Operation Moonglow

by Teasel Muir-Harmony

  7. Richard Philips to U. Alexis Johnson, August 11, 1969, Box 17, Entry P 243, RG 306, NARA.

  8. Logsdon, After Apollo?, 27–28.

  9. US Embassy Rawalpindi to State Department, undated, Box 307, National Security Council Files: Subject Files, RNPL; US Embassy Tehran to Secretary of State, September 3, 1969, Box 307, National Security Council Files: Subject Files, RNPL; US Embassy Mexico City to Secretary of State, September 6, 1969, Box 307, National Security Council Files: Subject Files, RNPL.

  10. William Thompson to Arthur Bardos, August 1, 1969, Box 17, Folder “Astronaut’s Tour 69,” Entry 243, RG 306, NARA.

  11. Richard Nixon to John Glenn, July 14, 1969, Box 11, Folder “[EX] OS 3-1 Astronauts Begin 7/31/69,” White House Central Files, Subject Files, Outer Space, RNPL.

  12. Dan Oleksiw to Frank Shakespeare, June 1969, Box 4, Entry A1 42, RG 306, NARA.

  13. Peter Flanigan to Julian Scheer, August 23, 1969, Box 11, Folder “[EX] OS 3-1 8/1/69-9/30/69,” White House Central Files, Subject Files, Outer Space, RNPL; Nixon, quoted in Steve Wolfe, “Moonglow: Space Diplomacy in the Nixon Administration,” Quest 18, no. 2 (2011): 43.

  14. Al Haig to Henry Kissinger, September 10, 1969, Box 307, National Security Files, Subject Files, RNPL.

  15. Hewson Ryan to Frank Shakespeare, September 4, 1969, Box 4, RG 306, Entry A1 42, NARA; Secretary of State to USINT Cairo, September 1969, Box 307, National Security Council Files: Subject Files, RNPL.

  16. US Embassy The Hague to Department of State, October 22, 1969, Box 22, Entry P 243, RG 306, NARA.

  17. Don Lesh to Henry Kissinger, September 3, 1969, Box 307, National Security Council Files: Subject Files, RNPL; Henry Kissinger to Richard Nixon, undated (early September), Box 307, National Security Council Files: Subject Files, RNPL.

  18. US Embassy Budapest to Secretary of State, September 13, 1969, Box 307, National Security Council Files: Subject Files, RNPL.

  19. Henry A. Kissinger to William Rogers, September 19, 1969, Box 307, National Security Council Files: Subject Files, RNPL.

  20. Richardson gave examples of “cooling relations”: “Secretary, for example, will not receive Under Secretary Puja in New York. So far as further bilateral talks, visits, and exchanges are concerned, you should await Hungarian initiative and seek specific instructions on whether and how to proceed. We intend to limit bilateral talks to issues involving clear-cut, demonstrable and concert advantages to the interests of the US. We have also considered canceling visit of AEC Chairman Seaborg to Budapest.” Elliot Richardson to Embassy in Hungary, September 20, 1969, NSC Files, Box 693, Country Files—Europe, Hungary, vol. I, Secret; RNPL.

  21. After Tito split with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in 1948, Yugoslavia pursued a policy of neutrality and by 1969 had a long history of diplomatic relations with the United States. Henry Kissinger to Richard Nixon, undated (September 1969), Box 307, National Security Council Files: Subject Files, RNPL; US Embassy Budapest to Secretary of State, September 13, 1969, Box 307, National Security Council Files: Subject Files, RNPL; Wolfe, “Moonglow,” 43.

