Final Space Task Group Meeting

As the STG assembled for its final meeting, Agnew reported on his just – concluded confrontation with Ehrlichman, telling the group that the White House wanted to eliminate Option A from the STG report. Paine opposed such a step; DuBridge and BOB Director Mayo supported it. Seaborg sug­gested a compromise, in which Options A and E would be changed from potential choices to “dotted line” possibilities, meaning that the STG judged neither as viable alternatives. Agnew embraced this option and quickly checked with Ehrlichman, who found it acceptable. The group then decided to re-label Options B, C, and D as Options I, II, and III and to move the section containing the report’s recommendations and conclusions from the back to the front of the document “to make them more noticeable and accept­able.” The change in labeling the options made what was now Option II the choice that was most likely to be recommended to the president; this was the Program C option NASA had described in mid-August as requiring the “minimum investment consistent with continuing advance.” The principals agreed that one person—OST staffer Russ Drew—should present the report to President Nixon, and that it was up to the White House to decide when and how to make the report public.49

Following the “truce” between Ehrlichman and Agnew, the request for an Agnew-Nixon meeting was quickly withdrawn. Instead Dwight Chapin asked President Nixon to approve a one-hour meeting in the Cabinet Room for the “Space Task Group to present [its] completed report and discuss its recommendations.” Chapin wanted to schedule the meeting within the next week, since science adviser DuBridge was leaving on an extended trip on September 18. Originally set for September 16, the meeting was soon moved to the afternoon of Monday, September 15, to better fit President Nixon’s schedule.