Operation Moonglow

by Teasel Muir-Harmony

  43. Art Buchwald, “Capitol Punishment… To Paris and Back,” Washington Post, June 22, 1965, A17.

  44. “Vostok Revealed,” Spaceflight, July 1965, 161, quoted in Lewis, “The Red Stuff,” 194.

  45. US Embassy Paris to Secretary of State, June 19, 1965, Box 3153, Entry 1613, RG 59, NARA; Report to the Congress from the President of the United States on United States Aeronautics and Space Activities, 1965.

  46. Report to the Congress.

  47. US Embassy Lagos to Secretary of State, August 27, 1965, Box 3153, Entry 1613, RG 59, NARA. See also US Embassy Rio de Janeiro to Secretary of State, August 31, 1965, Box 3153, Entry 1613, RG 59, NARA.

  48. US Embassy Nairobi to Secretary of State, September 11, 1965, Box 3153, Entry 1613, RG 59, NARA.

  49. W. E. Weld Jr., Deputy Assistant Director (Africa) to the USIA Director, May 26, 1965, Box 50, Entry A1 1016, RG 306, NARA.

  50. US Embassy Paris to Secretary of State, June 19, 1965, Box 3153, Entry 1613, RG 59, NARA; Report to the Congress from the President of the United States on United States Aeronautics and Space Activities, 1965.

  51. Report to the Congress.

  52. US Embassy Addis Ababa to Secretary of State, September 23, 1965, Box 3153, Entry 1613, RG 59, NARA.

  53. Officials from the State Department, the USIA, and NASA had to work together to plan and execute these tours. At times, tensions ran high between agency representatives. The issue of which agency should pay for the tours, or portions of the tours, proved contentious as well. NASA Administrator James Webb argued that his agency did not have the budget for such tours. The State Department could cover many of the costs, but transportation often proved too expensive. In a number of instances, the Department of Defense or the White House stepped in and financed transportation. See Hugh Robinson to President Lyndon B. Johnson, October 12, 1965, Folder “Astronauts—Contracts-Life, etc.,” RN 12917, Robert Sherrod Apollo Collection, National Aeronautics and Space Administration Headquarters, History Office, Washington, DC (hereafter NASA); Joe Califano, memorandum for the record, January 22, 1966, RN 12917, Robert Sherrod Apollo Collection, NASA.

  54. American Ambassador C. Vaughan Ferguson, Jr., to the Secretary of State, September 23, 1965, Box 3153, Entry 1613, RG 59, NARA.

  55. US Embassy Lagos to Secretary of State, October 9, 1965, Box 3153, Entry 1613, RG 59, NARA.

  56. US Embassy Lagos to Secretary of State, September 28, 1965, Box 3153, Entry 1613, RG 59, NARA.

  57. US Embassy Lagos to Secretary of State, October 9, 1965.

  58. Muir-Harmony, “Tracking Diplomacy.”

  59. The USIA cosponsored the exhibit with the Argentine Air Force. Argentina covered a large portion of the expense, the exhibit was located at the Air Force base, and the Air Force provided twenty-four-hour security as well as personnel to manage crowds. John P. McKnight to USIA Washington, March 29, 1966, Box 2, Entry A1 1039, RG 306, NARA.

  60. Harry Kendall, A Farm Boy in the Foreign Service: Telling America’s Story to the World (Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2003).

  61. Spacemobiles were large vehicles outfitted with displays and educational tools. Kendall, A Farm Boy, 110.

  62. In October 1965 Glenn visited Frankfurt, Munich, Bonn, Bremen, Berlin, Hamburg, London, Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam, Genoa, Rome, Naples, Madrid, and Lisbon. Report to the Congress from the President of the United States on United States Aeronautics and Space Activities, 1965.

  63. G. A. Ewing to the Department of State, November 11, 1965, Box 3153, Entry 1613, RG 59, NARA.

  64. Leonard H. Marks letter to President Lyndon B. Johnson, May 26, 1966, Box 75, National Security File: Agency File, LBJL.

  65. Garland C. Routt to USIA Washington, March 4, 1966, Box 25, Entry P 243, RG 306, NARA.

  66. USIS Rangoon to USIA Washington, March 4, 1966, Box 25, Entry 243, RG 306, NARA.

  67. U Win Tin, editor of the Mirror, in USIS report by Peter Boog, Associated Press Bureau Chief Burma, Box 5, Entry A1 1039, RG 306, NARA.

  68. US Embassy Rangoon to the Secretary of State, February 25, 1966, Box 3153, RG 59, NARA.

  69. Frank Borman to President Lyndon B. Johnson, March 31, 1966, RN 12917, Robert Sherrod Apollo Collection, NASA.

  70. Leonard Marks to Lyndon Johnson, March 1, 1966, Box 135, Papers of Lyndon Baines Johnson, President, 1963–1969, Confidential File; Agency Reports: US Information Agency, LBJL.

