Category THE RACE

There were several significant space issues that were unresolved in the final months of the Eisenhower administration.12 Dealing with these issues was to occupy president-elect Kennedy’s attention only briefly during the postelec­tion transition period. They included the relationship between civilian and military space efforts; a proposal to abolish the National Aeronautics and Space Council, the White House body for developing national space policy and strategy; the pace at which larger rocket boosters ought to be developed in order to close the weight-lifting gap with the Soviet Union; and NASA’s plans for a human space flight program to follow the initial U. S. effort to send an astronaut into orbit, Project Mercury.

The publicity-seeking chairman of the House Committee on Science and Astronautics, Overton Brooks, was aware of and concerned by the Air Force campaign. Unsatisfied by Air Force assurances that it did not hope to take over the lead role in the U. S. space program, Brooks wrote a three-page let­ter to President Kennedy on March 9, saying that he was “seriously disturbed by the persistence and strength of implications reaching me to the effect that a radical change in our national space policy is contemplated.” Brooks told Kennedy that he did not want to see “the military tail wag the space dog.”30 Brooks followed this letter with hearings on the NASA-Air Force rivalry, but he was not able to get top DOD officials to testify, most likely due to an administration decision not to cooperate with the committee. The hearings shed little light on the evolving situation.

Despite the hopes raised by Kennedy’s campaign rhetoric, it is unlikely that the new administration could have, or would have, agreed with the Air Force hope for a larger role in space at the expense of NASA. As he left office, Dwight Eisenhower had warned of the increasing power of the “military- industrial complex,” and a move in the early months of the administration to increase Air Force activity in a visible area such as space would have been politically very difficult. Secretary of Defense McNamara was trying to get the management of defense activities under centralized control. The top peo­ple in DOD were not particularly space conscious, and McNamara and Webb had reached an understanding of the respective roles of their agencies that the White House would have been unlikely to countermand. NASA under Webb’s direction seemed to be shaping up in terms both of its organization and program success, and there were no compelling reasons to downgrade the importance of the agency. One of presidential science adviser Wiesner’s major priorities was to control the spread of the arms race into new areas; he too was unlikely to have supported an expanded military space effort.

President Kennedy replied to the Brooks letter on March 23, telling the congressman that “it is not now, nor has it ever been my intention to subor­dinate the activities of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to those of the Department of Defense.”31 With that response, the con­troversy over the NASA-Air Force relationship became a secondary policy issue, although it never completely disappeared.

It had been assumed since the March meetings on the NASA budget that Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson as the new chairman of the National Aeronautics and Space Council would, once he formally assumed that position, lead a comprehensive review of the U. S. space program that would provide the basis for decisions in fall 1961 on the future of that program, and especially the future of the human space flight effort. But the events of April 1961 drastically shortened the time allotted to that review. Johnson did not attend the April 14 White House meetings on the space program. He was returning from his first overseas trip as vice presi­dent, to the West African nation of Senegal, which was celebrating the first anniversary of its independence from France, with stops in Geneva and Paris on the way home. But on April 19, after President Kennedy had in the early hours of the day walked disconsolately with Ted Sorensen and then alone on the south lawn of the White House in the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs failure, he met later in the day with Lyndon Johnson and James Webb to discuss the organization of the accelerated review he had decided was needed. Johnson suggested that he would “have hear­ings, lay a background and create a platform for a recommendation to Congress.” He asked Kennedy to give him a memorandum “that would provide a charter for those hearings” and would be an “outline of what concerned him.”29

Ted Sorensen drafted a one-page memorandum, and President Kennedy signed it and sent it to Johnson the next day, April 20. The memorandum stands as a historic document; it spelled out the requirements that led directly to the decision to go to the Moon as the centerpiece of an accelerated U. S. space effort. It said:

In accordance with our conversation I would like for you as Chairman of the Space Council to be in charge of making an overall survey of where we stand in space.

1. Do we have a chance of beating the Soviets by putting a laboratory in space, or by a trip around the moon, or by a rocket to land on the moon, or by a rocket to go to the moon and back with a man. Is there any other space program which promises dramatic results in which we could win?

