Was Cooperation Really Possible?

In the first weeks of November 1963 there was seemingly a real opportunity to act on President Kennedy’s initiative to turn the lunar landing program into a cooperative enterprise. But was the United States ready to seize that opportunity? And was meaningful cooperation technically feasible?

In the weeks following the president’s United Nations speech, the lack of a Soviet response had left U. S. officials somewhat uncertain on how to proceed. This did not put a halt, however, to thinking about the issue. On the Monday following the president’s Friday address, NASA administrator Webb drafted “policy guidance for NASA staff.” Webb sent a copy to the White House, where it was approved by McGeorge Bundy the same day. The only deletion Bundy made from Webb’s draft was to strike a sentence saying “No one should be misled by any feeling that the President has put this for­ward as a political move or as a sign of weakening support for the program.” Webb pointed out that the president had said only that “we should explore” whether a joint moon mission was feasible, and that “the key word here is ‘explore,’ and the projection of the purpose as ‘joint’ is a statement of how far we would be willing to go in our ‘exploration’ talks and examination.” Webb added that “while we are putting forward to the Russians the possibil­ity of working with them, and opening up to the world the image of a nation prepared to address itself to all the problems of cooperation in this extremely important area to which weapons systems have not yet been extended, we must continue the forward drive of the US effort.” The NASA official in charge of the agency’s international relations, Arnold Frutkin, noted that “to jump from the suggestion that the matter be explored to the conclusion that the President was explicitly asking to put a US spacecraft upon a Soviet booster for a lunar voyage, or vice versa, or suggesting that American and Soviet astronauts be paired off for joint trips to the moon. . . were unwar­ranted” conclusions, yet “they served as the straw men for the shafts and arrows directed at the ‘feasibility’ of the proposal.”43 In thinking about how the president’s proposal might be implemented, should a positive response from the Soviet Union be received, NASA once again preferred a cautious, step-by-step approach. Webb pointed out that as a “first step” the United States and the Soviet Union could cooperate on choosing a landing site, and that “a joint effort could start with lots of things short of putting each other’s men on the same space craft.”44

Deputy under secretary of state U. Alexis Johnson wrote to Webb on October 14, noting that while the United States had not received a Soviet response to the president’s proposal, “we should have as clear as possible an understanding of the broad technical aspects involved,” should such a response be forthcoming. Johnson noted that “it seems doubtful that the Soviets will soon bring themselves to face up to the severe security, program­matic and political problems involved in discussing such a joint undertak­ing.” He asked Webb to suggest “What modes of cooperation would be most useful? Which would be practicable? Which would be most advantageous from the viewpoint of our national program? Which would be most likely to evoke a constructive response from the Soviets?”45

The NASA response to the State Department letter noted that “the objec­tive, as we understand it, is a substantive rather than a propaganda gain in relations with the Soviet Union, to be achieved through meaningful rather than token projects, with comparable contributions by both sides and with­out, at this stage, compromising our ability to pursue our own programs.” After listing several of the “virtually unlimited number of specific proposals” for cooperation, NASA indicated that it would “strongly prefer” that such proposals be used only “as a second resort.” Rather, “first priority should be placed instead on an escalating series of exchanges which are, in their initial stages, subject to verification and are, therefore, calculated to build a level of confidence upon which progressively significant cooperative activities may be based.” NASA pointed out that even the modest cooperative activities agreed to in June 1962 had not yet been implemented by the Soviet Union, which was “seriously delinquent” in this respect.46

Senior White House interest in cooperation intensified at the end of October. On October 25, McGeorge Bundy requested that interested par­ties prepare concrete proposals for how to proceed with planning for space cooperation negotiations with the Soviet Union. A few days later, Bundy received a specially prepared estimate of Soviet intentions from the CIA. That estimate was likely similar to the October 1 CIA analysis of the Soviet space program cited earlier. Since the later analysis had been completed after President Kennedy had made his September 20 cooperative proposal, it noted that “if the Soviets are not engaged in an all-out manned land­ing program, it is expected that they will substitute major goals or some­how reduce the effects of the U. S. accomplishment.” The CIA added that “a cooperative venture with the U. S. for a manned lunar landing would reduce the Soviet problems in this regard tremendously,” since then the Soviet Union could divert its space spending toward establishing several types of orbiting stations “of enough significance to dim somewhat the luster of the Apollo program.”47

On October 29, Wiesner gave President Kennedy a memorandum pro­posing a technical strategy for cooperation. He said that his proposal would “decisively dispel the doubts that have existed in the Congress and the press about the sincerity and feasibility of the proposal itself.” Wiesner’s idea was “a joint program in which the USSR provides unmanned exploratory and logistic support for the U. S. Apollo manned landing.” Wiesner noted that “such a program would utilize the combined resources of the US and USSR in a technically practical manner and might, in view of Premier Khrushchev’s statement, be politically attractive to him.” He also suggested that while Apollo “would remain a purely U. S. technical program. . . A Russian could easily be included as a member of the landing team.” Wiesner suggested to Kennedy that “It might be extremely advantageous to you to publicly offer this plan to the USSR. . . while the Khrushchev statement is still fresh in the mind of the public. If the proposal is accepted we will have established a practical basis for a cooperative program. If it is rejected we will have demon­strated our desire for peaceful cooperation and the sincerity of our original proposal.”48

In the weeks following his United Nations speech, President Kennedy himself apparently did not push for taking next steps on an urgent basis, but he did maintain his interest in his proposal. On October 23, he sent a copy of The New York Times article of September 18 reporting on the Dryden-Blagonravov talks to James Webb, saying “I think it would be help­ful to collect clippings similar to the attached showing that the Russians are interested in getting a man on the moon. This would make an additional defense for our efforts.”49 It is not clear whether the “efforts” he was refer­ring to were the cooperative overture to the Soviet Union or to the lunar landing program itself.

In light of the negative comments about a Soviet moon program made on October 25 by Nikita Khrushchev, Kennedy was asked at an October 31 press conference: “do you think that Premier Khrushchev has actually taken the Soviet Union out of the so-called moon race, and in any case do you think that the United States should proceed as if there were a moon race?” Kennedy replied:

I didn’t read that into his statement____ I did not get any assurances that Mr.

Khrushchev or the Soviet Union were out of the space race at all.

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The fact of the matter is that the Soviets have made a very intensive effort in space, and there is every evidence that they are continuing and that they have the potential to continue. I would read Mr. Khrushchev’s remarks very care­fully. I think that he said before anyone went to the moon, there should be adequate preparation. We agree with that.

In my opinion the space program we have is essential to the security of the United States, because as I have said many times before it is not a question of going to the moon. It is a question of having the competence to master this environment.

I think that we ought to stay with our program. I think that is the best answer to Mr. Khrushchev.

Asked whether it was true that the Soviet Union had made no response to his proposal for joint moon exploration, Kennedy replied “that is correct.”50