A New Frontier or Just a 240,000 mile cul de sac

I'm delighted to be published today in the on-line Academic Journal '49th Parallel'. You can read the article here and I would very much welcome any feedback on the piece.

49th Parallel Piece well on track

Having got my piece for the journal 49th Parallel through peer review, it has just come back from sub-editing and, again has survived largely intact - it seems my purple prose isn't too colourful for this particular journal.

The 240,000 mile cul de sac piece should feature in the Winter 2011/2012 issue once I've crossed the 't's, dotted the 'i's and answered half a dozen comments and queries. Given I spend my non-academic life editing other people's prose, it's weird to have my own under such firm but benevolent scrutiny.

Now, what actually is Chicago-style end-noting...?

Mixed feelings

Up until about 5pm, yesterday was a really good day. I'd written one lecture; sorted out some seminar notes; read some good stuff for the PhD; delivered a lecture that went down well and had a really interesting seminar with my first years looking at women in 19th century USA.

Then, before I left the lecture hall, I made the mistake of checking my emails only to find I'd been knocked back on not one but two funding applications. I've been planning a trip to the Truman and Eisenhower Presidential Libraries which I was looking at making next February. As a self-funded student, with a large mortgage and three kids, external funding is the only way that I can get to the key archives (all in the US) and so far, I've led a charmed life. Two applications in the first months of the PhD both led to travel grants and I even got some funding from a corporate client! Nearly two years down the line, any hope of corporate funding is remote at best, while the foundations in the US have less money and more applications to deal with. If ever there could be a really bad time to hit the peak period of research on a PhD, I seem to have found it!

The last couple of hours have been spent searching for other sources of funding - and there aren't many around that would wish to part with spondoolicks to enable me to chase down connections between Eisenhower and his key advisers on space.

No point getting maudlin though - I'll just keep plugging on.  

Still plugging away

Okay, it's an hour until I deliver my third lecture/second seminar of the term - today we're moving from the Civil War into Reconstruction - and so far, so good.

Work's picking up too on the PhD. I've been refocusing the research somewhat so that it's a lot less about Kennedy - a path well and truly trodden when it comes to space research - and a lot more about Eisenhower and how his reach towards new policy in a wholly new area built on experience and relationships that had proved successful for him already in his Presidency. The likes of Jim Killian and Jim Hagerty are my current heroes - policy influencers from slightly unexpected sources.  The diaries/memoirs of both have proved good sources to mine in the past few weeks.

There was good news too that a paper of mine - 'The Helping Hands to the Hidden Hand' - has been accepted by the Australian and New Zealand American Studies Association's biennial conference in Brisbane next July. All fantastic in theory, but I now need to get well north of £1500 together to get myself over there to present . The paper covers a significant chunk of my PhD chronology - so it will be great to get it both written and shared with other researchers.

With a return trip to Abilene planned for the New Year, it's good to have some goals to aim for over the next nine months.

240,000 Mile Cul De Sac article has survived peer review

I've been quiet on here recently as I've been trying to re-steer the PhD work down a slightly less trodden path - and getting up to speed on US history from 1850-1914 in preparation for teaching next term.

My lecture notes and seminar 'primary sources for discussion' are beginning to take shape....and the module outline is probably now publishable. Just lots and lots of reading of texts to do now to ensure I'm more on top of the subjects than the students.

In terms of the PhD, the focus is shifting ever more towards Eisenhower. Kennedy on space has been covered very well by  a number of writers (notably John Logsdon in the last year), but Ike's space policy is still not understood properly and is still seen as a a response to Sputnik.

I'm addressing that to a degree in a paper submitted to 49th Parallel. I had the peer review report back over the weekend and was delighted to learn that, subject to minor revisions, it has been accepted for publication - another good step forward on the road to academe.

The key criticism was that it was a bit too short and didn't go deeply enough into Ike's pre-Sputnik actions nor address head on his space policy differences with JFK. I'd chopped some of this out of an earlier draft...so can revisit it. I'll also be looking at some of the more recent writing on Ike (though there isn't a whole lot this century!) to explore the lines they take. I actually think I've got a killer opening - but need to back my supposition with evidence, so will be diving back into my Abilene documents to back my hunch.

Anyway, between the module preparation and the article submission, I know what I'm doing for the next six weeks.  

US History revamped in a month

I will be teaching a Level 1 undergraduate US History 1850-1989 course from September this year and am in the midst of revamping last year's module (pretty good, all made sense, but heavily reliant on one text).

I'm looking at bringing in David Reynold's Empire of Liberty and will probably use High Brogan's Penguin History as recommended reading alongside last year's title, Foner's Give me Liberty! 

The fun now is searching out a series of primary source materials to use as the basis for our seminar sessions - Civil War, Civil Rights, Camelot, The Great White Fleet, War from the Top, War from the Bottom, Star Wars, Indian Wars, Truman Doctrine, Sputnik, New Deal, Great Society, Great Depression, Watergate, Irangate, Doughboys, Wilsonian Peace, Progressives, Red Scares and Reds under the bed. Taylor to Reagan - there are an awful lot of possibilities to investigate.

I'm very open to suggestions of accessible documents that would be worthy of analysis and debate by primarily UK students taking their first steps as undergrads.

New issue of '49th Parallel' Out - my Taft review is featured

The Spring 2011 issue of 49th Parallel is now out  - you can find it here. It includes my review on The Political Principles of Robert a Taft.

Writing the review article was an interesting and challenging experience. I read all the time, but applying an academic frame of mind to what I was reading and coming up with a constructive critique that might make other readers consider the text was a new experience. I worry still as to whether I was fair and just - although the review will probably only be read by a very tiny number of people - and most of them won't care a jot about what I have to say!

Still, there's a much longer article for the same academic journal in peer review at the moment, and another review article to research - this time on Truman and Immigration. All part of the rich academic learning experience.

JFK's moon pledge through the wrong end of the telescope

50 years ago today John Fitzgerald Kennedy, a new president struggling to capitalise on the 'honeymoon period' of his first 100 days in office stood before the two houses of Congress addressing both the US political elite and the nation as a whole. His 'Second State of the Union' speech is best remembered for his pledge to send a man to the moon and return him safely to the earth before the decade ended. But perhaps that's because Kennedy was dead two and a half years later and because Johnson ensured his legacy was, indeed, to take America to the moon.

For historians, this popular recollection presents a problem. Kennedy didn't stride to the lectern in triumph - and at the time, the moon pledge did not hugely stand out in a speech that covered an awful lot of other ground before turning to the heavens.  The reality of what Kennedy had to say that day has been distorted by subsequent events and it's important to separate the veneration of a presidency unfulfilled from the nuts and bolts of a middling Kennedy speech.

The following is a portion of my Masters Dissertation, completed for Brunel University in 2009 and is copyright Mark Shanahan 2011

Hindsight would have it that Kennedy stood before Congress on May 25th 1961 with the moon landing at the centre piece of a directive that swiftly galvanised 400,000 Americans in every state of the Union into a relentless drive to the moon where this time, the Soviets would finally be beaten. However, it is worth deconstructing the myth to look at the reality of Kennedy’s speech and the degree of direction it actually provided.

Undoubtedly the speech was meant to revive the spirit of optimism of the early weeks of the Presidency and, in the run-up to the June summit with Khrushchev was planned to show Khrushchev that Kennedy was not the callow youth the older leader took him for. But the speech gained so much resonance across the world and across four decades of regular repetition not as a whole, but because one section, towards the end, was pounced upon by the media and endlessly replayed – especially after Kennedy’s death, and most especially once the pledge to put a man on the moon and return him safely to earth before this decade is out had been achieved.


The speech was a set-piece: it was unusual for the President to address Congress directly, but Kennedy valued the public platform and knew it was essential to recapture the high ground at a time when his new presidency could lose all momentum and credibility due to the body blows inflicted on it by the Bay of Pigs failure and Gagarin’s success.

On May 25th, the Washington Post remarked on the short notice given that the President would address Congress in person saying: “There was no public expectation that the President would speak on urgent national needs.” The article later stated: “Ever since the Cuban invasion fiasco, the bloom has been off the bright rose of the early days of the Administration. Now may be the time to recreate the spirit of the January 30th State of the Nation Speech.” The networks were primed to take the speech live and transcripts were made available for print journalists to have as soon as Kennedy stepped down from the podium.

But the moon announcement actually comprised only the last fifth of the speech. Before reaching that most famous passage, Kennedy had talked about stimulating the economy at home, fostering global progress by fighting the advance of communism, extending the US Information Agency and tripling the budget for fallout shelters at home – essentially all the issues raised in the media and rejected by Eisenhower a little over two years previously. The space passage came after calls for an Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, almost as an afterthought. That’s certainly how the Los Angeles Times reported it the following day, in an editorial that was distinctly critical of Kennedy’s address. Robert T Harman wrote: “We expected extraordinary proposals....but he outlines rather ordinary plans...leaked to favourite TV and newspaper reporters days and weeks ago, so there was little impact of surprise. (The speech) was something of a dud....slightly spiced with a 10-year space adventure which Mr. Kennedy didn’t seem too certain of himself.”