  22. The itinerary released on September 29 listed the following stops: Mexico City, Mexico (Sept. 29–30); Bogotá, Colombia (Sept. 30-Oct. 1); Brasilia, Brazil (Oct. 1); Buenos Aires, Argentina (Oct. 1–2); Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Oct. 2–4); Las Palmas, Canary Islands (Oct. 4–6); Madrid, Spain (Oct. 6–8); Paris, France (Oct. 8–9); Amsterdam, Holland (Oct. 9); Brussels, Belgium (Oct. 9–10); Oslo, Norway (Oct. 10–12); Cologne/Bonn and Berlin, Germany (Oct. 12–14); London, England (Oct. 14–15); Rome, Italy (Oct. 15–18); Belgrade, Yugoslavia (Oct. 18–20); Ankara, Turkey (Oct. 20–22); Kinshasa, Zaire (Oct. 22–24); Tehran, Iran (Oct. 24–26); Bombay, India (Oct. 26–27); Dacca, East Pakistan (Oct. 27–28); Bangkok, Thailand (Oct. 28–31); Perth, Australia (Oct. 31); Sydney, Australia (Oct. 31–Nov. 2); Agana, Guam (Nov. 2–3); Seoul, South Korea (Nov. 3–4); Tokyo, Japan (Nov. 4–5); Elmendorf, Alaska (Nov. 5); and Ottawa and Montreal, Canada (Dec. 2–3). Apollo 11 Operations Office memo to Frank Shakespeare, “Astronauts’ World Tour,” September 18, 1969, Box 17, Entry P 243, RG 306, NARA.

  23. Logsdon, After Apollo?, 28–29.

  24. “Japan Greets Astronauts as World Tour Nears End,” New York Times, November 5, 1969, 93.

  25. Simon Bourgin to Mariada Bourgin, end of September 1969, Box 4, #1633, Folder “Astronaut Tours/Letters to Ely Echo,” Simon Bourgin Collection, BUA.

  26. Simon Bourgin, Simon Bourgin: An Odyssey That Began in Ely (Ely, MN: Ely-Winton Historical Society, 2010), 100–101; Simon Bourgin to Neil Armstrong, February 26, 2000, Box 7, #1633, Folder “General Correspondence 1953–2001,” Simon Bourgin Collection, BUA.

  27. “‘Conquistadores’ of Moon Hailed,” Sun, September 30, 1969, A1.

  28. Michael Collins, interview with the author, July 18, 2019, Washington, DC.

  29. “Astronauts Get Keys to Mexico City,” News (Mexico City), September 30, 1969.

  30. According to one report, the president chided the crew “on what he described as the injustice of the Nixon administration’s intensive hunt for dope smugglers at Mexican border crossings” and “voiced his nation’s resentment of ‘operation intercept,’” the crackdown on marijuana that had bottlenecked crossing points and caused severe economic damage to Mexican border towns. “3 Astronauts Leave Mexico for Colombia,” Chicago Tribune, October 1, 1969.

  31. This designation for the Apollo 11 crew could have been taken as either a criticism of the United States as an imperial power or as local association of explorers; it is unclear from the context. The crew was often compared to European colonialist explorers, both by US government officials as well as by the media in many foreign countries. Examples in Portugal suggest a positive correlation, as one would expect. Sun, “Apollo 11 Crew Rests in Norway,” October 12, 1969, 4; Simon Bourgin to Mariada Bourgin, end of September 1969; US Embassy Mexico to USIA, October 1969, Box 22, Entry P 243, RG 306, NARA.

  32. Robert H. McBride, Ambassador to Mexico, to Frank Shakespeare, October 1, 1969, Box 4, “SP—Space and Astronautics,” Entry A1 42, RG 306, NARA.

  33. USIS Bogotá to USIA Washington, “Astronaut Tour Stops,” October 22, 1969, RG 306, Entry P 243, Box 21, NARA.

  34. Robert Amerson to Apollo Task Force, September 19, 1969, RG 306, Entry P 243, Box 17, NARA.

  35. Apollo 11 Operations Office to Shakespeare, October 10, 1969, RG 306, Entry P 243, Box 17, Folder “Astronaut’s Tour 69,” NARA; Walter Bastian Jr. to USIA Washington, October 9, 1969, Box 22, Entry P 243, RG 306, NARA. To keep “the warmth engendered by the visit alive,” the USIS hosted a series of events, distribution of pamphlets, film screenings, and radio broadcasts. USIS Bogotá to USIA Washington, “Astronaut Tour Stops.”

  36. USIS Buenos Aires to USIA Washington, October 22, 1969, Box 15, Entry P 243, RG 306, NARA; “Marriott Plaza Hotel Buenos Aires Celebrates 100 Years of Sophistication and Service,” PR Newswire, July 21, 2009.

  37. Simon Bourgin to Mariada Bourgin, October 2, 1969, Box 4, Simon Bourgin Collection, BUA.

  38. Simon Bourgin to Mariada Bourgin, October 1969, Box 4, #1633, Folder “Astronaut Tours/Letters to Ely Echo,” Simon Bourgin Collection, BUA.