  71. T. Nesbitt to Herman Pollack, April 14, 1966, Box 23, Entry 3008D, RG 59, NARA.

  72. George Low, “Latin American Tour with Astronauts Armstrong and Gordon, October 7–31, 1966,” RN 859, “Gordon, Richard F., Jr.,” NASA.

  73. James R. Hansen, First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005), 300.

  74. Low, “Latin American Tour.”

  75. Walter Rostow sent the president a draft of the letter. Each letter was slightly different, given the level of cooperation with the country, but each included sentiments about sharing information with the world scientific community. Walter Rostow to Lyndon Johnson, October 4, 1966, Box 1, National Security File: Special Head of State Correspondence File, LBJL.

  76. Low, “Latin American Tour.”

  77. Kendall, A Farm Boy, 116.

  78. Simon Bourgin to William Green, July 12, 1967, Box 26, Entry P 243, RG 306, NARA.

  79. Jenifer Van Vleck, Empire of the Air (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013), 11.

  80. Dean Rusk to Hubert Humphrey, draft, March 18, 1965, Box 9, Entry 3008D, RG 59, NARA.

  81. “Dean Rusk Dies; Vietnam War–Era Secretary of State,” Los Angeles Times, December 22, 1994; Eric Pace, “Dean Rusk, Secretary of State in Vietnam War, Is Dead at 85,” New York Times, December 22, 1994, 1.

  82. Rusk noted that staff within the State Department viewed advanced space technology—space vehicle propulsion, the exploration of nearby planets, and the extension of space applications—as key to serving long-term foreign relations objectives. Rusk to Humphrey, draft, March 18, 1965.

  83. In 1965 the Space Council consisted of Vice President Hubert Humphrey as chairman, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, NASA Administrator James Webb, and Atomic Energy Commission Director Glenn Seaborg. Herman Pollack to Dean Rusk, April 9, 1965, Box 9, Entry 3008D, RG 59, NARA.

  84. Rusk articulated an elemental feature of what distinguished the process of globalization in this period: the consciousness of the unity of humankind. Akira Iriye, “Introduction,” in Global Interdependence: The World After 1945, ed. Akira Iriye (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014), 5.

  85. E. C. Welsh to Dean Rusk, Robert McNamara, James Webb, and Glenn Seaborg, April 14, 1965, Box 9, Entry 3008D, RG 59, NARA.

  86. Rusk to Humphrey, April 29, 1965.

  87. Dallek, “Johnson, Project Apollo, and the Politics,” 81.

  88. President Lyndon Baines Johnson, “Remarks at the Signing of the Treaty on Outer Space, January 27, 1967,” Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1967. vol. I, entry 18, 91–92 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1968); “Treaty on the Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies,” Box 2, Executive Office Files on Outer Space, LBJL.

  89. Brooks, Grimwood, and Swenson, Chariots for Apollo, chapter 9.

  90. Trevor Rockwell, “Space Propaganda ‘For All Mankind’: Soviet and American Responses to the Cold War, 1957–1977” (PhD diss., University of Alberta, 2012), 153.

  91. Simon Bourgin to Julian Scheer, March 3, 1967, Box 26, Entry P 243, RG 306, NARA; Kristen Amanda Starr, “NASA’s Hidden Power: NACA/NASA Public Relations and the Cold War, 1945–1967” (PhD diss., Auburn University, 2008), 297.

  92. “Worldwide Treatment of Current Issues,” January 30, 1967, Box 21, Entry P 243, RG 306, NARA.

  93. Johnson, Vantage Point, 270–271.

  94. Draft of presidential reply to messages of condolence for deaths
of astronauts Grissom, White, and Chaffee, January 30, 1967, Box 18, National Security File: Files of Charles E. Johnson, LBJL.

  95. Johnson, quoted in Dallek, “Johnson, Project Apollo, and the Politics,” 84.

  96. Brooks, Grimwood, and Swenson, Chariots for Apollo, 227.

  CHAPTER 7: “RIDERS ON THE EARTH TOGETHER,” 1968–1969

  1. Don Oberdorfer, Tet! The Turning Point in the Vietnam War (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1971), 159.

  2. Walter Cronkite, CBS News Special Report, originally aired on February 27, 1968, transcript, “Final Words: Cronkite’s Vietnam Commentary,” NPR, July 18, 2009, www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106775685.

  3. William Bundy, A Tangled Web: The Making of Foreign Policy in the Nixon Presidency (New York: Hill and Wang, 1998), 20; Sönke Kunkel, Empire of Pictures: Global Media and the 1960s Remaking of American Foreign Policy (New York: Berghahn, 2016), 163.