The speech did receive national front page coverage and the space pledge drew the headlines. But equal focus on the analysis was placed on the other elements of the speech. Don Shannon, writing the lead news article for the Los Angeles Times, for instance noted that Kennedy had “urged Congress to back a multi-billion programme to put an American on the moon and counter the Soviet Union on earth.” He reflected Congress was split on the ‘omnibus’ plan and “noticeably cool on all except his call for a US challenge in space.” It is perhaps unsurprising that the Los Angeles Times was critical of Kennedy’s speech. California had backed Nixon in the 1960 election (just), and the Times was noted for its conservative stance.

The Democrat-leaning Washington Post was slightly more positive – but only slightly. In its news lead, John G Norris reported: “He (Kennedy) committed the United States to an all-out race to overtake Russia in space and to be the first to put men on the moon...”It is time”, said the President, for a great new American enterprise; time for this nation to take a clearly-leading role in space achievement.”

The news report chimed with the intent of the President, picking up on his request for a spending boost for space, arms and the jobless, but undercut this when stating that the proposals would be unsatisfactory to liberals since they favoured big business. Equally Norris noted, they would not satisfy conservatives since the spending boosts would not go far enough. Interestingly, in the ‘Freedom Doctrine’ editorial within the same issue, going to the moon does not even rate a mention.

That pledge is often reported today as a directive for NASA. But that was not within Kennedy’s power. Instead Kennedy was posing a question – would Congress agree to the proposal and would it authorise the funding? Congress could have said no, indeed with just 15 minutes of actual space flight behind them and a very uncertain path to the moon, logic appears to have been outmanoeuvred by the strength of Kennedy’s rhetoric.

Two Republican Representatives are quoted opposing Kennedy’s call for support: The Los Angeles Times reports Representative Steven Derounian from New York saying: “Not once did I hear him say a word pledging that we would not retreat one inch from the communist tyrants. This was a tired speech full of apologies.” Fellow member of the House, Representative Glenard P Lipscomb added: “This was a lot of words with not enough justification of needs.”

A counterview comes from James Baughman, biographer of American media giant Henry R Luce, the proprietor of Life, Time, and Fortune magazines. In an email exchange with this writer, Baughman recalled his research on Luce and the space programme, noting: “I’m struck, even now, by how few sceptics I could find, in the press and politics, regarding the space programme. I can think of only one senator, Norris Cotton of New Hampshire, who gently questioned JFK’s man on the moon proposal.”

With the hindsight of the President’s assassination and the subsequent success in landing a man on the moon in 1969, the rest of the speech has been forgotten. The final section has been raised to a mythical level at odds with its immediate reaction. It actually took a lot of legwork on Capitol Hill by Vice President Johnson, already the father of space legislation, to ensure that Congress supported Kennedy’s man on the moon funding request. This was achieved by promising a space-industry job boost, with the programme of works for Gemini and Apollo divided up among contractors in every State of the Union.

Kennedy was driven by political motives unrelated to any commitment to a moon landing. He had no great scientific or even romantic attachment to the race to the moon, but had done his homework prior to the May 25th speech. On April 20th, just after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, Kennedy wrote to Johnson, the space expert in the Administration, asking for the answers to five questions: “Do we have a chance of beating the Soviets by putting a laboratory in space, or by a trip around the moon, or by a rocket to land on the moon, or by a rocket to go to the moon and back with a man? Is there any other space programme which promises dramatic results in which we could win?” Johnson assembled a committee of advisors including Frank Stanton, head of the broadcaster CBS, Donald Cook of American electric Power, George Brown from engineering company, Brown and Root, Air force Missile Chief Bernard Schriever, Senator Kerr, the newly-appointed chairman of the Senate Space Committee and NASA Administrator Jim Webb. In both a telephone conversation with Johnson and through a detailed five page memo, Von Braun provided a detailed argument to go to the moon. Johnson was convinced, and pulled the rest of the panel towards his view.

By April 23rd, Johnson had provided the answers and Kennedy had shifted his position from his immediate comments following Gagarin’s launch. At his press conference that day, he said: “If we can get to the moon before the Russians, then we should.” Johnson’s panel had convinced Kennedy that a lunar landing was viable for the Americans – but not for the Russians who were way behind on technology and would need an unfeasibly large rocket to lift their larger, heavier technology out of earth orbit and on the way to the moon. That panel was probably swayed more by Johnson’s strength of feeling than by a logical belief that a moon landing could be achieved within a decade. Even his phrasing: “Before this decade is out”, gave Kennedy a get-out card. Even if he fulfilled a complete two-term presidency, Kennedy would almost certainly be out of office before the moon landing. If it failed, it would not be on his watch – and potentially could be laid at the feet of Johnson, the Administration’s most persuasive space advocate. And that would likely be the case if the Soviets got there first as well.

Whereas the media had initially set the space agenda for Eisenhower, Kennedy had turned the tables. He was now attempting to set the agenda, using the New Frontier of space as a way to regain standing and challenge the Soviets to what Wolfe describes as ‘single combat’ on the Cold War battlefield. Domestically, the speech coalesced all thinking around space on one goal. The public, press and networks were now focused on one message that summed up the “invention, innovation imagination, decision” of Americans.

The President’s claim that: “No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long range exploration of space, and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish” recalled the romance and adventure of Lewis and Clark. Coupled with the relief and outpouring of positivity that Shepard’s successful Mercury flight had achieved, and the carefully-nuanced image of an All-American Astronaut elite ready to struggle against the unknown travails of space, the mixture was potent. Congress would never turn Kennedy down, and the perceived failure to get an American into space first could be turned into a positive: a catalyst for America’s next great adventure. However, not all the elements were truly aligned yet, and a Gallup poll completed as Kennedy spoke showed that the public remained sceptical of the President’s pledge being delivered. Asked whether participants viewed the US or Russia as being ahead in the Space Race, the response was evenly split. And on which would be first to send a man to the moon, 34% said the US, 33% said Russia and 33% didn’t know . There was clearly still much work to be done on public opinion.

Rep. Lipscomb’s comments on the speech: “This was a lot of words with not enough justification of needs” were prescient. Kennedy had put the building blocks in place to turn the media and public opinion on space from adversary through ally to involved partner. He had set a goal that defined the next lap of the space race. He had made space a core part of the Administration’s policy. He had control of the agency that would deliver space success. But still there were sceptics in the media and in Congress. The US had just 15 minutes of space experience and was clearly still some way behind the Soviets. The moon seemed an awfully long way away.

Books, books and a day out in Kent

Delving into Craig Allen's Eisenhower and the Mass Media, while flicking through Dan Rather's The Camera Never Blinks....James Hagerty's Diaries are on their way.

In the quest to finally finish my literature review, I'm on the hunt for William Safire's Before the Fall and Samuel Rosenman's Walking with Roosevelt. If anyone has a copy of either they don't want, please get in touch.

Hoping to head into campus this afternoon to pick up a couple of theory titles: Hill's The Policy Process: a reader and Greenaway's Deciding Factors in British Politics but have to wait for one (any?) member of my family to get home to let the rest in before I can go.

Meanwhile, I now have confirmation that I'm giving a presentation on June 15th at the SE Regional Hub History conference at the University of Kent.....it'll be a variation of the 240,000 mile cul de sac theme.

Anyway back to the books.

The Presidents and the Press (and TV & Radio)

My supervisors' comments back on my first PhD chapter plus the response from the room to my presentation at this year's research conference have all been good - today I'm tired but boosted by the feeling that I'm finally on the right lines after rather floundering my way through the first year and a bit of PhD life.

My Literature Review is pretty much complete in terms of early space race literature and also presidential leadership literature from the time (Wright Mills, Neustadt, Sorensen, McDougall et al). But what's missing is the body of text (if such a body exists) on the interaction of the Presidency and the media. I'm especially interested in titles covering the WW2-Vietnam period but would stretch to cover the Teddy Roosevelt - Ronnie Reagan period if there were uneful ideas to uncover and apply to 'my' Presidents: Ike and JFK.

My target to get this third leg of the Literature Review complete is mid-June - if anyone can suggest any titles, I'd love to hear them.

Old paper is exciting

Is there any reason why I should be inordinately excited about receiving bundles of paper from the Kennedy and Nixon Presidential libraries? Given the fact that I'm funding my own PhD while attempting to run my own micro-business on the side, the chances of a trip to Boston or the Los Angeles environs this year are somewhere between exceedingly slim and nil. So, the last few weeks has involved a large degree of online searching plus liaison with the archive researchers at the above institutions to dig out some useful research material (with its attendant vast photocopying bill) from Kennedy and Nixon's 1960 campaign files.