  39. Simon Bourgin to Mariada Bourgin, October 1969.

  40. Albert Hemsing to Mr. Bardos and Mr. Bourgin, July 28, 1969, Box 17, Folder “Astronaut’s Tour 69,” Entry 243, RG 306, NARA.

  41. “Apollo Moon Men Cheered by Spaniards,” Chicago Tribune, October 8, 1969; Simon Bourgin to Mariada Bourgin, October 1969.

  42. Hemsing to Bardos and Bourgin, July 28, 1969; “Apollo Moon Men Cheered by Spaniards,” Chicago Tribune, October 8, 1969; Albert Harkness Jr., Counselor for Public Affairs US Embassy in Madrid, to Frank Shakespeare, October 17, 1969, Box 4, Folder “SP—Space and Astronautics,” Entry A1 42, RG 306, NARA.

  43. Simon Bourgin to Mariada Bourgin, October 1969.

  44. Edward Rohrbach, “Paris Throng Hails Apollo 11 Astronauts,” Chicago Tribune, October 9, 1969, S13; USIS Par
is to USIA Washington, November 12, 1969, Box 21, Folder “Giant Steps,” Entry 243, RG 306 NARA; Apollo 11 Operations Office to Frank Shakespeare, October 17, 1969, Box 3, Folder “INF 2–3 Weekly Reports to Director,” Entry A1 42, RG 306, NARA.

  45. US Embassy The Hague to Department of State, October 22, 1969; “Astronauts Wow Brussels,” Washington Daily News, October 10, 1969, 2; Apollo 11 Operations Office to Shakespeare, October 17, 1969.

  46. Simon Bourgin to Mariada Bourgin, October 1969; USIS Oslo to USIA Washington, October 31, 1969, Box 21, Folder “Giant Steps,” Entry 243, RG 306, NARA.

  47. Tandberg interview; Radio broadcast, “Apollo XI astronauts in Oslo,” Program Leader Berit Griebenow, October 12, 1969, NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation) (2008/1837.P), Norwegian National Library Research Archives, Oslo, Norway.

  48. Gwen Morgan, “Astronauts Hailed During Visit to Queen,” Chicago Tribune, October 15, 1969.

  49. In Rome, according to the New York Times, “At the city hall, the arrival of the group coincided with a demonstration by a group of irate mothers demanding more schools. But, for a moment, the local problem was set aside as the mothers joined in the applause.” “Rome Welcomes Apollo 11 Crew,” New York Times, October 16, 1969, 14.

  50. US Embassy Belgrade to US Embassy Rome, October 1969, Box 23, Entry P 243, RG 306, NARA; Apollo 11 Operations Office to Frank Shakespeare, October 24, 1969, Box 1, Folder “INF 2–3 Weekly Reports—IOR Director to Agency Director 1969,” Entry A1 42, RG 306, NARA; “400,000 Greet Apollo 11 Crew,” Chicago Tribune, October 19, 1969, 3.

  51. Collins interview.

  52. US Embassy Belgrade to US Embassy Ankara, October 1969, Box 23, Entry P 243, RG 306, NARA; Collins interview.

  53. Simon Bourgin to Mariada Bourgin, October 23, 1969; USIS Belgrade to USIA Washington, November 20, 1969, Box 21, Folder “Giant Steps,” Entry 243, RG 306, NARA. The US Embassy in Belgrade described Tito as an avid outdoorsman, so it is not surprising that the astronauts went hunting with the Yugoslav leader to encourage friendship between their two countries, even though Armstrong may not have been an avid hunter himself. US Embassy in Belgrade to USIA Washington, October 18, 1969, Box 21, Folder “Giant Steps,” Entry 243, RG 306, NARA; US Embassy Belgrade to US Embassy Rome, October 1969.

  54. “Turkey’s First and Only English Daily,” Daily News (Turkey), undated; Jemima Kallas, “American Astronauts Arrive in Ankara,” Box 21, Folder “Giant Steps,” Entry P 243, RG 306, NARA.

