Background to the President’s Proposal

The reasons why President Kennedy chose to propose such a major step in U. S.-Soviet space cooperation were well summarized by Theodore Sorensen: I

A New "Strategy of Peace"

In the aftermath of the Cuban missile crisis, President Kennedy sought ways of lessening the U. S.-Russian tensions and mistrust that had led to that situ­ation. He first tried to once again engage Nikita Khrushchev in discussions on a test ban treaty, but progress toward that objective was slow. By June 1963, he was ready for a broader approach—a new “strategy of peace.”8 In a June 10 commencement address at American University in Washington, DC, Kennedy outlined his approach to a “more practical, more attainable peace,” one based on “a series of concrete actions and effective agreements which are in the interest of all concerned. . . Both the United States and its allies, and the Soviet Union and its allies, have a mutually deep interest in a just and genuine peace. . . Genuine peace must be the product of many nations, the sum of many acts.”9

President Kennedy did not mention space cooperation in this speech, an omission seen as “striking” by Harvey and Ciccoritti “in view of the great stress he had placed earlier on space as a means of bridging differences between the two countries.” They suggest that “Kennedy for some time had been having second thoughts about pushing space cooperation under existing circumstances.” They offer as evidence for this view Kennedy’s disappoint­ment with the results of the 1962 space cooperation agreement and the fact that “Kennedy had become more and more enthusiastic over the competitive aspects of the space endeavor.” Kennedy, they suggest, “was really interested [in space cooperation] only if the Russians should prove ready to cooperate in a manner and on a scale that would involve meaningful movement toward a genuine rapprochement between the two countries. Otherwise, the US would continue with its program in strict competition with the USSR, since he considered it essential to the national interest that the US continue to develop the capabilities for the full mastery of space.”10

A somewhat different interpretation of Kennedy’s views at the time is more convincing. As suggested in Sorensen’s view cited earlier, in the post-Cuban missile crisis detente atmosphere of 1963, and with the increasing costs and mounting criticisms of the lunar landing program, it is likely that President Kennedy was even more interested in U. S.-Soviet space cooperation than had previously been the case. The President in mid-1963 was actively consider­ing resurrecting the idea. He certainly did not seem to think that he was “in pursuit of an illusion,” but rather pursuing a course of action that was in the U. S. interest. Other than a call for negotiations on a nuclear test ban treaty, Kennedy did not mention any other area for potential U. S.-Soviet coopera­tion in his American University speech, so the fact that he did not mention space cooperation specifically is less than “striking.” It was logical for him to return to a proposal for cooperation in the lunar landing program as one of the “concrete actions” needed to implement his “strategy for peace.”

An August 9 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) memorandum on “The New Phase of Soviet Policy” provided evidence that Kennedy’s strategy was well conceived. On July 25 the Soviet Union agreed to sign a Limited Test

Ban Treaty, including a prohibition on tests in outer space. The CIA analysis thought that Nikita Khrushchev in the post-missile crisis period had “a vested interest in perpetuating. . . the impression that a new era in East-West relations has begun” and that “the USSR intends to sustain an atmosphere of reduced tensions for some time.” These observations were certainly sup­portive of a proposal for enhanced space cooperation as part of President Kennedy’s new approach.11

By mid-1963 there was increasing criticism of the lunar landing program from both sides of the political spectrum. Theodore Sorensen was asked whether by 1963 “the size of this [space] program and its rate of growth were beginning to worry the President, and that he was more eager to stress the cooperative issue because he was dubious about either the wisdom or the possibility of maintaining the rate of increase that NASA was suggesting.” Sorensen replied that Kennedy “was understandably reluctant to continue that rate of increase. He wished to find ways to spend less money on the program. . . How much that motivated his offer to the Russians, though, I don’t know.”12