The task now is to analyse the papers to see if a) there was more than a hair's breadth of difference between the proposed space policies of these two doughty Cold War campaigners during the campaign; b) to see if the papers offer any likely pointers to how Nixon may have acted on NASA and the manned space programme had he won in 1960; and c) if there are any indications in the papers on how highly Kennedy rated space as an agenda item for his 1961 policy making before he moved into the White House. 

Plenty then to get my teeth into over the next couple of months.  

Build a rocket boys

How appropriate that I should be writing my Research Student Day presentation while Elbow's 'Lippy Kids' with its excellent refrain 'Build a rocket boys' fills the background with a bit of tuneful (prog) rock.

After several months of a fairly isolated student existence, I'm feeling a bit more part of the research community at the moment. I began to get a bit more momentum into the work as a deadline approached for my revised hypothesis/structure and literature review and I started playing my hypothesis past a few of the big players - the likes of Logsdon, Launius, Hansen and McCurdy and McDougall while asking for their views on what a Nixon presidency in 1961 might have looked like in terms of space policy.

My current working hypothesis (based on my growing realisation that I don't think there was a direct causal effect of the media on Executive decision making) states: More than 50 years on from President Kennedy’s inauguration, a myth persists that the USA’s triumph in landing a man on the moon expanded the nation’s frontiers into the heavens – and that this expansion owes its success to the policy-making of Kennedy. In recent years, this established wisdom has been reinforced by anniversary-driven hagiography, popular television rehash and, most of all, through the lionising of JFK.


This thesis will take an evidential approach in debunking the myth by presenting Kennedy as the master of political expediency, and re-evaluating Eisenhower’s role in developing effective space policy that was not limited by a race to the moon. The thesis will show how Eisenhower, from his inheritance of competing armed forces rocket programs, through the International Geophysical Year’s satellite development to his response to the Sputnik Autumn of 1957 set in track a process that enabled the creation of an agency that could deliver a space programme that, step-by-step, would open space in its widest sense to the American spirit of exploration. Using primary evidence from NASA’s Historical Collection and the Eisenhower Presidential Library, primary evidence from the Kennedy Presidential papers and recordings, and by extrapolating what a Nixon Presidency in 1961 might have meant for space policy, the thesis demonstrates that far from stretching America’s frontier to the heavens, Kennedy’s space policy was little more than an expedient reaction to the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the first earth orbit of Yuri Gagarin. Source material from both Eisenhower and Kennedy’s White House circles shows that Kennedy hijacked Eisenhower and NASA’s systematic and logical plan for space exploration, replacing it with a single-focus event: high on symbolic achievement, but entirely limiting in terms of truly extending America’s frontier into space.

The thesis will add to the discourse on the politics of the early years of space endeavour by making a first attempt to compare and contrast directly Eisenhower and Kennedy’s space policy decision making, highlighting Eisenhower’s low-key response to the Soviet ‘smoke and mirrors’; preference for unmanned space missions; and desire to separate scientific and military uses of space, with Kennedy’s direct challenge to Khrushchev which coalesced all NASA’s focus into the race for the moon. It also speculates on what might have been different had Nixon triumphed in the 1960 Presidential election.

In using space policy as the case study for Presidential decision making, this paper applies another contextual layer: the changing role of the media as the 1950s gave way to the 1960s and ushered in a new era of television news and debate; a new breed of space-enthralled journalist, and a new passion for all aspects of popular media: space as conquered by its ‘all American Boys’.

In summary, this paper re-evaluates Eisenhower’s contribution to the United States’ journey into space and, in so doing, places Kennedy’s mass-appeal rhetoric and policy making in true perspective: not as the champion of Apollo, but as the limiting factor that caused America to lose its way as it sought to push its frontier to the heavens.

None of the greats have knocked back my hypothesis and the general response has been positive. Now it sits with my supervisors for their comment - and it'll be open to the scrutiny of the Brunel research community on May 4 (may the fourth be with me!).

I've just been through a Saturday school where I had the chance to try out a shortened version of my presentation which drew precisely no questions.....probably not good - but the audience was made up of economists, organisational learning experts, educators and IT pros, with only one other historian in attendance. Still, I would have liked to elicit at least some reaction - but it was a long day and everyone was rather more concerned with their own presentation.

Anyway, it was just good to get together with other PhD students and have the kind of nerdy conversation that you just can't have at home - although why my kids aren't more interested in the US separation of government, I'll never know. 

Kennedy, Glenn and 'frontier rhetoric'

With all the 'Kennedy 50th' interest, this seems as good a time as any to post the final piece from my Masters disso. All the following content is copyright Mark Shanahan 2011

Chapter 3: God speed John Glenn

In his inaugural address, Kennedy has challenged the US public saying: “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.” In the case of Astronaut John Glenn, his task was to restore American prestige and fill the credibility gap between Kennedy’s speech to Congress in May 1961 and eight months of further space activity that had seen one more sub-orbital flight in the Mercury Programme, and 17 orbits by Russian Cosmonaut Gherman Titov. Kennedy’s rhetoric in his speech to Congress in May 1961 was not enough on its own to convince either the media or the American public that the US would win the race to the moon. The nation had already fallen short both in the race for satellites and the race to put a man into space. Now Kennedy and NASA needed a significant step forward to align the media and the nation behind the drive for the moon. With the flight of John Glenn, the politicians and space administration worked far more proactively to manage Glenn’s flight as an event. The result, as this chapter will show was a high point in the US space programme where the nation was truly uplifted by NASA’s achievement.

The flight’s success on February 20th 1962 cemented the public-media-and governmental alliance behind Kennedy’s pledge to send a man to the moon and return him safely to the earth before the decade was out. From the choice of astronaut, naming of the capsule, and mission announcement months before take-off (unlike Shepard and Grissom’s sub-orbital shots) NASA and the Executive were at pains to identify the mission with Kennedy’s foreign policy agenda. Their goal was to finally win Congress and the American public over to belief that manned spaceflight and an aggressive drive for the moon was at the heart of the nation’s interests.


When the Mercury Seven were first presented to the media through a Washington press conference on April 9, 1959, they were not a particularly prepossessing bunch. Most had little to say that was either interesting or original . Introduced by NASA’s first Director of Public Information, Walter T Bonney , the ‘lonesome marine’ John Glenn stood out for his down-home humour and implicit leadership of the group. Already a ‘name’ for his July 1957 transcontinental speed record when he flew from Los Angeles to New York in 3 hours and 23 minutes and his subsequent appearances on the hit NBC TV show Name That Tune, Glenn established an immediate rapport with the journalists present. As Tom Wolfe wrote in The Right Stuff, “John Glenn came out of it as tops among seven very fair haired boys...all seven emerged collectively in a golden haze....A blazing aura was among them all.” Though Shepard, regarded as both the brightest and the best pilot among the Seven, got the nod to be the US’ first man in space, NASA knew that the key flight in the programme would be the first orbital mission. Glenn was pencilled in for this journey at a very early stage.


The US still needed reassurance that Kennedy’s aspiration would be achieved. There was still residual opposition to the pledge both among the American public and, particularly, among Republican Senators and Representatives. Representative Tom Pelly of Washington described the lunar programme as: "a spectacular piece of nonsense.... the most inflationary proposal in American Political History” . Meanwhile Senator Gordon Allot of Colorado noted the space race connotation, calling Kennedy’s pledge: “a useless contest with the Russians...(Can) such a contest be worth...the cost to the American people?” Yet as Time noted, Pelly was able to muster only 83 house members to oppose the President’s spending plans in 1961. The eventual vote on the budget package – including NASA’s increased budget - was passed by 352 to 59. Still, with just Shepard’s 15 minute hop to Bermuda to demonstrate the country’s space flight excellence, the US population was divided on whether the US had caught up with the Soviets as a space power.

In June 1961, a Gallup Poll asked: “Congress has been asked to approve a program, costing 7 to 9 billion dollars during the next five years, to enable the US to send a man to the moon and bring him back safely. Do you think Congress should adopt the program or reject it?” Only 42% of respondents said adopt it, while 46% said reject it, with the remainder having no opinion. It was hardly a ringing endorsement of Kennedy’s rhetoric. When the Mercury Program was once again eclipsed by Titov’s 24-hour orbital trip a New York Times editorial noted that Washington officials were concerned by NASA's "easy pace" in implementing the lunar landing programme outlined by President Kennedy.