  55. Kallas, “American Astronauts Arrive in Ankara.”

  56. Henry L. Davis to Simon Bourgin, September 24, 1969, Box 22, Entry P 243, RG 306, NARA.

  57. US Embassy Congo to the White House, October 25, 1969, Box 21, Folder “Giant Steps,” Entry 243 RG 306, NARA; Apollo Operations Office to Frank Shakespeare, October 24, 1969, Box 4, Folder “SP—Space and Astronautics,” Entry A1 42, RG 306, NARA.

  58. “Briefing Paper for Astronauts: Iran,” undated but likely September 1969, Box 17, RG 306, Entry P 243, NARA; US Embassy Tehran to USIA, October 26, 1969, Box 22, RG 306, Entry P 243, NARA.

  59. Geneva B. Barnes, interviewed by Glenn Swanson, March 26, 1999, Washington, DC, NASA Johnson Space Center Oral History Project.

  60. Asif Siddiqi, “Making Space for the Nation: Satellite Television, Indian Scientific Elites, and the Cold War,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 35, no. 1 (2015): 35–49.

  61. William F. Thompson to Mr. Bardos, August 1, 1969, Box 17, Entry P 243, RG 306, U.S. Information Agency Files, NARA.

  62. Siddiqi, “Making Space for the Nation,” 41.

  63. “Briefing Paper for Astronauts,” October 1969, Box 17, Entry P 243, RG 306, U.S. Information Agency Files, NARA.

  64. Kenneth B. Keating, quoted in “Moon Men Here Oct. 26,” American Reporter—Bombay, October 25, 1969, 1; USIS Bombay to USIA Washington, November 3, 1969, Box 22, Entry P 243, RG 306, U.S. Information Agency Files, NARA; Simon Bourgin notes on Apollo 11 tour, undated, Record Number 7093, Series Biographies—Government Officials, Folder: Bourgin, Simon, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC; Indian Express, quoted in USIS Bombay to USIA Washington, November 3, 1969, Box 22, Entry P 243, RG 306, U.S. Information Agency Files, NARA.

  65. Simon Bourgin to Mariada Bourgin, October 25, 1969, Box 4, Simon Bourgin Collection, BUA.

  66. “Moon Men Touch Down to Biggest-Ever Welcome in City,” Times of India, October 27, 1969, 1.

  67. Simon Bourgin notes on Apollo 11 tour; Free Press Journal, quoted in USIS Bombay to USIA Washington, November 3, 1969, Box 22, Entry P 243, RG 306, U.S. Information Agency Files, NARA.

  68. Keating, quoted in “Moon Men Touch Down,” 1.

  69. US Embassy New Delhi to US Embassy Belgrade, October 1969, Box 22, Entry P 243, RG 306, U.S. Information Agency Files, NARA.

  70. Aldrin, quoted in “Moon Men Touch Down,” 1.

  71. US Embassy New Delhi to US Embassy Belgrade, October 1969; Bourgin notes on Apollo 11 tour, undated.

  72. US Embassy New Delhi to US Embassy Belgrade, October 1969; Bourgin notes on Apollo 11 tour, undated.

  73. Simon Bourgin to Mariada Bourgin, October 25, 1969.

  74. USIS Bombay to USIA Washington, November 3, 1969, Box 22, Entry P 243, RG 306, U.S. Information Agency Files, NARA; Simon Bourgin notes on Apollo 11 tour, undated.

  75. Buzz Aldrin with Wayne Warga, Return to Earth (New York: Random House, 1973), 79; Simon Bourgin to Mariada Bourgin, “Wednesday or maybe Thursday, end of October,” 1969, Box 4, Simon Bourgin Collection, BUA.

  76. Apollo 11 Operations Office to Shakespeare, October 24, 1969; USIA Washington to USIS Dacca, October 24, 1969, Box 15, Folder “SP 10 Apollo 11 [Folder 2/2],” Entry P 243, RG 306, NARA; USIS Rawalpindi to USIA Washington, October 22, 1969, Box 21, Folder “Giant Steps,” Entry P 243, RG 306, NARA.

  77. USIS Bangkok to USIA Washington, November 10, 1969, Box 21, Folder “Giant Steps,” Entry P 243, RG 306, NARA.

  78. US Embassy Canberra to USIA Washington, November 1969, Box 21, Folder “Giant Steps,” Entry P 243, RG 306, NARA; US Embassy Seoul to USIA Washington, October 22, 1969, Box 21, Folder “Giant Steps,” Entry P 243, RG 306, NARA.