2. How much additional would it cost?

3. Are we working 24 hours a day on existing programs? If not, why not? If not, will you make recommendations to me as to how work can be speeded up.

4. In building large boosters should we put our emphasis on nuclear, chemical, or liquid fuel, or a combination of these?

5. Are we making maximum effort? Are we achieving necessary results? [1]

THE WHITE HOUSE

WASHINGTON

April 20, 1961

MEMORANDUM FOR

VICE PRESIDENT

In accordance with our conversation I would like for you as Chairman of the Space Council to be in charge of making an overall survey of where we stand in space.

1. Do we have a chance of beating the Soviets by putting a laboratory in space, or by a trip around the moon, or by a rocket to land on the moon, or by a rocket to go to the moon and back with a man. Is there any other space program which promises dramatic results in which we could win?

2. How much additional would it cost?

3. Are we working 24 hours a day on existing programs. If not, why not? If not, will you make recommendations to me as to how work can be speeded up.

4. In building large boosters should we put out emphasis on nuclear, chemical or liquid fuel, or a combination of these three?

5. Are we making maximum effort? Are we achieving necessary results?

The April 20, 1961, memorandum that led to the decision to go to the Moon (LBJ Library image).

The Kennedy memorandum both contained a very clear statement of a requirement—“a space program which promises dramatic results in which we could win”—and a sense of urgency. Kennedy wanted Johnson’s report “at the earliest possible moment.” Budget director Bell suggests that “the President would not have made such a request unless he expected a positive answer and a strong program, and therefore he was pretty sure before he made that request that that was what he intended to do.” At an April 21 press conference, Kennedy was asked: “Mr. President, you don’t seem to be push­ing the space program nearly as energetically now as you suggested during the campaign that you thought it should be pushed. In view of the feeling of many people in this country that we must do everything we can to catch up with the Russians as soon as possible, do you anticipate applying any sort of crash program?” Kennedy replied:

We are attempting to make a determination as to which program offers the best hope before we embark on it, because you may commit a relatively small sum of money now for a result in 1967, ‘68, or ‘69, which will cost you billions of dollars, and therefore the Congress passed yesterday the bill providing for a Space Council which will be chaired by the Vice President. We are attempting to make a determination as to which of these various proposals offers the best hope. When that determination is made we will then make a recommendation to the Congress.

In addition, we have to consider whether there is any program now, regard­less of its cost, which offers us hope of being pioneers in a project. It is possible to spend billions of dollars in this project in space to the detriment of other programs and still not be successful. We are behind, as I said before, in large boosters.

We have to make a determination whether there is any effort we could make in time or money which could put us first in any new area. Now, I don’t want to start spending the kind of money that I am talking about without making a determination based on careful scientific judgment as to whether a real success can be achieved, or whether because we are so far behind now in this particu­lar race we are going to be second in this decade.

So I would say to you that it’s a matter of great concern, but I think before we break through and begin a program which would not reach a completion, as you know, until the end of this decade—for example, trips to the moon, maybe 10 years off, maybe a little less, but are quite far away and involve, as I say, enormous sums—I don’t think we ought to rush into it and begin them until we really know where we are going to end up. And that study is now being undertaken under the direction of the Vice President.

Then, for the first time in public, Kennedy said: “If we can get to the moon before the Russians, then we should.”30

