Congress Consulted

The next step in Vice President Johnson’s review was to consult key congres­sional leaders to ensure that they would indeed be willing to support the kind of accelerated program that the president was likely to recommend. The original plan was to meet with the chairman, Overton Brooks, and ranking minority member, James Fulton, of the House Committee on Science and Astronautics on May 1, and the chairman, Robert Kerr, and ranking minor­ity member, Styles Bridges, of the Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences on May 2. However, the May 1 meeting had to be postponed so that Johnson could participate in a National Security Council discussion of policy toward Viet Nam. Brooks was unhappy at this turn of events and with Johnson’s suggestion that Brooks submit a memorandum on his views in lieu of a face-to-face meeting.25 The meeting with the two senators and their staff actually took place on May 3. Webb and Dryden from NASA, John Rubel from DOD, Edward Welsh, representatives from the Atomic Energy Commission, the Department of State, and the BOB, and George Brown, Frank Stanton, and Donald Cook were also present.

The two senators whom Johnson invited to the meeting, Kerr and Bridges, were present not only because of their committee positions but also because they were two of the small number of veteran legislators who, together with Johnson, had controlled the Senate during the Eisenhower years. Johnson believed that their support would suffice to carry the rest of the Senate with them. Johnson opened the meeting by saying that “I believe it is the position of every patriotic and knowledgeable American that past policies and perfor­mances in space have not been enough to give this country leadership.” He noted that “the President has made it clear that he is determined that the United States move into ‘its proper place in the space race.’ That can only mean leadership. There is no other proper place for our country.” Johnson told those at the meeting that “we are here to discuss not whether, but how— not when, but now.”26 This strident view of American exceptionalism was a pervasive aspect of LBJ’s space review.

Robert Kerr told the others that “we need some cold-blooded deci­sions, but the Senate can be counted on in the end to face up to whatever is required.” Styles Bridges agreed, saying, “it certainly is necessary to attain the highest possible scientific use and to maintain the glory of the United States and its prestige, but basic to the whole matter is the security of the United States.” James Webb continued his cautious approach, telling the group that “there is a great deal that must be done before the vice president will be in a position to make the recommendations and the president be ready to go to the Congress and ask for the large sums that will be necessary, so we’ve got to be very careful now.” Johnson reacted negatively to Webb’s caution, saying “do you feel that you will not be prepared to give me answers for a month? . . . I am not trying to rush you. But you must not wait a month or Congress will have gone home.” He added: ““We’ll wait for a month if necessary for people [clearly meaning Webb] to get the guts enough to make solid recommendations.” Frank Stanton from CBS added an elitist perspec­tive: “We don’t have to be concerned about national support if wise men have decided upon the action necessary in the national interest.”27

Johnson completed his canvas of Congressional support by telephon­ing Overton Brooks and James Fulton to inquire whether the House of Representatives would also support an accelerated space effort. Given what these two men had been saying in their recent committee hearings about the need for a faster-paced program, their responses were not surprising. Fulton told Johnson, after checking with some other House Republicans, that he thought Republican support for an accelerated program would be almost unanimous.28 After the vice president’s call, Brooks submitted a ten-page memorandum of recommendations for the space program. Brooks said that he and his committee believed that “the United States must do whatever is necessary to gain unequivocal leadership in Space Exploration" He recommended an immediate acceleration of programs for communications, television, weather, and navigation satellites. He said that his committee was “committed to a forceful and stepped-up long range endeavor” and that “we cannot concede the Moon to the Soviets, since it is conceivable that the nation that controls the Moon may well control the Earth.”29

According to Webb, by the end of the May 3 meeting Lyndon Johnson “was close to demanding” from NASA a specific recommendation on a lunar landing program, not additional study of its requirements. Based on all information available to him, Webb felt that the lunar landing was “the first project we could assure the president that we could do and do ahead of the Russians, or at least had a reasonable chance to do.” Johnson pushed Webb, saying that “are you willing to undertake this? Are you ready to undertake it?” Webb replied that he was ready, “but there’s got to be political support over a long period of time, like ten years, and you and the President have to recognize that we can’t do this kind of thing without that continuing support.”30 The next day Webb wrote to the vice president, telling him that “my main effort yesterday was to be certain that you and the Senators were under no illusions whatever as to the magnitude of the problems involved in carrying out this decision and the absolute necessity, in my opinion, for a decision to back Secretary McNamara and myself to the limit.” Six years later, Webb, as he complained to the president about cuts in the NASA bud­get, was still reminding Lyndon Johnson that he had been “quite reluctant to undertake the responsibility of building a transportation system to the moon” and that Johnson “had almost to drive me to make the recommenda­tion which you sent on to President Kennedy.”31

As Lyndon Johnson was gauging Congressional support for an acceler­ated space effort, Kennedy was also independently consulting key members of Congress with respect to what type of enhanced space program would be politically acceptable. In particular, according to Webb, there was “little doubt in my mind” that Kennedy consulted Houston-area Congressman Albert Thomas, who chaired the House subcommittee controlling NASA’s appropriations. Thomas’s relationship with fellow Texan Lyndon Johnson was “not close,” but Kennedy “paid a very great deal of attention to what Thomas told him could be done and what he, Thomas, was prepared to do.” Kennedy also needed support from Thomas in other areas of his legislative agenda, and it is likely that Thomas alerted Kennedy to his desire to have an accelerated space program benefit his Houston Congressional district. Webb later recalled that Lyndon Johnson “had more weight in bringing President Kennedy to his decision than the staff around the White House was or is yet willing to recognize. . . In the end he [Kennedy] was, I believe, as strongly influenced by Johnson and Thomas as by any other two people. Once he felt he had to move ahead, he could proceed vigorously because he knew that these men could maintain a base of support that would give him a chance to succeed.”32

While James Webb might have wanted more time to have his staff carry out a fuller study of the requirements for sending Americans to the Moon, that was not to be. On May 4, a Thursday, Lyndon Johnson was asked by President Kennedy to embark the following Monday on a tour of Southeast Asia to provide a first-hand assessment of the situation there with respect to Communist-supported insurgencies. The next day, Johnson called Webb and Secretary of Defense McNamara and asked them to “prepare both a program for the President to send to Congress and a message for the President to use in the transmission of the message.” The vice president wanted to submit these papers to the president on the following Monday, before he left on his trip.33

The same day, Friday, May 5, the first U. S. astronaut, Alan Shepard, was launched on a 15-minute suborbital flight to the lower edge of outer space. Success in that flight was a critical factor in any decision that might follow.