  79. “Japan Greets Astronauts as World Tour Nears End,” New York Times, November 5, 1969, 93; USIS Tokyo to USIA Washington, November 1969, Box 21, Folder “Giant Steps,” Entry P 243, RG 306, NARA; William Weathersby to Henry Loomis, December 15, 1969, Box 4, Folder “SP—Space and Astronautics,” Entry A1 42, RG 306, NARA.

  80. Hansen, First Man, 579.

  81. Stephen E. Ambrose, Nixon: The Triumph of a Politician, 1962–1972 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989), 303–304, 310.

  82. R. Young, “Nixon Greets Moon Trio on End of Tour,” Chicago Tribune, November 6, 1969.

  83. Nan Robertson, “Apollo 11 Crew Feted by Nixons on Returning from World Tour,” New York Times, November 6, 1969, 42.

  84. Richard Nixon: “Remarks Welcoming the Apollo 11 Astronauts Following Their Goodwill Tour,” November 5, 1969, American Presidency Project, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2309.

  85. “NASA Authorization for Fiscal Year 1971, ‘Hearings Before the Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences, United States Senate,’” Ninety-First Congress, second session on S. 3374, March 11, 1970.

  86. Walter Bastian Jr. to USIA Washington, October 9, 1969, Box 22, Entry P 243, RG 306, NARA.

  87. Aldrin, Return to Earth, 84.

  88. Collins, Carrying the Fire, 465.

  89. Hansen, First Man, 579.

  90. Wolfe, “Moonglow,” 43; Henry Kissinger to Mr. Ruwe, November 11, 1969.

  91. Dwight L. Chapin to Lucy Winchester, September 29, 1969, Box 14, White House Central Files, Staff Member Office Files, Sanford Fox, RNPL; M. Smith, “‘Ambassadors for Peace’ Honored,” Washington Post, November 6, 1969.

  92. Aldrin, Return to Earth, 85.

  AFTERGLOW

  1. Eugene Cernan, quoted in the Apollo Flight Journal, Apollo 17 Day 1: “A regular human weather satellit
e,” Corrected Transcript and Commentary, edited by W. David Woods and Ben Feist, 2018.

  2. Many historians and scholars have examined the cultural, environmental, and historical significance of the Blue Marble image but have not traced its connections to 1960s American public diplomacy. Denis Cosgrove examines the long history of imagining the whole earth in Apollo’s Eye: A Cartographic Genealogy of the Earth in the Western Imagination (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), and “Contested Global Visions: One-World, Whole-Earth, and the Apollo Space Photographs,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 84, no. 2 (1994): 270–294. The environmental context of the photographs is discussed in Neil Maher, “Shooting the Moon,” Environmental History 9, no. 3 (2004): 526–531, and Sheila Jasanoff, “Image and Imagination: The Formation of Global and Environmental Consciousness,” in Changing the Atmosphere, ed. Paul Edwards and Clark Miller (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001). Robert Poole considers the cultural significance of Blue Marble in Earthrise.

  3. Eugene Cernan oral history interview by Rebecca Wright, December 11, 2007, Houston, Texas, NASA Johnson Space Center Oral History Project.

  4. Brand would later use the Blue Marble image on the cover of his Whole Earth Catalog, a counterculture how-to manual. Stewart Brand, “Why Haven’t We Seen the Whole Earth Yet?,” in The Sixties: The Decade Remembered Now, by the People Who Lived It Then, ed. Lynda Obst (New York: Random House, 1977), 168. See also Maher, “Shooting the Moon,” 526–531.

  5. Chaikin, A Man on the Moon, 119.

  6. Sheila Jasanoff, “Heaven and Earth,” in Earthly Politics: Local and Global in Environmental Governance, ed. Sheila Jasanoff and Marybeth Long Martello (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004), 210. As historian Robert Poole argued, “All this amounted to a paradigm shift, along the lines of Thomas Kuhn’s model of scientific revolutions.” See Poole, Earthrise, 198. For further discussions of the idea of the revolution of human self-perception brought about by Project Apollo, see Sheila Jasanoff, “Image and Imagination.”