Preparation of Kennedy’s message to Congress began in mid-May; the sec­tion on accelerating the space program was first drafted by the BOB’s Willis Shapley; NASA, DOD, AEC, and the Space Council provided their comments. The overall theme of the speech was the need for U. S. citizens to make sacri­fices to meet the challenges facing the country and to insure the U. S. position as the leading power in the world by addressing “urgent national needs,” the title given to the address. After Kennedy received messages from Moscow suggesting that he was likely to encounter a belligerent Nikita Khrushchev in their meeting in Vienna, the speech was “quickly redrafted” and “the language toughened to signal his [Kennedy’s] resolve to Khrushchev.”25 On May 25, in a nationally televised address,26 President John F. Kennedy told the assembled lawmakers that “these are extraordinary times. And we face an extraordinary challenge. Our strength as well as our convictions have imposed on this nation the role of leader in freedom’s cause.” He noted that “there is no simple policy that meets this challenge.” But “there is much we can do—and must do. The proposals I bring before you are numerous and varied. They arise from the host of special opportunities and dangers which have become increasingly clear in recent months.” Then the presi­dent turned to his specific proposals, which included measures to continue economic recovery from the recession the new administration had inherited; measures to help developing nations make economic and social progress; cooperation in terms of military alliances and military assistance to U. S. allies; an enhanced overseas information program; an additional build-up of U. S. military power beyond what Kennedy had requested just two months earlier; a strengthened civil defense program; and an increased emphasis on disarmament negotiations. All of these initiatives, Kennedy said, would involve substantial costs. Echoing his inaugural address call to “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country,” Kennedy argued that “our greatest asset in this struggle is the American people—their willingness to pay the price for these programs—to under­stand and accept a long struggle.” He warned that “this Nation is engaged in a long and exacting test of the future of freedom.”

After listing all of the other areas he was recommending for new action, the president turned last to space. As he did, he deviated from his pre­pared text to emphasize the sacrifices involved and the commitment he was requesting; Sorensen says that this departure from the text was “the only time I can recall his doing so in a formal address.”27 Kennedy’s words as they deviated from the prepared text are indicated in bold italics below. Kennedy also skipped a few portions of the prepared text or deleted passages by hand. These deletions from the prepared text are in brackets:

Finally, if we are to win the battle for men’s minds, the dramatic achievements in space which occurred in recent weeks should have made clear to us all as did Sputnik in 1957, the impact of this adventure on the minds of men everywhere who are attempting to make a determination of which road they should take. Since early in my term, our efforts in space have been under review. With the advice of the Vice President, who is Chairman of the National Space Council, we have examined where we are strong and where we are not, where we may succeed and where we may not. Now it is time to take longer strides—time for a great new American enterprise—time for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on earth.

I believe we possess all the resources and all the talents necessary. But the facts of the matter are that we have never made the national decisions or mar­shaled the national resources required for such leadership. We have never spec­ified long-range goals on an urgent time schedule, or managed our resources and our time so as to insure their fulfillment.

Recognizing the head start obtained by the Soviets with their large rocket engines, which gives them many months of lead-time, and recognizing the likelihood that they will exploit this lead for some time to come in still more impressive successes, we nevertheless are required to make new efforts on our own. For while we cannot guarantee that we shall one day be first, we can guarantee that any failure to make this effort will make [find] us last.

We take an additional risk by making it in full view of the world—but as shown by the feat of astronaut Shepard, this very risk enhances our stature when we are successful. But this is not merely a race. Space is open to us now; and our eagerness to share its meaning is not governed by the efforts of others. We go into space because whatever mankind must undertake, free men must fully share.

I therefore ask the Congress, above and beyond the increases I have earlier requested for space activities, to provide the funds which are needed to meet the following national goals:

I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth. No single space project in this period will be more [exciting or] impressive to mankind or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. [Including the necessary supporting research, this objective will require an additional $531 million this year and still higher sums in the future.] We propose to accelerate the development of the appropriate lunar spacecraft. We propose to develop alternate liquid and solid fueled boosters much larger than any now being developed, until certain which is superior. We propose additional funds for other engine development and for unmanned explorations—explorations which are particularly important for one purpose which this nation will never overlook: the survival of the man who first makes this daring flight. But in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon—it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.

* * *

Let it be clear—and this is a judgment which the Members of Congress must finally make. Let it be clear that I am asking the Congress and the country to accept a firm commitment to a new course of action—a course which will last for many years and carry very heavy costs, 531 million dollars in fiscal 1962—an estimated $7-9 billion additional over the next five years. If we are

[were] to go only halfway, or reduce our sights in the face of difficulty, in my judgment it would be better not to go at all.

Now this is a choice which this country must make, and I am confident that under the leadership of the Space Committees of the Congress, and the Appropriating Committees, that you will consider the matter carefully.