However, NASA had a PR coup planned. Glenn’s flight was announced as soon as the chimp Enos had been recovered safe from the Atlas-Mercury 5 flight test in November 1961. It was quite contrary to NASA’s previous reluctance to confirm any astronaut until they had to, but Glenn’s trip was different. Until Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon, Glenn was the US space programme’s number one All-American Hero: the epitome of Tom Wolfe’s ‘Right Stuff’. Glenn’s flight, the first by an American into orbit, presented him as a pioneer and clearly evoked the spirit of frontier adventure. In interviews, the astronaut himself stated the flight would ‘pave the way’ for voyages to ‘the moon and beyond’”. Life magazine was working hard to present a rounded image that reflected Kennedy’s ‘New Frontier’ boldness: the lean marine with the buzz cut, square jaw and easy smile, with the nuclear family for the nuclear age of the perfect wife and two teenage boys, slotted easily into the pioneer spirit encouraged by NASA. His striving for the new frontier of space rapidly captured the imagination.
 Glenn was the perfect fit for the Astronaut NASA had originally envisaged when inviting applicants for the role. Described by Life’s John Dille as “the senior man on the team...sternly self-disciplined and almost ascetic in his pursuit of perfection”, he was also “warm, convivial and friendly.” He certainly fitted the picture of ‘daring and courageous men, cool and resourceful under pressure’ that Dille gives as NASA’s requirements for its first astronauts. Yet Glenn was actually little different from the six other married fathers, all highly experienced test pilots, who comprised the Mercury Seven. But more than Shepard and more than Grissom, his image had been cultivated within NASA and presented through carefully chosen words and pictures made readily available by NASA’s Public Affairs team to an eager, if somewhat lazy, media. In the last years of printed media’s dominance over television, they were more than ready to lap up the wealth of material provided by NASA. It is worth noting that the media operated at two distinct levels. Most newspapers had a Washington reporter and they were briefed and managed by NASA Administrator James Webb and his HQ Public Affairs team. This team  worked closely with Pierre Salinger, Kennedy’s Press Secretary, and discussed space matters with reporters at a high policy level, ensuring all commentary around Mercury and subsequent NASA programmes was in line with the President’s wider political agenda.


However, a second level of space reporter had emerged, with a beat that ran from the Langley Research Facility to Cape Canaveral. These ‘on the spot’ reporters covered events in the space calendar – astronaut announcements, launches and tests. Their language was a mix of technical reporting and awe at the achievements of the programme and its astronauts. As the previous chapter explained, this second breed was far removed from the questioning journalism that would emerge as the decade rolled on. Norman Mailer was still on the periphery of the group, and the likes of Jay Barbree and Martin Caidin who covered every launch were, by their own admission, undemanding.

Paul Haney worked in public Affairs for NASA before becoming a special correspondent for ITN. He explained NASA’s policy on managing the media at the Cape. “NASA issued technical releases on every aspect of the flight, but they were rather dull. They were designed to be informative rather than inspiring. Most of the people I worked with were either ex-military and didn’t want to reveal anything beyond the technical specification about the flights, or were career civil servants originally hired from regional newspapers. Their role was to answer reporters’ questions but not to offer any opinion on strategy or the higher meaning of space exploration. They were also to be a barrier between reporters and our key NASA managers. Where were succeeded best as a team was in providing lots of ready-made copy and images. Much of the copy was generated in Washington, and pictures, such as the now iconic Mercury Seven in pressure suits at Langley, were made freely available for the press to use. Almost every reporter worked to very tight deadlines and probably too many too readily accepted the material NASA provided and reproduced it without much editorial analysis.


“Our team on the ground were much happier talking about valves and heat shields than pioneering missions to new frontiers. We left that to Pierre Salinger’s people and the Life editorial writers. However, I eventually found myself using their language and imagery on later Mercury and Gemini flights. It just seemed to seep into the set-piece announcements.”


Strangely, a string of 10 postponements allowed the public to get to know Glenn better. His flight was tentatively scheduled for December and postponed further in January after Glenn had spent six hours strapped into the tiny Mercury spacecraft . The delays allowed ample time for the press to venerate Glenn as a hero before he had even left the launch pad. Crucial to this process was Life which lavished attention on the ‘unswerving and self-denying man’ and his dedication to the ‘stern, dangerous pursuit’ of spaceflight. Even the name of his craft was significant: Friendship 7 was at once homely and inclusive and carried an implicit message of global friendship – albeit under an American flag.

By the time Friendship 7 launched on February20th 1962, Life had run a number of emotive spreads on Glenn, his training schedule and his family, providing the public with the heroic personification of the US space program. Through no fault of his own, Glenn’s flight was less than heroic. Glenn reached orbit and was cleared for orbital flight. However, before even one had completed, he was in trouble. The automatic attitude control system was malfunctioning, prompting a persistent drift to the right. Glenn corrected this by switching to manual control. But telemetry on the ground showed a further, more threatening problem. A reading suggested that Glenn’s heat shield may have been partially dislodged during separation from the Atlas rocket. If the shield was damaged, it would almost certainly cause the Mercury craft to burn up as it attempted re-entry to the earth’s atmosphere. NASA controllers decided to bring Glenn down as quickly as possible – at the end of his third orbit, and instructed him not to jettison his retro rocket pack as it was felt this may hold the potentially errant heat shield in place. Controllers were ‘less than candid’ with Glenn, while the watching media and public knew nothing of the potential disaster waiting to happen.


While it was Soviet policy not to announce anything about their space flights until success was assured, NASA trumpeted the fact that they operated all their missions in the full media glare. Yet in this case, they chose not to inform their pilot of the full nature of the danger he faced. Therefore, since Public Affairs Announcer Shorty Powers monitored the capcom feed and interpreted astronaut communications for the world’s media, no-one beyond the mission controllers were aware of the difficulties the flight faced. It could be argued that NASA was playing the Soviet game. More likely it was weighing the odds of damage limitation aimed at preserving NASA and US prestige should Glenn perish.


Glenn landed safely and, together with NASA, was hailed by the American public, even though Gagarin had beaten him into orbit by almost a year. The flight dominated every news bulletin and every newspaper across the country and, indeed, much of the world. The Los Angeles Times, so recently a critic of Kennedy, covered the story under the title ‘Astronauts’ Epic’ . I t dominated pages 1-7, 10-12, 14-15 and 19, using a large number of photographs supplied by NASA. In a show of confidence, the agency was also able to report to the newspaper that Glenn’s flight was the US’ 67th successful space launch, compared to 13 for the Soviets. What is perhaps most notable is the way that both Johnson and Kennedy were inextricably linked with the flight and the celebration of its success. The newspaper quoted Johnson who said: “This is a great day for the free world and therefore for all humanity...outer space has become a pathway for mankind and we hope and pray that it is a pathway to peace.” Kennedy kept up the voyager metaphor and was quoted by the Los Angeles Times saying: “We have a long way to go in this space race. We started late. But this is a new ocean and I believe the United States must set sail on it and be in a position second to none. “


Suddenly the politicians sounded like those journalists who, in 1959 compared the Mercury Seven to Columbus, De Gama and the other great explorers of history. Glenn addressed Congress saying: “I am certainly glad to see that pride in our country and its accomplishments are not a thing of the past.” His implication was that his Mercury flight had renewed that pride in Americans.


On February 21 1962, the New York Times declared the flight to be “one of the greatest dramatic events in modern times.” The paper’s leader writers were quick to contrast the worldwide publicity surrounding Glenn’s flight with the secrecy shrouding the Soviet space programme. On the same day, the Washington Post lauded Glenn, stating: “the new spaceman, holding his life in his own hands as test pilots have always done, can bring his fragile craft more surely to its destination than any quantity of automatic control.” This was a thinly veiled attack on the Soviets who made a virtue of the automation of their craft. At a more parochial level, regional newspapers across the US pledged themselves firmly behind NASA. The Hartford Courant in Connecticut for instance asserted that ‘American heroism has entered a new period.’


While the drive for the moon was a naked attempt to beat the Soviets in a world-awing set-piece, pride in American accomplishment was at the root of both Kennedy and NASA’s drive for space. McDougall describes Congress’ support of Kennedy’s pledge to land a man on the moon as: “the greatest open-ended commitment in peacetime by Congress in history.” Drawing on the almost mythical stature of the narrative of Lewis and Clark’s trailblazing across the American west a century before, the drive for space created a new narrative echoing America’s frontier myth. In telephone remarks to NASA’s first Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Space , Kennedy expressed America’s determination to be “a pioneer in the New Frontier of Space.” The language of the media and the Administration was coalescing around a new frontier hero, created through a magnificent adventure and underpinned by a carefully constructed image.

NASA’s filmed record of the flight The Voyage of Friendship 7 , released in the weeks following Glenn’s return stressed the adventure and chose not to dwell on the risks the flight encountered. The colour film which received nationwide and international distribution replayed the voyager image and focused on ‘a captain of a new kind of ship about to set sail on a new ocean, the infinite ocean of space’. In-flight film shows Glenn actively piloting the craft – far removed from the passenger status of Gagarin and Titov. Noting that the launch was broadcast live across the US by all the major networks who, in turn, carried the launch to ‘all nations of the free world’, the film stresses the ‘open’ nature of America’s voyage into space uniting 4,000 contractors across the nation, while the Mercury-Atlas’s course is charted across ‘the emerging nations of Africa’ with the implication that the mission may help win their support for the US. Glenn’s flight over the Atlantic, where he is seen controlling the craft, is compared to Lindbergh’s first solo Atlantic crossing. This parallel had been first aired in Life prior to the flight, and found its way into a number of subsequent media reports.


