The Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library
The Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library
* * *
Sitting behind the large desk in his office sifting through papers, Lyndon picked up the dossier Liz had prepared for him and began reading.
“Mrs. Hart and Miss Cobb are spearheading an effort to get NASA to give the nod for women to qualify as astronauts,” it said. The memorandum told him that the women could not get additional training from Lovelace, the navy, or air force without NASA’s approval. Jerrie Cobb had seen Jim Webb, whom Mrs. Hart described as “sympathetic but not willing to say yes or no at this time.” The women, particularly Mrs. Hart, thought a word from him might help.
NASA, he read on, felt differently. “Dr. Dryden states: ‘Orbital flight is not yet a routine operation and still a matter of too great a hazard to give anyone who has not yet had 1) high speed military test flying, and 2) engineering background, so they could take over the controls in the event it became necessary. If there was a woman with this background, we should consider her as orbital flight becomes more routine we can relax these rules.’”
Then Lyndon saw a personal note to him from Liz. “I think you could get good press out of this if you can tell Mrs. Hart and Miss Cobb something affirmative. The story about women astronauts is getting a big play and I hate for them to come here and not go away with some encouragement. Based on Dr. Dryden’s statement, do you think you could write the attached letter to Dr. Webb, and show it to them before they leave.”
Lyndon flipped the page to find the letter. Like so many he signed, it was written on his behalf with the space left for his signature to make it official. This one had tomorrow’s date at the top, March 15. “Dear Jim,” the letter began.
“I have conferred with Mrs. Philip Hart and Miss Jerrie Cobb concerning their effort to get women utilized as astronauts. I’m sure you agree that sex should not be a reason for disqualifying a candidate for orbital flight.
“Could you advise me whether NASA has disqualified anyone because of being a woman?
“As I understand it, two principle requirements for orbital flight at this stage are: 1) that the individual be experienced at high speed military test flying; and 2) that the individual have an engineering background enabling him to take over controls in the event it became necessary.
“Would you advise me whether there are any women who meet these qualifications?
“If not, could you estimate for me the time when orbital flight will have become sufficiently safe that these two requirements are no longer necessary and a larger number of individuals may qualify?
“I know we are both grateful for the desire to serve on the part of these women, and look forward to the time when they can.”
Lyndon knew all the letter needed was his signature to open the conversation with Jim about women in space and effect a change with the agency. As chairman of the Space Council, he could champion the goal of America launching the first woman in space, could lead the nation to a small propaganda victory while NASA worked on the vastly more complicated Moon landing mission. On the other hand, he knew the space agency was facing much bigger challenges. It hadn’t yet launched another orbital mission and already it was planning the newly announced interim Project Gemini. This two-man program was more experimental than Mercury, with each mission working out some facet of Apollo, be it long-duration power supplies in space or the tricky business of docking in orbit; this was why the agency was recruiting more test pilots. Apollo, meanwhile, was barely a half step closer to the Moon than when Jack had laid down the lunar landing challenge. No, if NASA didn’t need this group of women, he wasn’t going to take a stand for them, either. He decided instead to get this issue off his plate once and for all.
He picked up the blue ink pen on his desk, and in the space for his signature wrote, in inch-high letters, “Let’s stop this now!” Below this, he wrote the word “file,” indicating his final instruction on the matter to Liz.
Lyndon would still meet with Mrs. Hart and Miss Cobb—he would never turn down an opportunity for press coverage—but his decision was already made.
The Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library
25About $90,970 in 2019.
26About $160,465 in 2019.
Chapter 21
Washington, DC, March 17, 1962
Jerrie and Janey were shown into Lyndon Johnson’s office just before eleven o’clock in the morning, a spacious office located across from the Senate chambers with a view of the Supreme Court. A large crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling adorned with ornate frescoes, decorum matched by the vice president’s stately desk whose trinkets included a gold pillbox. The only thing missing was Lyndon.
The women had spent the previous day preparing. Though they’d been working together for weeks, the two hadn’t spent much time together so had rushed to come up with a strategy. They agreed they should impress upon the vice president that they believed there was real scientific value in testing women for spaceflight and that the publicity that would come from launching the first woman could be significant both nationally and internationally. What their preparations hadn’t included was a survey of how the other women involved felt, but neither was bothered. Jerrie assumed that they were all of the same mind, so she continued operating as their spokeswoman.
After a moment, Lyndon rushed in. They stood to shake his hand as he hurriedly apologized, saying that a bill signing ceremony had gone long. He had to open the Senate at noon, he told them, and also needed to eat lunch and get some preparations done beforehand, so they didn’t have much time, but they were welcome to start.
Jerrie jumped right in. She began with a detailed explanation of what she believed were the benefits of sending women into space—how women are lighter, eat less, and consume less oxygen, so are more cost-effective as payload. Then she told the vice president about the medical and psychological exams—how she, Wally, and Rhea had proved women were emotionally and physically fit for space. Janey added her own appeal. Women shouldn’t be barred from flying in space on account of their gender, she said. It was antiquated to suggest that women be relegated to the kitchen. If women would explore space eventually, she said in reference to the evasive line so many men had been telling her for months, why not start now?