It is a most important decision that we make as a nation. But all of you have lived through the last four years and have seen the significance of space and the adventures in space, and no one can predict with certainty what the ultimate meaning will be of the mastery of space.

I believe we should go to the moon. But I think every citizen of this country as well as the Members of Congress should consider the matter carefully in making their judgment, to which we have given attention over many weeks and months, because it is a heavy burden, and there is no sense in agreeing or desiring that the United States take an affirmative position in outer space, unless we are prepared to do the work and bear the burdens to make it success­ful. If we are not, we should decide today and this year.

[Let me stress that more money alone will not do the job.] This decision demands a major national commitment of scientific and technical manpower, material and facilities, and the possibility of their diversion from other impor­tant activities where they are already thinly spread. It means a degree of dedi­cation, organization and discipline which have not always characterized our research and development efforts. It means we cannot afford work stoppages, inflated costs of material or talent, wasteful interagency rivalries, or a high turnover of key personnel.

New objectives and new money cannot solve these problems. They could, in fact, aggravate them further—unless every scientist, every engineer, every serviceman, every technician, contractor, and civil servant involved gives his pledge that this nation will move forward, with the full speed of freedom, in the exciting adventure of space.28

Sitting near the rostrum as Kennedy delivered his speech, Sorensen “thought the President looked strained in his effort to win them over.” Kennedy apparently had sensed that some in the Congressional audience were “skeptical, if not hostile, and that his request was being received with stunned doubt and disbelief”; this likely led to his decision to deviate from his prepared text to try to convince the congressmen of the need for what he was proposing, and to skip a few passages toward the end of his address. Returning to the White House, Kennedy remarked to Sorensen that “the routine applause with which the Congress greeted” his proposal for a national commitment to go to the Moon had struck him as “less than enthusiastic.”29 Indeed, during the speech the Senate and House Republican leaders “took notes, inspected their fingernails, brushed their hair back and joined in the almost complete Republican silence.”30

The New York Times the next morning had a banner headline saying “Kennedy Asks $1.8 Billion This Year to Accelerate Space Exploration, Add Foreign Aid, Bolster Defense” and also “Moon Trip Urged.” The news­paper reported that “Members of Congress embraced with some warmth today the objectives outlined in President Kennedy’s speech, but shied at providing all the funds to meet them,” and that “some fears were expressed by Democratic liberals, however, that the huge spending in the effort to reach the moon. . . might divert funds from programs such as aid to the aged.” The Times editorialized that “there is an element of ‘race’ involved cannot be denied, but that is only secondary to the main purpose” and that “it is in the spirit of free men, and the cherished traditions of our people, to accept the challenge and meet it with all our resources, material, intellectual and spiritual.” The editorial thought that “the majority of our people will agree” with the lunar landing goal.31

Kennedy need not have worried about congressional, and particularly Senate, support of the accelerated space effort he had proposed. Lyndon Johnson’s earlier consultations with congressional leaders had helped lay the foundation for strong bipartisan support of the initiative. The Senate on June 28 took up a House authorization bill passed the day before the May 25 speech, and amended it to include the full $1.784 billion for NASA that White House had requested for Fiscal Year 1962; the bill passed with­out even the formality of a roll-call vote. The House of Representatives agreed to this increase in a conference committee, and the authorization bill passed the House on July 20 by a 354 to 59 vote. The appropriations bill containing NASA funds had a similarly easy ride through Congress; it passed both houses on August 7 and contained a $1,671,750,000 NASA appropriation for Fiscal 1962, only $113 million less than Kennedy had requested.32 This amount represented an 89 percent increase over the pre­vious year’s NASA budget, the last one enacted during the Eisenhower administration.