Back in the US, with more time to reflect, the news magazines were certain that NASA was back on track in beating the Soviets to the moon. Glenn featured on the covers of Time, Newsweek and Life in the first week in March, with Time reporting: “In terms of national prestige, Glenn’s flight put the US back in the space race with a vengeance, and gave the morale of the US and the entire free world a badly needed boost.” In the wake of the Berlin Wall dispute and Khrushchev’s carefully orchestrated smoke and mirrors in space, the still-new President Kennedy badly needed media positivity. He would have welcomed Newsweek’s response in the same week which noted that Glenn had: “lifted the self-doubt that had plagued the United States since the first Sputnik flashed through the night skies.” No longer need America be tormented by “the nagging suspicion that the American political and economic system was somehow inadequate to the new challenges which the space age posed.”


The positive media coverage around the world was echoed in the hundreds of thousands of letters Glenn received from over 100 countries including the Soviet Union. The well-named Friendship 7 went on tour across 17 countries, with a well-oiled NASA publicity machine ensuring millions had the opportunity to look inside the craft. Finally, in a PR triumph, on the first anniversary of the flight, Friendship 7 was presented to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington where it was displayed alongside Lindbergh’s Spirit of St Louis. This was a very deliberate action aimed at evoking the same spirit of exploration, triumph over adversity and conquering new frontiers that Lindbergh had stirred among Americans with his first solo aeroplane crossing of the Atlantic 35 years earlier.


The alignment of the planets politic and media was complete on March 1 1962 when President Kennedy accompanied Glenn and his wife Annie through the streets of New York where the returning hero enjoyed a tickertape parade. This followed a similarly joyful reception in Washington DC when Vice President Johnson joined Glenn in the motorcade on their way to address Congress on February 26th – a triumphal valediction of the Mercury missions capturing an image of national success and national pride. 1961-62 was NASA’s ‘golden year’ . Tthe cover of Life on March 9, 1962 with a smiling Glenn taking the adulation of the Washington crowd as Johnson looks on neatly distilled the apogee of the Mercury programme, and finally set a solid foundation of public and media support for the Apollo programme to come. Kennedy had used success in the space race to strengthen his own position, and it’s worth noting that his approval rating peaked at 83% in the fortnight following Glenn’s flight.


How much this was a product of an active space policy by Kennedy’s Administration or even simple relief that Glenn’s flight had put the US back in the space race is open to debate. But this writer would argue that the ‘triumph’ would not have reached such a peak without an active public relations effort that used the rhetoric of the Administration, the creative writing and powerful photographic imagery of Life and the extensive reach of the NASA public affairs machine to turn an already impressive man and extraordinary enterprise into a world-uniting, heroic event. The flight of Friendship Seven was a totem for Kennedy, and enabled him to regain much of the prestige he had lost following the US failure in the Bay of Pigs.

Would it all have been different if Nixon had won in 1960?

I'm doing some work today on my paper for 49th Parallel which builds on my presentation delivered in Oxford last November. That was called 'A New Frontier or just a 240,000 mile cul de sac'. It's still my working title for the printed paper, but I'm  tempted to use a great Kennedy quote instead. 

In a meeting held in December 1962 with NASA Administrator Jim Webb, a gathering of the great and the good from NASA management and also JFK's Budget Director, the President rather flippantly said: "I'm not that interested in space." I think it makes a pretty good title for a piece revisiting Eisenhower and Kennedy's role in US space exploration. 

However, I'd also like to use the piece to put forward a view on whether anything would have been different had Nixon won the Presidential election in 1960. 

While defence and the missile gap loomed large in the 1960 election campaign, I can't find much from Nixon particularly on space policy after his work on the 1958 Space Act. Would he have followed Kennedy's single-minded route to the moon? Would he have taken on Khrushchev over space? Who knows. It's fun to speculate. This morning I've spent some time putting the question to a number of renowned space historians. I will be interested in their views if they choose to come back to me.   

Masters Dissertation Chapter 2 - NASA and the reversal of trends

It's quite some time since I posted the introduction and Chapter 1 of my disso - and it's amazing how far my thinking around and understanding of the early years of the space race has matured in the last 15 months. But while I wait for an edited version of the disso to finally run in the pages of Spaceflight, here's the unabridged version of the second chapter. It seems appropriate now to turn to John F Kennedy as we recall his Inauguration 50 years ago. All the material on this entry and, indeed across this blog is copyright Mark Shanahan, 2011

Chapter 2: NASA and the reversal of trends
The period from October 1958 to May 1961 provided the hinge for US space aspirations and a 180 degree change in policy. While Eisenhower had provided strong foundations for the Space Programme as a response to intense media activity, he had done so reluctantly. Once he had seen off Nixon in the race for the White House, Kennedy inherited an agency and space programme that was achieving quiet success but was no longer buoyed aloft on media fervour. At first, he was antipathetic to space and even initially looked for co-operation rather than competition with the Soviets. But the Bay of Pigs fiasco swiftly followed by Gagarin’s space flight changed the attitude of a President looking for an expedient way to recover prestige and set his overall political agenda back on course.

This chapter assesses how the relationship between the President, the media and NASA changed in regard to America’s efforts to catch-up the Soviets and set the course that would ultimately win the space race. In so doing, it will focus on the foundation of NASA; the announcement of the Mercury 7; Life’s astronaut contract, the early space media corps, the Kennedy-Nixon presidential race, and most notably, Kennedy’s ‘Second State of the Union Address’.

The foundation of NASA as a civilian agency (albeit entirely dependent on the military machine) provided both stability and credibility for the US space programme. However, in moving away from the Committee-Director structure of the previous NACA to NASA’s direct responsibility to the President, the new agency became an arm of national and international political policy. While Eisenhower had little time to use the agency to advance his own agenda, and indeed asked Vice President Nixon to lead on space issues, Kennedy proved a much more active manipulator. In this, he was aided by his own Vice President, Johnson who had previously used space policy as a means to further his own national political aims. NASA’s launch in October 1958 was generally met positively by the media – especially as it came into being around four months sooner than predicted. However, its coverage was low-key. In fact it rated only a page 16 story in the Chicago Daily Tribune. .

Eisenhower favoured unmanned scientific rocketry over what he saw as a pointless race to put a man in space. He still would not use the ‘space race’ term or image. He was hugely heartened by the launch and perfect performance of the world’s first meteorological and navigational satellites in the last year of his presidency. But though these were real scientific achievements which changed weather forecasting and marine navigation forever, they were not the attention grabbers that would draw interest to the space programme.

As Eisenhower dealt with increasing tensions in Berlin, NASA was swiftly learning the value of good PR. Recognising the value of symbolic gesture, the agency chose to announce Project Mercury on the 55th anniversary of the first Wright Brothers flight, tapping into the American adventure-mythology that would shape its messaging in the early years. It would seem this was a tacit acknowledgement of the success of Khrushchev’s strategy of tying launches to significant historical events: the prime example being the launch of Sputnik 2 on the commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the October Revolution.

The Chicago Daily Tribune , reported that this marked a speed-up in efforts to get man into space, though Administrator T Keith Glennan expressed NASA’s pre-Kennedy caution by saying: “We shall be working very hard, but at the very earliest, success in this venture is several years away.”
Khrushchev appeared to the US public as much less cautious. His policy of propaganda was not particularly sophisticated, but between 1957 an 1960, it was particularly effective. Khrushchev hid the deficiencies of his missile force and space technology by camouflage and subterfuge . While his force was actually weak, by playing the space card and implying greater rocket strength than he actually possessed, Khrushchev hoped to force the US to weaken its own position. Rattling his atomic rockets in the wake of Sputnik’s launch is a tad ironic, since by 1957, Khrushchev’s decision to reduce spending on conventional arms and focus on a high tech missile deterrent had produced just four ICBMs.

NASA really first connected with the media in April 1959 when it introduced the world to the Mercury Seven – the original US astronauts. The Soviets selected and trained their cosmonauts in complete secrecy. NASA, on the other hand introduced its newly-coined ‘Astronauts’ in the full glare of publicity, long before the seven military test pilots had ever gone near a rocket. Playing on the theme of nationalism, encompassing prestige, national strength and a US lead in international co-operation, NASA considered its image carefully when selecting and publicising ‘the Original Astronauts’. All were presented as ‘all-American, exemplary citizens’, and their introduction to the press brought initially widespread curiosity, soon to be replaced by seemingly unwarranted adulation. But it is worth noting the low-key role NASA’s Public Affairs team played in presenting the Mercury Seven. In April 1959, NASA HQ in Washington issued 100 pages of media material. Two thirds of this was directly to do with the Mercury Astronauts. The press conference announcement was a buried within a three-page release of April 7th 1959 titled: “Seven to enter Mercury Training Program.” In support of the press conference, NASA released a detailed paper covering a blow-by-blow account of the Astronaut selection process; three-page career biographies on each of the Astronauts and a transcript of the Press Conference. A week later, the agency was forced to issue a ‘Press Memorandum’ stating: As soon as they arrive at Langley they will begin Project Mercury orbital flight training. Each will have an important role in engineering and scientific development of the space vehicle, sub-orbital build-up missions and finally manned satellite flight. The training will be conducted on an extremely tight schedule. For these reasons the Astronauts will not be available for special interviews or other public activities for the time being. NASA will report progress on Project Mercury as it occurs, and as the training and work program of the Astronauts permits, we will arrange for special public activities in the future. We know that we have your understanding and cooperation in this activity.”

