James Webb Has His Own Agenda

As Lambright notes in his biography of James Webb, “while the decision to go to the moon was unfolding, a separate decision process—mainly in Webb’s own mind—was unfolding. This was the personal agenda Webb had brought to NASA—“a mission to use science and technology. . . to strengthen the United States educationally and economically.” Webb’s objective was to maximize the benefits of an accelerated space program for Earth in terms of research, education, and regional economic development. Walter McDougall in his award-winning book. . . the Heavens and the Earth described the total­ity of Webb’s vision as “Space Age America,” a term that indeed Webb some­times used.19

While the final review of the accelerated program was underway in the White House, Webb was consulting with his colleagues outside the gov­ernment and those whose support he thought might be important to the public acceptance of the new effort. For example, on May 15, he wrote to Vannevar Bush at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Webb had known Bush since his time in Harry Truman’s BOB. Bush had been President Roosevelt’s top technical advisor during World War II and his report Science, the Endless Frontier had laid the foundation for postwar government support of science.20 Webb told Bush that he regretted that the two “find ourselves on somewhat different sides of the complex ques­tion of manned space flight”; they earlier in May had had a confrontation at a Washington social function over the value of humans in space. Webb noted that “no one could have ridden down Pennsylvania Avenue with Commander Shepard without feeling the deep desire of those lining the Avenue for something to be proud of and a hero. At the moment I believe this feeling is somewhat expanded to include a desire for a real effort in the space field.” Webb assured Bush that “in the programs that are now under­way and which will shortly be put forward, I expect to do all that I can to build up the university research, teaching, and graduate and post-graduate quality and quantity of education. . . If we do not find ways to make the major program carry a burden in each of these fields, we simply are not going to meet the challenge of our times.”21

The most sweeping version of Webb’s vision can be found in a May 23 memorandum he prepared for the vice president as Johnson returned from his Asian trip. Webb told him that Houston Congressman Albert Thomas

has made it very clear that he and [Houston construction magnate and Johnson campaign contributor] George Brown were extremely interested in having Rice University make a real contribution to the effort, particularly in view of the fact that some research funds were now being spent at Rice, that the resources of Rice had increased substantially, and that some 3,000 acres of land had been set aside by Rice for an important research installation. On investigation, I find that we are going to have to establish some place where we can do the technology related to the Apollo program, and this should be on the water where the vehicle can ultimately be barged to the launching site. Therefore we have looked carefully at the situation at Rice, and at the possible locations near the Houston Ship Canal or other accessible waterways in that general area. George Brown has been extremely helpful in doing this.

In essence, Webb was preempting the decision on where to relocate the Space Task Group as it took on the lunar landing assignment, even though the process through which that decision would be formalized extended for four more months. But Webb did not stop with Houston; he now broadened his horizon to the whole region. His vision of using centers of excellence in areas like Oklahoma, Missouri, and Texas to spur regional development had been developed during his years working for Robert Kerr in Oklahoma. In January 1956, Webb in a letter to his former boss, President Harry Truman, had laid out his concept of using an Oklahoma-based “Frontiers of Science Foundation” to stimulate science, technology, and industry in that state and beyond.22 Now he told Johnson:

No commitments have been made, but I believe it is going to be of great importance to develop the intellectual and other resources of the Southwest in connection with the new programs the Government is undertaking. Texas offers an unusual opportunity at this time due to the fact that [long-time Webb friend and chairman of the National Academy Space Science Board] Dr. Lloyd Berkner. . . is establishing a Graduate Research Center in Dallas with the backing of Eric Johnston, Cecil Green, and others in that area (estimated at about one hundred million dollars) and in view of the fact that Senator Kerr and those interested with him in the Arkansas, White, and Red River System have now pushed it to the point that it is opening up the whole area related to Arkansas, Oklahoma, and in many ways helping to provide a development potential for Mississippi. If it were possible to get a combination where out – in-front theoretical research done by Berkner and his group around Dallas in such a way to strengthen all the universities in the area, and if at the same time a strong engineering and technical center could be established near the water near Houston and perhaps in conjunction with Rice University, these two strong centers would provide a great impetus to the intellectual and industrial base of this whole region.

Webb was still not done. He related his vision for Southwest regional development to the nation as a whole. Developing a strong technical compe­tence in the Southwest

would permit us to think of the country as having a complex in California running from San Francisco down through the new University of California installation in San Diego, another center around Chicago with the University of Chicago as a pivot, a strong Northeastern arrangement with Harvard, M. I.T., and like institutions participating. Some work in the southeast perhaps revolving around the research triangle in North Carolina (in which Charlie Jonas as the ranking minority on Thomas’s Appropriations Subcommittee would have an interest), and with the Southwestern complex rounding out the situation.23

This “grand mix of noble vision and pork-barrel politics”24 went well beyond anything that President Kennedy had in mind as he approved an accelerated space program, primarily as a foreign policy response to Soviet space successes and their political impacts. But the space program buildup over the next few years that resulted from Kennedy’s decision allowed Webb the room needed to put his agenda into practice, and Webb, a New Deal Democrat, had little hesitation in using his position at NASA to implement his vision of an improved America.