress from the President of the United States on United States Aeronautics and Space Activities, 1962, 103–104.
13. Sorensen, Kennedy, 528.
14. Report to the Congress from the President, 103–104.
15. “Glenn Puts U.S. Back,” F4.
16. Edward Murrow to John F. Kennedy, February 27, 1962, Box WH-23, “United States Information Agency 8/15/61–1/25/63,” Papers of Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., White House Files, JFKL.
17. Edward Murrow to John F. Kennedy, February 27, 1962, Box 91, Folder “USIA, 1/62–6/62,” Papers of President Kennedy, National Security Files, Meetings and Memoranda, JFKL.
18. For a discussion of the significance of the Friendship 7 mission in relation to the early space program, the extensive resources and labor that went into the flight, the scientific and engineering information gained from the flight, and the flight’s political implications in the context of the cold war and the space race, see Glenn and Taylor, John Glenn: A Memoir; John Catchpole, Project Mercury: NASA’s First Manned Space Programme (Chichester, UK: Springer-Praxis, 2001); Philip Scranton, “Behind the Icon: NASA’s Mercury Capsules as Artefact, Process and Practice,” in Showcasing Space, ed. Martin Collins (London: Science Museum, 2005); McDougall, The Heavens and the Earth.
19. Slava Gerovitch, Soviet Space Mythologies: Public Images, Private Memories, and the Making of Cultural Identity (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015), 141–143; Andrew L. Jenks, The Cosmonaut Who Couldn’t Stop Smiling: The Life and Legend of Yuri Gagarin (De Kalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2012), 151.
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