Several points are worth noting: unlike their Soviet counterparts, the seven were to have active roles in the Mercury development. Second, there is a distinct increase in pace and urgency implied by the note. Finally, the implication is that NASA was surprised by the reaction to the Mercury Seven announcement, and had not yet developed a tactic to deal with the clamour for a piece of the new ‘heroes’. Once the Mercury Seven were announced, the media did indeed have its heroes to face off against the faceless Soviets, small-town, lantern jawed risk-taking frontiersmen, echoes abounded from Davy Crockett to Charles Lindbergh. The Chicago Daily Tribune reported on the Mercury Seven announcement as a page 14 story the day after the April 7th Washington press conference. But three days later, the Seven were on page one. Two were noted to be from ‘Chicagoland’

What is significant in assessing the US media’s response to the Mercury Seven is that there was really no such thing as a daily national news media in the US. Newspapers were local and fiercely parochial, looking for the local angle on any story, be it national or international. Hence the interest in the astronauts’ birth places, where they came from, went to college and had previously worked. There was interest too in their families, their religious beliefs and all the traits that brought a chink of individuality to a fairly homogenous group. From the first, the newspapers focused on the astronauts as heroes: James Reston of the New York Times famously stated that “The astronauts may make Columbus and Vasco de Gama look like shut-ins before they’re through.” This was a new frontier adventure; one was soon to find an echo with Kennedy’s far wider-reaching New Frontier presidential candidacy. As Wolfe wrote: “Within 24 hours of their Washington DC introduction, the astronauts were heroes.” Reston summed up the mood of the media: “What made them exciting was not that they said anything new, but that they said all the old things with such fierce convictions. They spoke of ‘duty’ and ‘faith’ and ‘country’ like Walt Whitman’s pioneers.” These solid citizens appeared to have ‘The Right Stuff’ and an implicit alliance of NASA’s public affairs team and the Washington press corps ensured that nothing would dent that image.

That ‘Right Stuff’ was captured and played back nationally and internationally (though syndicated features and international editions), by one of the key segments of the American media: the news magazines. Without national newspapers and with TV news restricted to generally around 15 minutes a day, news magazines led the public opinion agenda. Newsweek devoted a double page spread to the press conference in its April 20th 1959 issue, presenting an image of the Mercury Seven based on ‘family and faith’ where the seven aviators (and much was made of their test pilot backgrounds, thanks to NASA’s extensive briefing notes) were “fearless but not reckless”, attributes that would stand them in good stead in their endeavours beyond the earth’s atmosphere. Almost equally important was the trade press, with titles such as Collier’s, Popular Mechanics and New Scientist all strong in driving popular opinion. But if NASA’s new Mercury Seven were to shine, they needed the backing of Newsweek, The New Republic, Time and Life all of which had been disparaging of Eisenhower’s apparent hesitancy in embracing the space race they had done so much to create. If there was any opposition to the new manned space programme, it remains terribly well hidden, and even by 1962, Newsweek was reporting that many reporters “are under the temptation to function as rooters for ‘The Team’ – a role abhorrent to most newsmen.”
With the announcement of the Mercury Seven, there was a subtle change in emphasis on the way that space news and features were handled. Up to this point, space had been largely a political story handled by Washington reporters. It stayed a political mainstay during the Nixon/Kennedy election race. However, the growing amount of activity at NASA’s Langley and Cape Canaveral facilities, plus the endless round of astronaut visits to the spacecraft manufacturers up and down the country called for active media management from NASA, and the emergence of a new breed of space reporter who understood the scientific and engineering complexities, but could synthesise them for mass audiences.

Of course, NASA had to maintain a positive public perception if the American public was going to support the agency’s need for billions of Federal dollars to be spent on manned exploration of space. The agency had a good cohort of Governmental PR personnel to call on under the Eisenhower administration. Public relations as a government practice had grown exponentially in the 1950s, and in 1957, the US Civil Service Commission listed 679 personnel as ‘Information and Editorial Employees’ – somewhat more than the numbers of DC news reporters. Walter T Bonney, head of Public Affairs for the NACA took on the same role at NASA. The 1958 Space Act stated that NASA must “provide for the widest practicable and appropriate dissemination of information concerning its activities and accomplishments.” Within months, Bonney had one of the largest public affairs teams in government – over 100 people supporting an engineering and scientific team of some 8,000 NASA employees. It had a dual aim of providing up-front material for journalists to use on every aspect of the space programme, and also a remit to answer media questions “so that reporters won’t besiege the administrator and other management.” Once the Astronauts had been announced, the Public Affairs team also took on the role of barrier between reporters and their prey.

By January 1959, all media enquiries were referred to Bonney’s office and that all material for release, no matter what its source, had to be routed through his Office of Public Information at least a week prior to release. This was significantly ahead of its time in terms of news management and could have caused untold reporting problems had not the media been quite so prepared to take NASA’s pronouncements at face value. Yet given the vast amount of information that NASA provided on an almost daily basis to reporters (the pre-launch press release for Alan Shepard’s 15 minute sub-orbital flight ran to 22 pages for instance), it is hardly surprising that they were so unchallenging. This was an entirely new scientific and technological area: NASA had the best engineering brains and they were planning to deliver a completely new engineering challenge. They simply overwhelmed most journalists with the sheer quantity of available material. But the material was largely technical or procedural. Almost from the outset, NASA devoted its media machine to scientific and engineering issues as well as the logistics of appointments and launches. Personal information about the astronauts swiftly became the remit of Life magazine.

As coverage moved to Cape Canaveral in May 1959 NASA fought an uneasy battle with the Air Force on how to accommodate the needs of the media without compromising national security. The Air Force was all for a media blackout: almost impossible to impose as rockets flashed across the Florida sky. NASA, on the other hand, took the view that it had a duty to report all activities – success or failure. The philosophy of ‘do first, talk second’ became a mantra, with the aim of making known the facts of any launch, and Congressional information and any supplier contract award promptly and accurately. This was 180 degrees removed from the Soviet policy of ‘Do first....and only if it’s a success, spin the story.’

The new NASA facilities being planned for Cape Canaveral were on Merritt Island. However, the early satellite and Mercury’s manned launches took place from the Cape Canaveral Air Force station using an Air Force-run launch pad and blockhouse. After the early very public failures of the Vanguard launches, the Air Force was doubly wary of allowing reporters to cover tests on site, or indeed provide any pre-launch information. However, journalists are generally well-networked, and most knew when a rocket test was likely and even if not officially invited to witness the test, would do so from beyond the reach of the Air Force Cocoa Beach. By the time of the Mercury flights, the Air Force was forced to back down as the TV networks and reporters from all across the US successfully lobbied NASA for access to the launch sites. However, the constant stream of missile tests and even defence satellite launches were conducted, as far as possible, beyond the reach of the media.

At NASA Bonney decreed: “The distinction between publicity and public information must be kept constantly in mind. Publicity to manipulate or ‘sell’ facts or images of a product, activity, viewpoint or personality to create a favourable impression, has no place in the NASA programme. The essential aim of our information work is to furnish Congress and the media with facts – unvarnished facts – about the progress of NASA programmes.” This may have worked in the conservative Eisenhower era, and worked alongside a massive get-out clause in terms of the astronauts’ Life contract. But it had no place after 1960 when space was wrapped up into JFK’s overall ‘New Frontier’ plan. NASA’s administrators and senior managers were political appointments. Bonney moved on the day before JFK took office. Glennan was replaced by Jim Webb.

If NASA was still learning its way in news management, the media were learning their way in reporting space too. A new breed of reporter was emerging, trained largely in the post-Sputnik era. Reporters had mastered a vast amount of scientific and technological complexity, and were still deciding whether to educate the public or merely report events. Some, such as William Hines at the Washington Star and Reg Turnill at the BBC chose the former, but most took the latter route, preferring to hang out at Cocoa Beach in thrall to that new breed of celebrity: the astronaut. NBC’s Jay Barbree was a prime example. His memoir describes the free-flowing relationship between reporters and astronauts beyond the confines of the Cape Canaveral ranges. There was a strong code of respect from the reporters to the new celebrities: astronauts are never asked for information, they have to volunteer it; reporters don’t speak until spoken to; and the party lifestyle, including many women, much drinking and a lot of roaring around in sports cars never, ever, makes it into print or on the air. Thus the image of the seven All-American heroes was never tarnished. James Schefter reflects that this was simply the way journalism operated at the time. “There was an unwritten gentlemen’s agreement between reporters and the astronauts. If it didn’t get entered on a police blotter, it wasn’t a story” The impression is that the reporters were hungry for stories and that anything to do with space was a prime assignment. The ‘collegiate’ atmosphere at the Cape and Langley that drew together a community of astronauts, engineers, hotel owners, reporters, waiters, car salesmen and everyone involved in the enterprise was fragile and relied on a collective management. It would quickly come crashing down if a reporter shattered the great illusion. NASA had to put no rules in place to manage the manufactured presentation of the astronauts’ image. The media managed themselves.

