[81] Tuesday, March 1: Up at 6:15 to get the last preparations out of the way for the trip west. Packing had been done last night but the laundry had to be made ready, the icebox cleared out, the plants watered, etc.

Things seemed to go well at the office this morning. I accomplished more than I usually accomplish in a full day. In the first place, I had organized my work rather well. Secondly, I knew I had to complete it and I went from one thing to another, getting full cooperation from all concerned at the office. Decision-making seemed to be easy and I must say that I wish all days could go as well. I managed to get in touch with Lyndon Johnson's office, Styles Bridges' office, Senator Stennis, Congressman McCormack and one or two others to tell them about the impending appointment of Clark Randt as director of our new office of life sciences. The response in each instance was good. Once again, I was amazed at the apparent spirit of goodwill expressed by these men and their obvious pleasure at the fact that I would take the trouble to call them to tell them about an action of this sort. Of such little things is success made. A visit to George Kistiakowsky covered several items of business that will be heard from later in this chronicle. A quick lunch and I was off to the airport to catch the jet to Los Angeles and San Francisco.¹

A first-class compartment of the jet was only half-filled. We took off on time and landed about 10 minutes late at each of the West Coast cities. I managed to write about a third of a speech but found the air so bumpy for a fair portion of the flight that I couldn't write legibly. This was at 31,000 feet. Ruth, Tom and Martha met me at San Francisco.² I had carried out a rum pie, which seemed to survive the trip in a satisfactory manner. We had a most pleasant evening together, having dinner at the Rickey's Motel. Ruth stayed the night with me while the kids went back to their apartment.

Wednesday, March 2: Up at 7:00 and over to Ames at 8:00. It is always a great relief to get out of Washington and visit with the people who are doing the work in these great laboratories. They have plenty of problems but their spirit is good and they can see the results of their efforts. I had lunch with 16 of the division [82] supervisors and spent an hour and a half in an excellent give-and-take discussion. We started off for Monterey at 2:30 and arrived at the Mark Thomas Inn at 5:00. We had stopped at the San Martin Winery to taste the product and to talk with the proprietor. It was an interesting experience but somewhat disillusioning. Manufacturing processes often are.

The Mark Thomas Inn is a delightful place and we had a scrumptious buffet supper. I was delighted to see Admiral Yeomans with whom I had many contacts during World War II. Buddy, as he is called, seems the same fine person and I am hoping that Ruth will have a chance to meet him. Arrangements were made during the day for Tommy to go down to Vandenberg [Air Force Base] with us on Friday. This should be somewhat of a thrill for him. Dick Horner and I spent a few minutes after dinner trying to grasp the sense of two or three problems that are bothering us. What a business this is! This morning, I called Harlow Curtice, former president of General Motors, asking him to be a member of the organization study committee. He did not say no and I have some slight hope that he will join us. It would be a wonderful thing if he can find the time to work on this task.

Thursday, March 3 [Dictated from notes on March 7]: The quarters provided by the U.S. Navy Postgraduate School were excellent. The meeting started out with Horner giving a review of "the management highlights" since our last conference. Dick is not a polished speaker, although sincerity stands out in everything he says. He lacks warmth and at times seems aloof and quite unwilling to come to grips with a problem in the hopes of making an early decision. I think this results largely from his desire to hear all sides of a question before making a decision. I would not call him a natural leader. Neither did I think his selection of the management highlights as pertinent and interesting as they might have been.

Abe Silverstein did a fine job in putting together the elements of the space flight program. It is a broad one and contains enough excitement for the most avid space cadet. Abe speaks well and knows his subject thoroughly. He is an old hand in government research and development work, is stubborn and likes to keep things "fluid." This characteristic was all right in NACA days but hardly fits our needs today when we have so many relationships with industry and other elements of the government. Silverstein does accept instructions and carries them out. He is really a fine leader in our program.

I had asked Admiral Yeomans to stop by for coffee and to listen to the balance of the program scheduled for the morning session. General Ostrander, on loan to us from the Air Force, is in charge of our launch vehicle program and he summarized our activities in this area before turning the meeting over to Wernher von Braun. This was one of the most straightforward jobs I have heard von Braun do. He speaks clearly, with just the right emphasis and with an abundance of good humor. He turns a phrase every once in a while and certainly has control of his audience.

Lunch at the Copper Kettle and right back to the session. Harry Goett, director of Goddard Space Flight Center, talked about his program. Harry is lacking [83] in humor and has some of the characteristics of an old woman. One gets the feeling that he is a bit of a crybaby, although I have high respect for his organizing ability and his objectivity. He has done many good jobs for the agency. Bill Pickering then gave the group a picture of the lunar program, which is the responsibility of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. His was a good story and served to round out the picture of our space flight activities. It is a program full of excitement but of sober responsibility, as well.