  4. Leonard Marks, quoted in Cull, The Cold War, 289.

  5. Douglas Brinkley, Cronkite (New York: Harper Perennial, 2012), 400.

  6. “USIA 31st Report to Congress,” 7–12, 1968, Box 1, RG 306, Entry P 180, NARA.

  7. “USIA 31st Report to Congress”; Kunkel, Empire of Pictures, 163.

  8. Frank Borman, oral history interview with author, December 10, 2012.

  9. Quoted in Robert Poole, Earthrise: How Man First Saw the Earth (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008), 17.

  10. Lindsay, Tracking Apollo, 110–112.

  11. Collins, Carrying the Fire, 144.

  12. At the time of the fire, the command module was named AS-204. Later it became known as Apollo 1. Frank Borman with Robert J. Serling, Countdown: An Autobiography (New York: Silver Arrow, 1988), 171–189.

  13. Richard Jurek, The Ultimate Engineer: The Remarkable Life of NASA’s Visionary Leader George M. Low (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2019), 125–133.

  14. Dwayne A. Day and Asif Siddiqi, “The Moon in the Crosshairs: CIA Intelligence on the Soviet Manned Lunar Progamme, Part 1—Launch Complex J,” Spaceflight 45 (November 2003): 468.

  15. Director of Central Intelligence, “The Soviet Space Program,” Central Intelligence Agency Historical Review Program, April 4, 1968, 1.

  16. Roger Launius, “NASA Looks to the East: American Intelligence Estimates of Soviet Capabilities and Project Apollo,” Air Power History 48, no. 3 (2001): 10.

  17. Borman, Countdown, 194.

  18. Bourgin, quoted in Billy Watkins, Apollo Moon Missions: The Unsung Heroes (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007), 70.

  19. Simon Bourgin to Frank Borman, December 13, 1968, Folder: “Bourgin, Simon CB-497500-01,” Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Archives, Washington, DC.

  20. Simon Bourgin to Frank Borman, December 15, 1968, Box 7, Simon Bourgin Collection, Boston University Archives, Boston, MA (hereafter BUA).

  21. Bourgin to Borman, December 13, 1968.

  22. Bourgin to Borman, December 15, 1968; Bourgin to Borman, December 13, 1968.

  23. Bourgin to Borman, December 13, 1968.

  24. Bourgin to Borman, December 15, 1968.

  25. Lyndon B. Johnson, Daily Diary, December 21, 1968, LBJL.

  26. Susan Borman, quoted in Poole, Earthrise, 19.

  27. Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1968: Chronology on Science, Technology, and Policy (Washington, DC: NASA, 1969), 319.

  28. “USIA 31st Report to Congress.”

  29. US Embassy Sofia to State Department, January 8, 1969, Box 3012, RG 59, NARA.

  30. Consulate Martinique to Department of State, January 7, 1969, Box 3012, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files, 1967, 1969, NARA.

  31. Jennifer Levasseur, Through Astronaut Eyes: Photographing Early Human Spaceflight (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2020), 56.

  32. Bill Anders, Apollo 8 Flight Journal, mission elapsed time 075:47:30, corrected transcript and commentary, ed. W. David Woods and Frank O’Brien.

  33. Borman, quoted in Poole, Earthrise, 2.

  34. Levasseur, Through Astronaut Eyes, 62–63; Anders, Apollo 8 Flight Journal.

  35. Poole, Earthrise, 24–25.

  36. Borman, Countdown, 199–216.

  37. Anders, Apollo 8 Flight Journal, Apollo 8 Transcript, Day 4: Lunar Orbit 9.

  38. Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1968, 319.

  39. “Pope and Apollo 8 on Satellite Debut,” New York Times, December 25, 1968, 38.

  40. US Embassy Lisbon to Department of State, January 3, 1969, Box 3012, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files, 1967, 1969, NARA.

  41. “USIA 31st Report to Congress,” 7–12, 1968, Box 1, RG 306, Entry P 180, NARA.

  42. Simon Bourgin notes on the Apollo 8 tour, Box 4, Simon Bourgin Collection, BUA.

  43. Borman interview; Bourgin to Borman, December 15, 1968.

  44. Quoted in Poole, Earthrise, 135.

  45. “USIA 31st Report to Congress”; Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1968, 327.

  46. The most vocal critique of the reading came from Madalyn Murray O’Hair, who sued NASA. However, the court ruled that “the first amendment does not require the state to be hostile to religion, but only neutral.” See Poole, Earthrise, 136–137.

  47. Archibald MacLeish, “A Reflection: Riders on Earth Together, Brothers in Eternal Cold,” New York Times, December 25, 1968, 1.

  48. Arthur C. Clarke and Isidor Rabi, quoted in Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1969: Chronology on Science, Technology, and Policy (Washington, DC: NASA, 1970).

  49. Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1968, 326.