That image was brought most fulsomely to life through the pages of Life, Henry R Luce’s large-format, picture-led magazine that carried his Cold War, anti-Soviet crusade into the homes of millions of Americans and others around the world each week. It became NASA’s mouthpiece in the popular media . Certainly the publication, which was an outlet for Luce’s unbridled patriotism enabled NASA to get around Bonney’s dictum that all public information should be ‘unvarnished’. In mid-1959, ironically at Bonney’s suggestion, NASA invited the press to bid for the exclusive rights to cover the Mercury seven astronauts’ personal stories. Bonney knew that his team of Washington civil servants and former engineers simply didn’t have the experience to meet the demands of the press on personal rather than programme issues. His team’s background with the NACA had been developed through promoting aircraft engineering advances since 1915 – and doing so in a quiet, low-key manner. Promoting the Mercury 7 was an entirely different proposition and needed very different skills.

In the event, the low-bidder Life won, and set about depicting the seven, and their families, as America’s perfect citizens. Prose and photographs combined to build a compelling narrative blending the inherent drama of the programme with the kitchen sink drama of the wives and children standing behind their men. The contract was good for NASA as it bound the astronauts as a group into one coherent, controlled storyline, enabling the agency to popularise the space programme without significant cost, while it helped boost sales of the magazine to beyond seven million copies each week. Indeed, research at the time suggests the reading figures for the publication were six or seven times that, making it the most influential media instrument in the pre-TV era. While other magazines complained of being rather frozen out by the exclusive contract, NASA could contain the personal narrative and ensure a positive image of the astronauts and of Mercury. NASA had a contractual clause approving all ‘personal stories’ and the ‘apple pie America’ text was backed by Life’s key differentiator high quality, feature photography.

Many of the best Life pictures of the Astronauts and their families, including those reproduced here, were taken by Ralph Morse, a Life staffer who developed a close relationship with the Mercury Seven and their wives. NASA had access to all Life images, and many were syndicated for other journalists, enabling the agency to keep control of the visual image of the Astronauts as well as what appeared in print . Throughout an 11-year relationship, Life‘s uncritical coverage of the space programme gave NASA an unprecedented platform for presenting a positive spin on manned spaceflight and, in time, its race to the moon. What is most notable about Life is that its readership was two thirds women. Thus the space race moved from the male perspective of Newsweek and Popular Mechanics into a much wider popular consciousness. There’s no indication that this was a deciding factor in awarding the contract to Life – low bidder status appears to have carried the day. However, being able to reach such a wide audience was a definite if unplanned benefit to NASA.

Under Luce, its fiercely patriotic proprietor, Life set a heroic tone of voice for its coverage of the astronauts, one that was to align significantly with Kennedy’s ‘New Frontier’ agenda through his election campaign and into his Presidency. In the Introduction to We Seven , a contemporaneous account of the Mercury Seven with the strong hand of Life holding the pen, John Dille refers to the astronauts as: “part engineer, part explorer, part scientist, part guinea pig – and part hero.” They are complimented on their “rare standards of courage and stamina, skill and alertness, vision and intelligence.” The men were described as “The raw material for the great adventure.” They were bound as a team, working together, helping each other, but each was filled with “driving ambition.” Unlike the Soviet cosmonauts, each was engaged in a “daring and honest gamble, representatives of a free and open society.” NASA provided the fact: the hyperbole came from Life and was picked up by the rest of the media. It happened to resonate with the campaign plan Robert Kennedy was putting together for his brother’s run for the Presidency.

As NASA’s activities were accelerating, so was the Presidential race between Kennedy and Nixon. Kennedy’s vigorous campaign and decision to compete in the primaries won a significant public groundswell and saw off the challenge of Stevenson before the Democrat Convention. Johnson had chosen not to compete in the primaries but felt his wide and deep Congressional network would be enough to earn him the nomination when the candidates convened in Los Angeles. The media was to play a key role in deciding the candidate. Johnson challenged Kennedy to a televised debate – and the erudite, vigorous and well-prepared Kennedy won handsomely. Johnson’s national support eroded leaving him only his power base in the south west. Nixon had used his Vice Presidency to establish a national power base and was never seriously challenged for the Republican nomination.

Kennedy accepted the Democratic nomination by criticising Nixon’s old ideas and “pledge to the status quo.” Noting that the world was changing and that “The old ways will not do”, Kennedy outlined his “New Frontier” platform, with echoes of the New Deal and the Fair Deal, but focused on the future. Reflecting that he was standing (in Los Angeles) on what was once the last frontier for the pioneers, he noted that America now stood on “a frontier of unknown opportunities and perils”, beyond which stood the “uncharted areas of science and space, unsolved problems of peace and war.” His clarion call was for Americans to be pioneers of the New Frontier through “new invention, innovation, imagination, decision.” A vigorous space policy appeared to fit seamlessly within that platform.

As the campaign moved towards the Presidential election space became a battle ground for the two in the media. Nixon initially held the space high ground. Seen as more pro-space and pro-missile than Eisenhower, the Vice President had already engaged Khrushchev head-on in the ‘kitchen debate’ in Moscow. But when it came to campaigning a year later, the Republican nominee came up against a staunch Cold Warrior in Kennedy. Their own early blows were played out not in the national TV debates, but in the pages of the trade magazine Missiles and Rockets. The journal asked the candidates to respond to a series of statements on space and defence, the first asking if they recognized that the US was in a space race with Russia? Kennedy, setting his stall for the next three years said: “We are in a strategic space race...and we have been losing. We cannot run second in this vital race. To insure peace and freedom, we must be first.” Immediately Kennedy set the rhetorical tone that aligned with the voice of the media over the previous two years.

One might have expected Nixon to stick to Eisenhower’s conservative pragmatism, but on issues such as the missile gap and space exploration, Nixon had more radical views than Eisenhower and had been constrained by the President’s more taciturn approach. Stressing his independence from his leader’s position he responded by agreeing the US was in a race, but pointed out it was in the lead in terms of “instrumentation, communications, electronics, reliability and guidance.” For Nixon the race was certainly on and he concluded by saying: “We will continue to maintain a clear-cut lead in the race for space.”

Missiles and space remained a warm issue throughout the campaign. But neither candidate drew any real difference between the weapons of war, the weapons of prestige or even scientific exploration. Kennedy continually stressed the ‘missile gap’ even after briefings from CIA Director Allen Dulles ensured he and Johnson knew the true extent of Soviet missile power. But Kennedy was shrewd: a record of his speech to an American Legion Convention in October 1960 showed him consistently referring to old reports and views to stress the missile gap: a Rockefeller report of 1958; Republican testimony that same year to Johnson’s Senate Preparedness Committee, and arch-hawk Lt. General James Gavin’s comment: “We are in mortal danger. The missile lag portends serious trouble.” All the views were genuine and Kennedy dutifully recorded them – knowing them to be out of date but supportive of his cause.

It may be argued that what won Kennedy victory was the media – notably the contrast in the candidate performances in the first televised debate, broadcast from Chicago on September 26th, 1960. Nixon, still recovering from an infected knee looked tired, underweight and ill in front of the 80 million viewers . Refusing television makeup, he also appeared sweaty with a heavy five o’clock shadow. His performance was less sure-footed that of his competitor. Kennedy won the debate. Though Nixon’s performance improved in the later three debates, they never won such a large television audience. First impressions last, and this event may just have swayed the election.

While pledging strength against the USSR in missile defence, stating that he would never “dare tempt them with weakness” in his inauguration speech, Kennedy sought co-operation in space: “Together let us explore the stars.” For a brief moment, the space race was off. But reaction to Gagarin’s flight ensured it would be rapidly resumed. On April 12th, reports appeared across the country such as the Chicago Daily Tribune’s ‘Reds orbit and land man’ . Details were sketchy. But it was clear that the US had lost another lap in the space race. Just how weak Kennedy’s position was in relation to space was clear a day later. The Chicago Daily Tribune’s Philip Dodd reported on Kennedy’s reaction at a White House press conference. “We are behind in the space race with Russia,” Kennedy stated. Dodd noted Kennedy’s comments that the news would get worse before it got better, and it would be some time before the US caught up. Tellingly, the report picked up on Kennedy’s telegram to Khrushchev in which the President said it was “his sincere desire that...our nations can work together to obtain the greatest benefit to all mankind.” That view hardened in the coming weeks.