The heads of the old NACA laboratories, Ames, Lewis and Langley, stepped aside and allowed their associate directors to participate in the panel discussion on the activities of the laboratories. They are limited largely to research and development as against the operating activities of the developmental centers. Unfortunately, most of their time was taken up with a discussion of their problems in obtaining and retaining good personnel, their salary schedules, and a variety of other matters of this kind. To be sure, they do have these problems and something should be done about them. On the other hand, the assembled group learned very little about the quality of the work being done at the research centers in this session.

After the afternoon coffee break Abbot gave a report on the research advisory committee. He is a steady, sober-sided person with great abilities. He does ride his hobbies and is often unaware of the fact that he is taking a great deal of time to talk about a trivial matter. He is an old NACA hand and knows his way about. He was followed by the director of the Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base - Paul Bikle. Paul gave a report on the X-15 program, which was well received. Krieger then gave a short review of the capabilities of the Wallops Station and the program being carried out there.

Dinner on Thursday evening was at the Copper Kettle and was followed by a talk given by Finley Carter, President of Stanford Research, Inc. Carter is quite unimpressive and I thought his discussion dull. I pricked him a bit about the non-profit status of Stanford Research and managed to get a little life into the evening's discussion. Back to the hotel and a short meeting to consider the draft of the statement I have to make before the House Committee on Science and Astronautics next Tuesday in support of our legislative proposals. We did not quite finish.

Friday, March 4: Up at 6:30 for a seven o'clock breakfast with Horner, Dryden and several other members of the top staff. We were considering the problems relating to the manpower situation at the Huntsville Center. Von Braun wants 6,500 or 7,000 men; I think he should live with his agreed complement of 5,500 men. I expect I will lose this battle. In any event, we did not settle the complement at this breakfast session. We had advanced the hour for the morning session to eight o'clock and everybody was on hand. The program for the morning included principally a discussion of the FY 1962 program. Horner served as moderator and the division directors described their programs for 1962. Discussion was very healthy and vigorous. Most of it centered around manpower shortages. I am a bit adamant on this count, believing that we want to avoid loading up the federal payroll if it is at all possible. To the extent that we avoid taking people on, we will [84] employ the services of industry in a sensible manner. Of course, we need a fair-sized group to spend hundreds of millions of dollars, but the easy answer to this question is not the answer to be accepted. Most of our center directors believe that they can do the job faster, better, and more cheaply than industry. In some instances, I think they are right. In the long run, it is my clear conviction that they are wrong.

A trip over to the hotel at noon disclosed the fact that Ruth, Tom and Martha had arrived and were well-established in my suite. I picked up Tom and we repaired to the Copper Cup for lunch with the rest of the groups. Immediately following lunch, we boarded our bus to go to the airport. I found that I had to take a car, which had been provided for me in spite of my distaste for this protocol. We were in the airplane of the secretary of defense - a beautifully appointed DC6B. We flew to Vandenburg Air Force Base in about 45 minutes and were greeted there by Major General Dave Wade, the commander. He was tied up with another group but had arranged for our trip, which was an interesting one. We boarded our bus immediately and went to the Titan site where we walked underground through the so-called "hardened site."³ Here, everything is underground: the auxiliary diesel power station, the storage tanks for the fuel and the liquid oxygen, the missile itself, and all of the control rooms. Were there to be an alert, the missile is fueled in just a few minutes and is lifted on an elevator above the surface of the ground ready to be launched. In the "secure" position, all of these facilities are covered by very heavy concrete doors, designed to withstand the blast effects from an atomic explosion. Obviously, this is an expensive way to live and one would hope that better methods could be found.

We traveled, then, to the Atlas sites where we found three Atlas missiles on the pads.⁴ We were told that they are the only operational ICBMs in the country, although our real operational base should be ready in July. Tom asked the colonel conducting our party whether or not the Atlases carried the nuclear warhead.

The answer was "affirmative." I was a little surprised although, clearly, if the 15-minute alert means anything, the warheads would have to be in place. We were taken through the various underground elements of the support facility and were properly [85] impressed. As an aside, we learned on Sunday following our visit to Vandenburg that one of the Atlases had blown up. This apparently occurred during a fueling operation. Now I really wonder whether or not the nuclear warhead was in place. We boarded the buses and moved over to one of the launching sites for the Thor intermediate-range ballistic missile.⁵ The variety of installations is really interesting to behold. All of them cost a great deal of money.

Having finished on the Vandenberg Base, we were driven to the Pacific Missile Range, which lies directly to the south of Vandenberg. This is supposed to be a range for research and development efforts comparable to the Atlantic Missile Range at Cape Canaveral. Unfortunately, the Air Force was there first and believe me, they never lose their advantage if they can. The result is that there has been a great deal of argument between the Air Force and the Navy - an argument that has bordered on the ridiculous. Presently there seems to be some sort of a truce in effect, and I hope that the situation can be improved substantially as time goes on.

