Another Round of Presidential Questions

As he began during the summer to think again about suggesting to the Soviet Union that sending men to the Moon become a cooperative under­taking, President Kennedy was faced not only with the lingering doubts regarding whether Russia in fact was intending to go to the Moon, but also questions regarding the possible hostile purposes of the Soviet space pro­gram. The August 1963 issue of the widely read Reader’s Digest featured an article headlined “We’re Running the Wrong Race with Russia!” that asked “are we suffering from moon madness?” and suggested that “the over­publicized ‘race’ to get a man on our faraway neighbor has obscured an imminent threat to our security—Soviet strides toward military conquest of the space just over our heads.”20

Not surprisingly, this article caught President Kennedy’s attention. On July 22 he sent a memorandum to Robert McNamara and James Webb, not­ing “the lead article in the Reader’s Digest this month states that the Soviet Union is making a major effort to dominate space while we are indifferent to this threat. I wonder if you could have some people analyze this and give me a response to it.” A week later, he wrote a similar memorandum to Vice President Johnson: “The attack on the moon program continues and seems to be intensifying. Note Reader’s Digest lead article this month.” Kennedy asked the vice president to develop answers to two sets of questions: (1) “Did the previous administration have a moon program? What was its time schedule? How much were they going to spend on it?” and (2) “How much of our present peaceful space program can be militarily useful? How much of our capability for our moon program is also necessary for military control in space?” Kennedy added: “I would be interested in any other thoughts that you may have on the large amounts of money we are spending on this program and how it can be justified.”21

In his response to this second Space Council review, Webb suggested that “all” of the civilian space program “can be directly or indirectly militarily useful.” An important justification for the sums being spent on the NASA program, said Webb, was to develop “the power to operate in space” and “as insurance against surprise and as the building of the necessary underlying capacity” for an accelerated military space program, should the United States decide that such a speed-up was needed. The Department of Defense reply to Kennedy’s questions was signed by deputy secretary Roswell Gilpatric. He told the president that “the article is based for the most part on Soviet propaganda statements, faulty and greatly exaggerated interpretation of technical data, quotes by U. S. authorities taken out of context or distorted, excerpts from Air Force magazine articles, and the author’s personal opin­ions and unsupported statements.” Gilpatric added: “At the same time, he [the author] deliberately ignores or is strangely uninformed about our on­going military space program.”22

A rapidly convened meeting of the Space Council on July 31 discussed the appropriate reply to the president’s questions. Vice President Johnson noted that “we had entered a very tricky period,” and that there seemed to be a “political basis” for much of the criticism of the lunar landing program, with “more trouble to be expected as we get closer to [election year] 1964.” Johnson suggested that “we are facing a Congress where a majority is for the program, but there is a very vocal minority.” The group discussed the language to be included in the response to the president, and agreed to have Edward Welsh draft that response, which took the form of a one-page letter signed by Johnson that told the president that “there was no Administration moon program until your message to Congress in 1961.” Johnson, agreeing with Webb’s argument, added that “all of the scientific and engineering abil­ity in space has direct or indirect [military] value” and that “the space pro­gram is expensive, but it can be justified as a solid investment which will give ample returns in security, prestige, knowledge, and material benefits.”23

Webb on August 9 sent to the White House a separate response to Kennedy’s original July 22 memorandum, noting that NASA had also “received from the Vice President a number of questions which we under­stand he is answering.” This somewhat disingenuous comment, since Webb had participated in the July 31 Space Council meeting, was indicative of the preference on Webb’s part to report directly to the president rather than working through the Space Council. Webb associated himself with the views in Gilpatric’s July 31 memo to the president and added that Apollo would require extensive operations in near-earth orbit and that “75-80% of the cost of the Apollo program will be devoted to the development of a capabil­ity for conducting near-earth orbital operations which could form a basis for any military systems we may require.” Webb noted that “the Reader’s Digest article ignores the fact that these basic resources—large launch vehicles, advanced spacecraft, extensive and complex ground facilities—are vitally important resources for future military missions as well as in fulfillment of the NASA program.” Webb’s belief in the military value of NASA’s activities was not shared by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. Webb observed that McNamara “was unwilling to stand up and be counted for the [NASA] program.” He told President Kennedy later in 1963 that “the Secretary of Defense will not want to support the program as having substantial military value.”24

John F. Kennedy’s late July 1963 questioning of the justifications for con­tinuing to spend large amounts of money to get to the Moon before the Soviets came at the same time as very public discussion of the suggestion that the Soviet Union in fact did not have a lunar landing program. At the end of August, Kennedy in a conversation with Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin “raised the question of activities in outer space, pointing out that these are very expensive.” “If outer space was not to be used for military purposes,” thought Kennedy, “then it became largely a question of scientific prestige, and even this was not very important, as accomplishments in this field were usually only three-day wonders.”25 This was certainly a rather dif­ferent attitude toward Project Apollo than what Kennedy had been saying publicly, and may well have reflected his emerging doubts about proceeding with the lunar landing program at its planned pace and increasing costs.