A High-Level White House Intervention

The text of the September 8 draft of the STG report appeared to make presidential choice of either Option A or Option B the best course forward. Selecting Option A would have required the White House to commit to simultaneous development of a space station and a space shuttle in its upcom­ing decisions on the Fiscal Year 1971 budget; selecting Option B meant that this commitment could be made a year later. It was already clear to the president’s policy and budget advisors that, given the high priority President Nixon had assigned to avoiding running a deficit in government spending, the budget could not accommodate such a commitment in either year. The president, if the report was not changed, could be placed in the position of rejecting the recommendations of the group he had chartered to define the post-Apollo program.

Flanigan brought this situation to the attention of John Ehrlichman, who had emerged during the year as Richard Nixon’s most trusted adviser on domestic policy. Ehrlichman in his 1982 book Witness to Power provides a vivid account of what followed. On the morning of September 11, just before the final STG meeting, Ehrlichman, Flanigan, and DuBridge met with Vice President Agnew. Ehrlichman told Agnew that the STG “owed it to the President not to include a proposal our budget couldn’t pay for.” Since an early Mars mission would be very popular, “if the committee proposed it and Nixon had to say no, he would be criticized as the President who kept us from finding life on Mars.” Agnew argued that a mission to Mars was “a reasonable, feasible option.” Ehrlichman “saw no excuse for Agnew’s insis­tence” and was “surprised at his obtuseness.” He “took off the kid gloves” and told Agnew “Look, Mr. Vice President, we have to be practical. There is no money for a Mars trip. The President has already decided that.” He told Agnew “it is your job, with Lee DuBridge’s help, to make absolutely certain that the Mars trip is not in” the report. Agnew, doubting that Ehrlichman was actually speaking for Richard Nixon, “demanded a personal meeting with the President.” Ehrlichman’s response was “I’ll arrange it at once.” Upon leaving Agnew’s office, Ehrlichman asked Dwight Chapin to set up the meeting with Richard Nixon that the vice president had requested.48