Space Programs Reviewed

The rapidly increasing costs of the U. S. space program, and particularly its civilian component, continued to trouble President Kennedy after he sent his $3.787 billion Fiscal Year 1963 request for NASA to the Congress in early 1962. There was no parallel single national security space budget request; Department of Defense and intelligence space programs were incorporated into the general DOD budget, rather than receiving separate budget treat­ment. However, increasing DOD expenditures for space were also of con­cern to the president. To obtain a total overview of the U. S. space program, Kennedy asked the BOB in June 1962 to carry out a comprehensive review of all U. S. space efforts.

Initial Budget Concerns

After NASA administrator Webb met with Kennedy on May 3, 1962 to deliver a copy of NASA’s revised long-range plan, he reported that Kennedy “was quite concerned about the high level of expenditures involved in our program, plus the military program, and urged that everything be done that could possibly be done to see that we accomplished the results that would justify these expenditures and that we not expend funds beyond those that could be thoroughly justified.” Webb also reported that the president “had expressed some concern” about the geographical distribution of NASA funding; Kennedy noted that he had received complaints from states such as “Michigan, Pennsylvania, and the eastern states” that NASA was focusing its expenditures on California, Florida, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Kennedy was “quite anxious” that NASA “maintain the best geographical distribu­tion of contracts and still get the most efficient job done.” To provide the White House with its own channel of information on NASA procurement actions, Kenneth O’Donnell sent Richard Callaghan, a Kennedy loyalist and congressional staffer, to NASA as a special assistant to Webb. According to one account, “Callaghan’s job was to arrange for a more equitable distri­bution of contracts, which would relieve congressional pressure on Kenny O’Donnell, and find out whether [Senator Robert] Kerr and [Vice President] Johnson were pulling strings for their friends at NASA.” With respect to this latter mission, Callaghan found no evidence of undue Kerr or Johnson influence on NASA’s contract awards.30

Webb responded to Kennedy’s concern regarding geographical distribu­tion in a June 1 letter. He told Kennedy that during 1961, states west of the Mississippi River received 56 percent of NASA prime contracts; states east of the Mississippi, 44 percent. One reason for this distribution was that “major aerospace and electronic companies have concentrated their growth within a few areas of the country.” However, Webb continued, when both prime con­tracts and first-tier subcontracts by the prime contractors were considered, 53 percent of the work was in the East and 47 percent in the West. Webb also noted that in the second half of 1961 Massachusetts had received 64 percent more in NASA funding than it had received in the first half of the year. In summary, Webb told the president, “the NASA effort is being spread broadly throughout the United States.”31