Kennedy’s speech called for sending Americans to the Moon “before the decade is out.” There is some uncertainty on how the decision was made to use this phrase, rather than the 1967 date for the first landing attempt that was being used in NASA’s internal planning. The May 8 Webb-McNamara report had suggested an “end of the decade” target for the first lunar landing. The BOB review of the Webb-McNamara memorandum had suggested that there should be “a major effort to avoid any public commitment to a specific target date.” Robert Seamans reports that the first draft of Kennedy’s speech “called for a lunar landing by 1967” and that NASA was “aghast” at speci­fying a particular year. He says that James Webb “called Ted Sorensen and convinced him, and later the President, that the stated goal should be by the end of the decade.” Sorensen, by contrast, says that Kennedy’s “self-imposed deadline, ‘this decade,’ was chosen and inserted by JFK himself to exert pressure on NASA. The phrase deliberately left some flexibility—it could mean within the decade of the sixties, or within the next ten years.”33 A “within the next ten years” interpretation was never acknowledged; “before this decade is out” was universally seen as setting a target of the end of 1969 (or, for some, before the end of 1970) for the initial lunar landing. Indeed, as the Apollo program gained momentum, John Kennedy pushed for a landing as soon as possible, in 1967 or even late 1966.

Kennedy’s September 1962 trip to space installations was intended to give him a sense of the character and scope of the accelerated space effort he had approved in May 1961. At Huntsville, he saw one of the very large F-1 engines that would be used to power the Moon rocket, and witnessed a test firing of the engines of the first stage of the Saturn 1 booster that generated 1.5 million pounds of thrust. At the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and the NASA Launch Operations Center on Merritt Island in Florida, he saw the launch pad from which two Saturn 1 boosters had already been success­fully launched, and was briefed on the Gemini and Apollo programs. He told the NASA staff at the Launch Operations Center that “as long as the decision has been made that our great system and others will be judged at least in one degree by how we do in the field of space, we might as well be first.”14 On the flight from Florida to his next stop in Houston, Kennedy spent more than an hour in informal conversation regarding both the civilian and the military space programs with BOB director Bell, director of defense research and engineering Harold Brown, and Seamans of NASA. Kennedy was surprised to discover that he and Seamans had both been members of the Class of 1940 at Harvard. (James Webb was on a separate plane with Vice President Johnson.)

The trip also provided an opportunity to make a major speech on the reasons behind his decision to go to the Moon; that speech is often con­fused with the May 25, 1961, address to a joint session of Congress during which Kennedy had announced his decision. At 10:00 a. m. on September 12, 1962, on a day that was oppressively hot and humid, President Kennedy addressed a Houston crowd of more than 40,000 people, mostly students, in the Rice University football stadium. Like many other of the president’s speeches, various government agencies had suggested to the White House what Kennedy might say; in this case, material had been submitted to JFK’s top speechwriter Theodore Sorensen from at least NASA, BOB, the State Department, and by Sorensen’s brother Tom at the U. S. Information Agency. Sorensen drew on ideas, phrases, and words from most of these inputs in drafting Kennedy’s Rice University speech, but he was a consum­mate master of spoken rhetoric, and his drafts transcended the sometimes pedestrian content of the agency submissions. Even so, most of Kennedy’s speeches as president, including this memorable space address, were group products.

The Rice University speech is perhaps most remembered for the line “we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” The original version of this sentence was actually suggested by NASA; the agency’s lengthy input into the speech preparation included the sentences: “We chose to go to the moon in this decade not because it will be easy, but because it will be hard. It will bring out the best in us.” These words formed the basis of a much more eloquent declaration. As Kennedy spoke, he substituted the word “choose” for the word “chose,” and said, “we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.” Among the other memorable sentences in Kennedy’s Rice University address are the following:

“The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join it or not, and it is one of the great adventures of all time, and no nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in the race for space.”

“This generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the com­ing age of space. We mean to be part of it—we mean to lead it.” (This last sentence was extemporized rather than in the prepared text of the speech.)

“We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the prog­ress of all people.”

“But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain. Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?” (This last sentence was written into the speech’s reading text in Kennedy’s hand.) “Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, ‘Because it is there.’ Well, space is there, and we’re going to climb it, and the moon and planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God’s blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.”15

President Kennedy completed his tour of space installations later in the day, first visiting the temporary quarters of the new Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, then flying to St. Louis to visit the plant of the McDonnell Aircraft Corporation, where the Mercury and Gemini spacecraft were devel­oped. By the time he returned to the White House, Kennedy had had an apparent change of mind; rather than giving high priority to controlling the costs of sending Americans to the Moon, Kennedy wanted to know “how soon can we get there?”