Hindsight would have it that Kennedy stood before Congress on May 25th 1961 with the moon landing at the centre piece of a directive that swiftly galvanised 400,000 Americans in every state of the Union into a relentless drive to the moon where this time, the Soviets would finally be beaten. However, it is worth deconstructing the myth to look at the reality of Kennedy’s speech and the degree of direction it actually provided. Undoubtedly the speech was meant to revive the spirit of optimism of the early weeks of the Presidency and, in the run-up to the June summit with Khrushchev was planned to show Khrushchev that Kennedy was not the callow youth the older leader took him for. But the speech gained so much resonance across the world and across four decades of regular repetition not as a whole, but because one section, towards the end, was pounced upon by the media and endlessly replayed – especially after Kennedy’s death, and most especially once the pledge to put a man on the moon and return him safely to earth before this decade is out had been achieved.

The speech was a set-piece: it was unusual for the President to address Congress directly, but Kennedy valued the public platform and knew it was essential to recapture the high ground at a time when his new Presidency could lose all momentum and credibility due to the body blows inflicted on it by the Bay of Pigs failure and Gagarin’s success. On May 25th, the Washington Post remarked on the short notice given that the President would address Congress in person saying: “There was no public expectation that the President would speak on urgent national needs.” The article later stated: “Ever since the Cuban invasion fiasco, the bloom has been off the bright rose of the early days of the Administration. Now may be the time to recreate the spirit of the January 30th State of the Nation Speech.” The networks were primed to take the speech live and transcripts were made available for print journalists to have as soon as Kennedy stepped down from the podium. But the moon announcement actually comprised only the last fifth of the speech. Before reaching that most famous passage, Kennedy had talked about stimulating the economy at home, fostering global progress by fighting the advance of communism, extending the US Information Agency and tripling the budget for fallout shelters at home – essentially all the issues raised in the media and rejected by Eisenhower a little over two years previously.

The space passage came after calls for an Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, almost as an afterthought. That’s certainly how the Los Angeles Times reported it the following day, in an editorial that was distinctly critical of Kennedy’s address. Robert T Harman wrote: “We expected extraordinary proposals....but he outlines rather ordinary plans...leaked to favourite TV and newspaper reporters days and weeks ago, so there was little impact of surprise. (The speech) was something of a dud....slightly spiced with a 10-year space adventure which Mr. Kennedy didn’t seem too certain of himself.”

The speech did receive national front page coverage and the space pledge drew the headlines. But equal focus on the analysis was placed on the other elements of the speech. Don Shannon, writing the lead news article for the Los Angeles Times, for instance noted that Kennedy had “urged Congress to back a multi-billion programme to put an American on the moon and counter the Soviet Union on earth.” He reflected Congress was split on the ‘omnibus’ plan and “noticeably cool on all except his call for a US challenge in space.” It is perhaps unsurprising that the Los Angeles Times was critical of Kennedy’s speech. California had backed Nixon in the 1960 election (just), and the Times was noted for its conservative stance.

The Democrat-leaning Washington Post was slightly more positive – but only slightly. In its news lead, John G Norris reported: “He (Kennedy) committed the United States to an all-out race to overtake Russia in space and to be the first to put men on the moon...”It is time”, said the President, for a great new American enterprise; time for this nation to take a clearly-leading role in space achievement.” The news report chimed with the intent of the President, picking up on his request for a spending boost for space, arms and the jobless, but undercut this when stating that the proposals would be unsatisfactory to liberals since they favoured big business. Equally Norris noted, they would not satisfy conservatives since the spending boosts would not go far enough. Interestingly, in the ‘Freedom Doctrine’ editorial within the same issue, going to the moon does not even rate a mention.

That pledge is often reported today as a directive for NASA. But that was not within Kennedy’s power. Instead Kennedy was posing a question – would Congress agree to the proposal and would it authorise the funding? Congress could have said no, indeed with just 15 minutes of actual space flight behind them and a very uncertain path to the moon, logic appears to have been outmanoeuvred by the strength of Kennedy’s rhetoric. Two republican Representatives are quoted opposing Kennedy’s call for support: The Los Angeles Times reports Representative Steven Derounian from New York saying: “Not once did I hear him say a word pledging that we would not retreat one inch from the communist tyrants. This was a tired speech full of apologies.” Fellow member of the House, Representative Glenard P Lipscomb added: “This was a lot of words with not enough justification of needs.”

A counterview comes from James Baughman, biographer of American media giant Henry R Luce, the proprietor of Life, Time, and Fortune magazines. In an email exchange with this writer, Baughman recalled his research on Luce and the space programme, noting: “I’m struck, even now, by how few sceptics I could find, in the press and politics, regarding the space programme. I can think of only one senator, Norris Cotton of New Hampshire, who gently questioned JFK’s man on the moon proposal.”

With the hindsight of the President’s assassination and the subsequent success in landing a man on the moon in 1969, the rest of the speech has been forgotten. The final section has been raised to a mythical level at odds with its immediate reaction. It actually took a lot of legwork on Capitol Hill by Vice President Johnson, already the father of space legislation, to ensure that Congress supported Kennedy’s man on the moon funding request. This was achieved by promising a space-industry job boost, with the programme of works for Gemini and Apollo divided up among contractors in every State of the Union.

Kennedy was driven by political motives unrelated to any commitment to a moon landing. He had no great scientific or even romantic attachment to the race to the moon, but had done his homework prior to the May 25th speech. On April 20thth, just after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, Kennedy wrote to Johnson, the space expert in the Administration, asking for the answers to five questions: “Do we have a chance of beating the Soviets by putting a laboratory in space, or by a trip around the moon, or by a rocket to land on the moon, or by a rocket to go to the moon and back with a man? Is there any other space programme which promises dramatic results in which we could win?” Johnson assembled a committee of advisors including Frank Stanton, head of the broadcaster CBS, Donald Cook of American electric Power, George Brown from engineering company, Brown and Root, Air force Missile Chief Bernard Schriever, Senator Kerr, the newly-appointed chairman of the Senate Space Committee and NASA Administrator Jim Webb. In both a telephone conversation with Johnson and through a detailed five page memo, Von Braun provided a detailed argument to go to the moon. Johnson was convinced, and pulled the rest of the panel towards his view.

By April 23rd, Johnson had provided the answers and Kennedy had shifted his position from his immediate comments following Gagarin’s launch. At his press conference that day, he said: “If we can get to the moon before the Russians, then we should.” Johnson’s panel had convinced Kennedy that a lunar landing was viable for the Americans – but not for the Russians who were way behind on technology and would need an unfeasibly large rocket to lift their larger, heavier technology out of earth orbit and on the way to the moon. That panel was probably swayed more by Johnson’s strength of feeling than by a logical belief that a moon landing could be achieved within a decade. Even his phrasing: “Before this decade is out”, gave Kennedy a get-out card. Even if he fulfilled a complete two-term presidency, Kennedy would almost certainly be out of office before the moon landing. If it failed, it would not be on his watch – and potentially could be laid at the feet of Johnson, the Administration’s most persuasive space advocate. And that would likely be the case if the Soviets got there first as well.

Whereas the media had set the space agenda for Eisenhower, Kennedy had turned the tables. He was now attempting to set the agenda, using the New Frontier of space as a way to regain standing and challenge the Soviets to what Wolfe describes as ‘single combat’ on the Cold War battlefield. Domestically, the speech coalesced all thinking around space on one goal. The public, press and networks were now focused on one message that summed up the “invention, innovation imagination, decision” of Americans. The President’s claim that: “No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long range exploration of space, and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish” recalled the romance and adventure of Lewis and Clark.

Coupled with the relief and outpouring of positivity that Shepard’s successful Mercury flight had achieved, and the carefully-nuanced image of an All-American Astronaut elite ready to struggle against the unknown travails of space, the mixture was potent. Congress would never turn Kennedy down, and the perceived failure to get an American into space first could be turned into a positive: a catalyst for America’s next great adventure. However, not all the elements were truly aligned yet, and a Gallup poll completed as Kennedy spoke showed that the public remained sceptical of the President’s pledge being delivered. Asked whether participants viewed the US or Russia as being ahead in the Space Race, the response was evenly split. And on which would be first to send a man to the moon, 34% said the US, 33% said Russia and 33% didn’t know . There was clearly still much work to be done on public opinion.

Rep. Lipscomb’s comments on the speech: “This was a lot of words with not enough justification of needs” were prescient. Kennedy had put the building blocks in place to turn the media and public opinion on space from adversary through ally to involved partner. He had set a goal that defined the next lap of the space race. He had made space a core part of the Administration’s policy. He had control of the agency that would deliver space success. But still there were sceptics in the media and in Congress. The US had just 15 minutes of space experience and was clearly still some way behind the Soviets. The moon seemed an awfully long way away. What would make the difference was action. As the final chapter will show, that ‘action’ came in the form of the flight of Friendship 7.