Lyndon leaned back in his chair as he listened, fidgeting with his gold cufflinks and gold watchband. He didn’t have anything against women flyers, he told them. In fact, one of his oldest and dearest friends was their colleague Miss Jacqueline Cochran, who had not only made him a fan of female flyers but had convinced him that women had much to offer the nation in all fields. The problem as he saw it, LBJ told the ladies, was that if NASA admitted women to its astronaut corps, every man on the street would argue they too were fit for spaceflight. The qualifications were put in place by highly informed professionals for the astronauts’ and the program’s own safety.
Eisenhower Presidential Library
Jerrie might have believed the vice president was taking their meeting seriously, but Janey knew she was witnessing a performance. LBJ was humoring them, feigning distress at being the bearer of bad news.
When Lyndon felt the meeting had gone on long enough, he leaned toward Jerrie and Janey and put on an earnest face. He wanted to help them, he said, he really did. But it wasn’t up to him. It was up to Jim Webb and NASA to make that decision, he told them. He didn’t mention the letter Liz had drafted in his name. With that, the meeting was over. The vice president picked up the private telephone on his desk as the two women were ushered out the door into the waiting crowd of journalists.
Jerrie went straight from LBJ’s office to NASA’s headquarters to try to speak with Jim but was told he didn’t have time to see her. She was referred instead to a Dr. Cox to whom Jim Webb had turned the matter of women in space, but it turned out he didn’t have any authority to change their standing with NASA, either. It was another brick wall.
* * *
When Jackie heard what Jerrie had been up to, she could scarcely believe the audacity. Running around Washington cornering politicians, speaking publicly with a level of authority she didn’t have, getting all the way to her friend Lyndon. Then there was the matter of the letter, the last one Jerrie had written that made it clear she hadn’t listened to a word Jackie had said over dinner that night in Cocoa Beach. Jackie understood Jerrie’s passion; she, too, dreamed of flying in space. But the way Jerrie was carrying on, badgering decision-makers into seeing things her way—she wasn’t endearing herself to the people who could make that happen, she was making herself a pest. Jackie knew from her days with the WASPs that a sound and organized program was the only way to advance the case for women, and watching Jerrie from afar, she felt she had to step in. Sure Jerrie would keep finding ways to avoid another face-to-face meeting, Jackie decided to put her thoughts very clearly in a return letter on March 23. “Dear Jerrie,” it began. “I also enjoyed the evening with you and Mrs. Rieker at Cocoa Beach…
“You asked me several times that evening how I felt about a woman in space program and because I tried generally to express my views when the question was first put to me, I guess I was not communicating very clearly. Perhaps it’s best that I place my views on record.
“Women will travel in space just as surely as men. It’s only a question of when…I am sure you know from our various conversations that I am in favor of a space program for women. That I put up the money to pay the cost of most of the twenty candidates who took the medical checks at the Lovelace Foundation and then put the money for most of the ones who passed these checks to enable them to go to Pensacola…
“A space program for women is unlike all previous advents of women into various phases of aviation in that spaceflight for the present is terribly expensive, is an urgent project from the standpoint of national defense, and there is no lack of qualified candidates for the role of astronaut from among our already highly trained flight personnel. In other words, there is no present real national need for women in such a role…
“A sound, fully acceptable women in space program must, in my opinion, involve a sizable group…No clear conclusions can be reached by checking one person or even a very few. Extremes of tolerance, reaction, etc. will be found in any group while arriving at an average of tolerable limits. The government did not pick one person to be the astronaut nor did it limit itself to seven at the start. A great number were screened. Seven was the final result…
“There is no real present national urgency about putting a woman into space. To attempt to do so in the near future might indeed interfere with the space program now underway which is urgent from a national standpoint. I believe you disagree with me about this on the ground that to put a woman into space before the Russians would be a victory…A hastily prepared flight by a less than completely trained woman could backfire…
“It’s better to be sound than quick…
“I compliment all of the present candidates for their ambition and their apparent willingness to go through the needed stretch of specialized training…If you go along with the soundness of the group idea, as I hope you do, then you can be particularly helpful to a program by going out of your way to create the group image publicly.”
Pleased with the clarity she’d managed, six days later Jackie sent a copy to each of the other women who had taken the Lovelace exams. “So that you will have an expression of my views about a women in space program,” she wrote in her cover letter, “I am sending you herewith a copy of my letter of March 23, 1962, to Jerrie Cobb.”
The same day, Floyd wrote to Randy. “At Cocoa Beach a day or two before the Glenn shot, Jerrie Cobb had dinner with Jackie and brought along some woman writer for Life Magazine,” he wrote in his cover letter. “Because Miss Cobb asked Jackie at least a dozen times during the evening how she felt about the woman in space program—even though Jackie tried to explain her position when the question was first put to her—Jackie concluded to write Miss Cobb a letter.” Inclosed was a copy of Jackie’s letter to Jerrie.