While some in Congress, such as Senator William Fulbright (D-AK), chair­man of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, received the presi­dent’s proposal positively, many members questioned whether the Kennedy was intending to back away from the commitment to a U. S. lunar landing program for which they had been willing to approve exponential budget increases in 1961 and 1962. Webb was “a little surprised” by this reaction, thinking that “a President ought to be able to put that kind of thing for­ward in a speech at the UN for discussion on a world-wide basis.” Based on his September 18 conversation with the president, reducing his support for Apollo was not Webb’s understanding of the reason for Kennedy’s pro­posal; Webb took “Kennedy’s word on the basis of full faith and credit” that his reason for suggesting cooperation was related to broader strategic issues.

Columnist Drew Pearson noted that “one of the most significant points about JFK’s U. N. speech was that he bucked the wrath of the senior and sometimes wrathy moguls of Congress.” Pearson expected Representative Albert Thomas to “bellow like a Texas steer at the idea of taking part of the moon project away from Houston and putting it in Moscow.” Pearson recog­nized that the reasoning behind Kennedy’s proposal was “his new strategy of pushing for peace: The belief that you have to build one success on top of another if the peace is to be won. He had scored one important international success with the test-ban treaty. And he had the alternative of sitting still and letting the favorable atmosphere which it created slowly get nibbled away by the harpies, or of proposing new dramatic moves to strengthen the founda­tion for peace.”34

Pearson was correct about Albert Thomas. Thomas, who had used his position as chair of the House appropriations subcommittee in control of NASA funds to bring the Manned Spacecraft Center to the Houston area, wrote to President Kennedy on September 21. He first commended the president on his speech the previous day, saying that “it clearly sets you out as the leader of the world in international affairs.” He then noted that “the press and many private individuals seized upon your offer to cooperate with the Russians in a moon shot as a weakening of your former position of a forthright and strong effort in lunar landings.” Thomas asked Kennedy for “a letter clarifying your position with reference to our immediate effort in this regard.”35

Kennedy quickly replied in a letter that stands as the clearest statement of his rationale for the cooperative proposal. He stated that “in my view an energetic continuation of our strong space effort is essential, and the need for this effort is, if anything, increased by our intent to work for increasing cooperation if the Soviet Government proves willing.” He noted that “the idea of cooperation in space is not new,” and that “my statement in the United Nations is a direct development of a policy long held by the United States Government.” He added:

This great national effort and this steadily stated readiness to cooperate with others are not in conflict. They are mutually supporting elements of a single policy. We do not make our space effort with the narrow purpose of national aggrandizement. We make it so that the United States may have a leading and honorable role in mankind’s peaceful conquest of space. It is this great effort which permits us now to offer increased cooperation with no suspicion anywhere that we speak from weakness. And in the same way, our readiness to cooperate with others enlarges the international meaning of our own peaceful American program in space.

In my judgment, then, our renewed and extended purpose of cooperation, so far from offering any excuse for slackening or weakness in our space effort, is one reason more for moving ahead with the great program to which we have been committed as a country for more than two years.

So the position of the United States is clear. If cooperation is possible, we mean to cooperate, and we shall do so from a position made strong and solid by our national effort in space. If cooperation is not possible—and as realists we must plan for this contingency too—then the same strong national effort will serve all free men’s interest in space, and protect us also against possible hazards to our national security. So let us press on.36

Even before the president’s United Nations speech, the House of Representatives had reduced NASA’s budget for Fiscal Year 1964 from the $5.7 billion that had been requested by the president to $5.1 billion, a cut of almost 11 percent. A post-speech attempt on the floor of the House to reduce the NASA budget by an additional $700 million was defeated by a 47 to 132 vote after four hours of acrimonious debate, but the House did approve by a 125-110 margin a resolution saying that no part of the NASA appropriation could be used for a cooperative program involving any “Communist, Communist-dominated or Communist controlled country.”37

James Webb was able to convince the Senate Appropriations Committee to modify, but not delete, this prohibition, and the final NASA FY1963 appropriations bill included a statement that “no part of any appropriation made available to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration by this Act shall be used for the expenses of participating in a manned lunar landing to be carried out jointly by the United States and any other country without the consent of Congress.”38 This statement was incorporated into the appro­priations bill over the objections of the White House.