  50. Lyndon B. Johnson, Daily Diary, December 27, 1968, LBJL; telephone conversation #13825, sound recording, LBJ and SUSAN BORMAN, 12/27/1968, 11:15AM, Recordings and Transcripts of Telephone Conversations and Meetings, LBJL.

  51. Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1968, 327.

  52. “USIA 31st Report to Congress.”

  53. US Embassy Sofia to State Department, January 8, 1969.

  54. US Embassy Kampala to Department of State, January 4, 1969, Box 3012, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files, 1967, 1969, NARA.

  55. US Embassy Warsaw to Department of State, January 30, 1969, Box 3012, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files, 1967, 1969, NARA; Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1968, 330.

  56. US Embassy Madrid to Department of State, January 11, 1969, Box 3012, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files, 1967, 1969, NARA; “USIA 31st Report to Congress.”

  57. Times of India, December 26, 1968, 8.

  58. American Ambassador Walter Stoessel to Department of State, April 3, 1969, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files, 1967, 1969, NARA.

  59. US Embassy Lisbon to Department of State, January 3, 1969, Box 3012, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files, 1967, 1969, NARA; US Embassy Madrid to Department of State, January 11, 1969; “USIA 31st Report to Congress.”

  60. US Embassy Fort Lamy to State Department, April 15, 1969, Box 3012, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files, 1967, 1969, NARA; author’s stamp collection.

  61. Lloyd Garrison, “De Gaulle Calls Borman ‘a Very Nice Young Man,’” New York Times, February 7, 1969, 3; US Embassy Tehran to State Department, February 27, 1969, RG 59, Entry 1613, Box 3012, NARA.

  62. “USIA 31st Report to Congress.”

  63. Walter Rostow to Lyndon Johnson, January 6, 1969, Box 1, National Security File: Special Head of State Correspondence File, LBJL.

  64. Poole, Earthrise, 28.

  65. Memorandum from Benjamin H. Read, Executive Secretary of State, to Mr. Walt W. Rostow, January 14, 1969, Box 1, National Security File: Special Head of State Correspondence File, LBJL.

  66. Josip Broz Tito to Lyndon Johnson, February 19, 1969, Box 3012, Entry 1613, RG 59, NARA.

  67. Lyndon Johnson, quoted in Man on the Moon: The Epic Journey of Apollo 11, as broadcast over the CBS Television Network on July 21, 1969.

  68. Robert C. Maynard, “Gold Medals Presented by Johnson: Thousands Welcome Apollo Heroes,” Washington Post, January 10, 1969, A1; John Noble Wilford, “Crew
of Apollo 8 Is Saluted by President and Congress,” New York Times, January 10, 1969, 1; Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1969, 7.

  69. Congressional Record, House of Representatives, January 9, 1969, 367–368; Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1969, 7; Wilford, “Crew of Apollo,” 1.

  70. Poole, Earthrise, 33–34.

  71. US Embassy Port au Prince to Secretary of State, March 3, 1969, Box 3012, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files, 1967, 1969, NARA; US Consulate Nassau to State Department, March 6, 1969, Box 3012, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files, 1967, 1969, NARA.

  72. US Embassy Yaoundé to Secretary of State, January 24, 1969, Box 3012, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files, 1967, 1969, NARA.

  73. US Embassy Warsaw to Department of State, January 30, 1969; US Embassy Warsaw to Secretary of State, February, 13, 1969, Box 3012, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files, 1967, 1969, NARA; US Embassy Warsaw to State Department, March 13, 1969, Box 3012, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files, 1967, 1969, NARA; US Embassy Warsaw to Department of State, May 1, 1969, Box 3012, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files, 1967, 1969, NARA.

  74. US Embassy Prague to Secretary of State, February 19, 1969, Box 3012, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files, 1967, 1969, NARA; US Embassy Prague to State Department, March 17, 1969, Box 3012, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files, 1967, 1969, NARA.

  75. Even the Siberian branch of the Soviet Academy of Sciences screened USIA films Apollo 8 and Project Apollo at its May 1969 meeting, with the academy’s vice president commenting on how Apollo 8 was an achievement of all mankind. US Embassy Moscow to Department of State, May 19, 1969, Box 3012, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files, 1967, 1969, NARA. See also Philip Arnold to Mr. Bardos, April 11, 1969, Box 17, Entry P 243, RG 306, NARA.

  76. US Embassy Tananarive to State Department, March 15, 1969, Box 3012, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files, 1967, 1969, NARA.

  77. US Consulate Poznan to Department of State, May 6, 1969, Box 3012, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files, 1967, 1969, NARA.

  78. Borman, Countdown, 226; Nixon, Inaugural Address, American Presidency Project, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/239549; John Logsdon, After Apollo? Richard Nixon and the American Space Program (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 9.