But Randy and the women he’d tested weren’t the only people wrapped up in the matter. More parties had been dragged into the fray—NASA management, navy brass, politicians—so Jackie sent each of them a copy of the letter to make her intentions and stance abundantly clear. She sent a copy to Lyndon. “I realize what an extremely busy person you are,” she wrote to her old friend, “and I would not impose upon you to read the enclosed copy of a letter (reading time eight minutes) I have sent to Jerrie Cobb if I did not think it as of great national importance and if you were not the head of our entire space program.” Jackie also sent copies of the letter to Hugh Dryden and to Olin Teague, a member of the Science and Astronautics Committee in the House of Representatives. She sent one to Walt Williams and Bob Gilruth at NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center. She sent one to Admiral Robert Pirie. She even, with considerable effort, tracked down Jane Rieker at a new address. “I tried my very best, that evening, to express my views concerning women in space,” Jackie told Jane in her cover letter, “but obviously did not get over my point so I wrote Miss Cobb a letter and I am taking the liberty of sending you the enclosed copy as I think it will interest you.” For good measure, she sent a copy to a second LIFE writer, Jane Nash.
It wasn’t long before Jackie got confirmation on her views. Hugh was impressed with her “excellent analysis” of the role of women in space. “I am sure that the time will come when women will participate in space flights, but I agree with you that it does not seem wise to make this a national objective of the space program at the present time.” Bob was pleased to see that she had so eloquently expressed very similar views to those he had tried to convey in his own recent letter to Jerrie. “Your advice to Miss Cobb that rushing into a woman astronaut program just to beat the Russians might prove disastrous is apparently based on much the same premise that has guided a lot of our own decision making.” Walt Williams wished that he or “other people in NASA could state the situation in the same lucid manner. It would be of great help to our program if your views could be published in at least the trade journals in the form of either an article or guest editorial.” Randy replied to Floyd saying he found Jackie’s letter on the whole excellent.
The same praise wasn’t forthcoming from the other women. Many were busy getting their professional lives back on track after the cancelled Pensacola tests and simply didn’t reply. Gene Nora Stumbough, however, deep in preparations for a countrywide tour flying with Beech Aircraft, threw her support behind Jackie. “I agree with your thoughts expressed to Jerrie wholeheartedly and 100%. Women will travel in space, but there is no need to train women right now. And to frantically send up a woman immediately just to beat the Russians, is, in my thinking, totally invalid. I am not under the delusion that one of us next week or even next year will be shot off to the Moon. I am only afraid that by nagging those who make the decisions, we are hurting ourselves.”
* * *
Jerrie continued to nag the decision-makers. A crusader, her mother had called her, amazed that her formerly shy little girl was now taking on Washington.
Her patience for not getting her way, however, was wearing thin. Unable to secure a meeting with Jim Webb and worried she had not made her position clear, she sent him another series of letters. “If you do not think this proposal is important enough to warrant your attention and it is out of Dr. Cox’s authority, would you please tell me what you would like for me to do? I repeat that I would like to work with NASA towards this goal. I cannot help but believe that it is of utmost importance to our country and I would willingly give my life for it. Please let me help.”
Jerrie also followed up with LBJ, looking for loopholes to sway the vice president’s opinion. “I am sure you realize the importance of the United States putting the First woman in space and the contributions women can make to space flight. The only objection which NASA has made is that there are no women military jet test pilot
s. If this experience is deemed so necessary, it should be proved scientifically by letting a qualified woman pilot fly the space flight simulators under stress conditions and compare the results.” She included a copy of her “Space for Women” speech for emphasis.
When Lyndon’s reply came, Jerrie was amazed. “The choice of training individuals who will make space flights is quite appropriately left to the operating agencies in the program. However, I see no reason why preparations should not be made for testing and training individuals who have the required physical and mental capabilities, regardless of sex.” Lyndon was feeding her breadcrumbs without any promise of resolution, but Jerrie read it as a glimmer of hope. For the first time, she saw a crack in the wall barring women from space and felt sure that with enough pressure, she could break that wall wide open. She believed what the media was saying about her, believed that she was really qualified to fly in space and deserved a mission. “In all true conscience,” she wrote in her reply, “I must continue to do everything I can for this important matter.”
Getting Jackie on her side was a different matter. A month after receiving the scathing, four-page letter, Jerrie wrote her reply, her frustration palpable. “The qualification rules have been laid down for astronauts and although NASA says they have nothing against women, it just so happens that the requirements are such that no woman can meet them. I don’t know much about politics but I do know that exceptions have been, and can be made without destroying the scientific basis of the program…The people who are saying that women should not go into space now, are the same type who were saying that man would never fly, or that women did not have the mechanical or scientific mind to pilot an airplane. All I’m saying is that I am not content to sit back and listen to their silly excuses while waiting for Russia to prove the scientific importance of putting women in space.”
Fighting for Space Page 30