What might have happened to Project Apollo if John F. Kennedy had not been assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963, is an unanswerable ques­tion. Historian Roger Launius has suggested that “had Kennedy served two full terms, it is quite easy to envision a point. . . in which he might have decided that the international situation that sparked the announcement of a lunar landing ‘by the end of the decade’ had passed and he could have safely turned off the landing clock.” Such a thought could well have been the president’s mind as he worried during the summer and fall of 1963 about the increasing criticisms and costs of Apollo and sought Soviet cooperation in a lunar mission; it was certainly one of the options being considered at the White House senior staff level. However, backing off of being first to the Moon did not seem to be on Kennedy’s mind in November 1963. In remarks he planned to deliver in Dallas on November 22, Kennedy would have said “the United States of America has no intention of finishing second in space. This effort is expensive—but it pays its own way for freedom and for America.”15

As already noted, during October and November, NASA and DOD car­ried out independent reviews in response to the October 5 White House questions; they then began to prepare joint reviews on several key questions, such as what should be the Earth orbital human space flight effort and what should be the country’s launch vehicle program. The pace of the lunar land­ing program was not an issue in the joint NASA-DOD effort. Rather, the focus with respect to human space flight was the balance between NASA and DOD in Earth-orbital spaceflight activities. The Department of Defense at this point was becoming increasingly interested in the military and intelli­gence potentials of humans in orbit, and there were suggestions that DOD at some point might take over from NASA the leading role in the Gemini proj­ect. NASA during this period examined what was “the minimum manned earth-orbit program required to support a manned lunar landing”; the space agency wanted to make sure that there were enough Gemini flights to satisfy its requirements in support of Apollo before any consideration was given to the potential transfer of the project to Air Force control. The NASA study operated under the assumption that the White House objective in the joint program review was “to find ways and means of reducing the projected cost of the total (NASA and DOD) national space program without abandoning the objective of the manned lunar landing, while at the same time increasing the responsiveness of the program to military needs.”16

The pace of the lunar landing program was an issue in the BOB review of the national space program, which was taking place in parallel with the NASA-DOD effort. In late November, a report summarizing BOB’s conclu­sions was drafted by the BOB staff, primarily Willis Shapley, in consultation with senior representatives of NASA and the Department of Defense. This report had two sections, one dealing with the “Manned Lunar Landing Program” and the other with “Military Space Objectives,” with a particular focus on the future of a separate Air Force effort in human space flight.

A November 13 draft of report of this “Special Space Review” contained a clear statement of the goal of the lunar landing program: “to attempt to achieve a manned lunar landing and return by the end of the decade” with “principal purposes” of (1) “demonstrating an important space achievement ahead of the USSR”; (2) “serving as a focus for technological developments necessary for other space objectives and having potential significance for national defense”; and (3) “acquiring useful scientific and other data to the extent feasible.” (This statement reinforces the reality that science was never the primary goal of going to the Moon.) The conclusion of the draft review was that “after examining the pros and cons and the fiscal implications of possible alternatives. . . the goal as stated above should be adhered to at this time, with due recognition of the problems involved and of the possibility that it may be necessary to change the objective at some future date.”17 The next draft of the report was dated November 20. It expanded on the analysis of why it was prudent to stay with the lunar landing program as planned, saying that “the feasible alternatives available for major changes. . . are quite limited.” First, “there were generally good and sufficient reasons” for setting the lunar landing goal which were “still valid today.” In addition, “previous administration policy statements, testimony, and ‘commitments’ tend to limit the flexibility for major changes.” Also, “significant losses in time, money, and other disruptions are likely to result from major changes at this time.”18

The final draft of the Special Space Review was dated November 29, one week after President Kennedy’s assassination. This draft best represents the analysis and conclusions that would have been presented to the president for final decision if he had lived. The draft noted that its contents had been prepared “by Bureau of the Budget staff in consultation with senior repre­sentatives of NASA and the Department of Defense.” The report first asked: “Should consideration be given at this time to backing off from the manned lunar landing goal?” Three alternative actions were offered:

1. “Adhere to the present goal.”

2. “Decide now to abandon current work directly related to the manned lunar landing objective but to continue development of the large launch vehicle (Saturn V) so that it will be available for future space programs.”

3. “Decide now to abandon both current work toward the manned lunar landing objective and the development of the Saturn V large launch vehicle.”

In support of alternative 1, the report suggested that “in the absence of clear and compelling external circumstances a change in present poli­cies and commitments would involve an unacceptable ‘loss of face’ both domestically and internationally” and that cancelling Apollo would not “in fact reduce criticism of the total magnitude of the budget or increase sup­port for other meritorious programs to which the funds might be applied.” The arguments in support of alternative 2 included “doubts that Congress will provide adequate support for the manned lunar landing program in 1965 and succeeding years” and “the apparent absence of a competitive USSR manned lunar landing program at this time.” Arguments in support of alternative 3 included “that an adequate continuing space program can be built around the use of the Saturn IB (and perhaps Titan III) launch vehicle.”

The report also raised the possibility of deciding “that the [manned lunar landing] program should be geared to a schedule slipping the first manned lunar landing attempts one or two years later than now planned to the very end of the decade (i. e., end of CY 1969 or 1970, depending on the defini­tion of ‘decade’).” The review pointed out that “some slippage in present schedules is recognized as inevitable, so that eliminating the present mar­gin. . . would be tantamount to and generally recognized as an admission that the achievement of the goal has been deferred beyond the end of the decade.”

Another issue addressed was “should our posture on the manned lunar landing program attribute a greater degree of military significance to the program?” The review concluded that “the facts of the situation justify the position that the launch vehicle, spacecraft, facilities, and general technology being developed by NASA. . . do have important future military significance.” However, “overplaying this point could have the effects of undercutting the general peaceful image of the program.” The review concluded with respect to a joint effort with the Soviet Union that “in the present situation we must necessarily take the posture that we are prepared to enter into any construc­tive agreement which will not jeopardize our national security interests and which will not delay or jeopardize the success of our MLL [manned lunar landing] program.”

After it spelled out these various options, the BOB report concluded that “in the absence of clear changes in the present technical or international situations, the only basis for backing off from the MLL objective at this time would be an overriding fiscal decision.” (This conclusion had first appeared in the November 20 draft of the report.) That decision might be either “that budget totals in FY1965 or succeeding years are unacceptable and should be reduced by adjusting the space program” or “that within present budgetary totals an adjustment should be made shifting funds from space to other pro­grams.” The BOB analysis was that the lunar landing program could indeed be accommodated within the projected FY1965 and subsequent budget lev­els, and thus that there was also no basis on fiscal grounds for recommend­ing significant changes in the program’s character or pace.19

The bottom line of the 1963 Special Space Review was that there was no reason for “backing off” the lunar landing goal. It is very unlikely that either President Kennedy’s top advisers or the president himself would have coun­termanded this conclusion, had Kennedy lived to consider that choice.

When James Webb, Robert McNamara, Jerome Wiesner, Edward Welsh, new budget director Kermit Gordon, and their top associates met on November 30 to consider the draft Special Space Review, the possibility of changes in Apollo was not even discussed; the meeting focused on the second part of the report dealing with the Air Force program of human space flight. The group decided to cancel the Air Force DynaSoar program and replace it with the Manned Orbital Laboratory program, a small outpost combining the Gemini spacecraft and an attached module with room to experiment with various military and intelligence payloads. With respect to Apollo, Secretary of Defense McNamara was insistent that there was no military justification for a lunar landing effort, but the group agreed that broader national secu­rity considerations were part of the rationale for sending Americans to the

Moon. Without even reaching the level of a presidential decision, Apollo had survived an intense and wide-ranging review with its basic character intact.20