In any event, we were driven through the Pacific Missile Range facilities and then listened to a briefing by Admiral Monroe and his staff. He was most complimentary in his remarks about NASA - most insincerely, in my judgment. After an hour of this sort of "guff," we boarded the buses and were driven back to the Vandenberg officers club. There I was host to a cocktail party for the Air Force and Navy, and we managed to mend all of the fences that had been broken during the day. This was followed by a pleasant dinner, during which I toasted our service associates. Admiral Monroe sprang to his feet, ahead of his Air Force counterpart, to respond. The situation reminded me of two little boys arguing over which of their fathers could lick the other. About 8 o'clock, we boarded our aircraft in the hope that we could get into the field at Monterey. We were disappointed and finally wound up about 10 o'clock at Moffett Field near Palo Alto. Buses took us back to Monterey where we arrived in the fog at 12:15 a.m. Thus ended another long day.

Saturday, March 5: Up early again to have breakfast with the directors of our research centers and the directors of the headquarters divisions. I wanted to talk with them about public statements and the necessity for avoiding criticism of the military and public discussion of our budgets. It went fairly well, although I am sure that some of those present resented being "dictated" to in a matter of this sort. The morning session was one of information and questions in which Siepert, Frutkin, and Kamm participated. It seemed a little anti-climactic as a session, although the subjects covered were important ones. These included our security program, the international program, and the method of operation being followed in Los Angeles by the people in our Western Operations Office. After a coffee break, Dick Horner and Nick Golovin talked a bit about program control. I then stood up [86] to give a general summary and "remarks." Actually, I did not summarize anything; I simply spoke about the problems that faced us in the future and the need for real teamwork. My remarks seemed to be well-received. In any event, I closed the conference out at 12 o'clock sharp.

Admiral Yeomans had asked Ruth, Martha, Tom and myself to lunch. He also invited Dick Horner and Hugh Dryden. Dick was off to the snows for a few days of skiing, so he could not attend. It was a pleasant luncheon and a fine way to end the conference. Certainly, Buddy Yeomans has one of the best billets in the Navy. Ruth and I took off at 3 o'clock in the Convair for Albuquerque and Cleveland. We were sorry to leave Tom and Martha but these situations do have to occur, obviously. The flight to Albuquerque was a pleasant one except for the fact that, as we approached the field, we were told that we had lost one of our generators. After the landing, the mechanics at Kirtland Air Force Base set to work immediately to repair the damage. We drove in to old Albuquerque for a Mexican dinner, which I enjoyed very much. Ruth stuck to avocado stuffed with shrimp. We returned to the base to find that a replacement generator had been located. Ruth and I went to bed in our stateroom while the rest of the group - the Lewis group - sat around the officers club.

Sunday, March 6: We were delayed two or three hours in the change of the generator and finally got off for Cleveland about 3 o'clock in the morning. Ruth and I had managed a reasonable amount of sleep. We arrived in Cleveland around 8:15 in the morning with plenty of people to greet us and a car ready for me to drive home. On the way to 2965 Fairmount, I called Kent Smith to arrange an 11 o'clock appointment and found that he was waiting. Sunday was spent with Kent Smith and John Hrones going over a good many of the problems at the college. I was particularly interested in reviewing the long-range planning about which I have been concerned. This is a matter in which the Ford Foundation seems also to be interested. Later in the afternoon a group came together to greet the Russian educators at our home. This was a group of eight men who were visiting America as a counterpart group to the college presidents who went abroad in 1958. It was a really pleasant party and I was delighted to see the two or three of them that I knew. At the conclusion of this, we drove immediately to the airport and arrived at our apartment in Washington at 10:45 p.m. Thus ended Ruth's 50th birthday celebration and the third semi-annual NASA staff conference.

Monday, March 7: This was another of those days! There was a good deal of mail to be reviewed. There were not too many problems awaiting me, however. During the morning, Odd Dahl of Norway came in to see me. He told me about the death of his wife, Vesse. He is over here representing his government in an effort to develop a cooperative program with us in upper atmospheric physics. Lunch at the White House with Bob Merriam was a dull and disappointing affair. I had hoped to talk with him sensibly about the problems of presenting a unified front to Congress on the legislative program. I could not get through his head that this was really a White House problem, not one for NASA to deal with. We did make some progress before the meal was over.

[87] At the office in the afternoon, nothing of any interest developed. I was feeling a little bit low and so decided to go to see a doctor about my head, which has been bothering me a great deal. Dick Huffman was a little disturbed at seeing the condition of my scalp and arranged for me to see another doctor tomorrow.

I repaired to the apartment a little ahead of schedule to find that Ruth had gone out to have her hair done. I cancelled our attendance at a black tie dinner tonight for the science award winners put on by Westinghouse. I hope to go to bed early.

Tuesday, March 8: This was not one of my better days. I had attempted to prepare reasonably well for the hearings before the House Committee on Science and Astronautics, which start today. Unfortunately, my indisposition as a result of concern over my scalp seemed to pervade the rest of my activities. I did get through the day but without very much credit to myself. At 9 o'clock, Dr. A. W. Lines, director of the Royal Aircraft Establishment of Great Britain, came in with three of his colleagues. They are interested in visiting many of our installations, to become acquainted with satellite launching problems and with the design problems associated with the development of satellite vehicles. They seemed exceedingly pleasant. I was sorry that I had not planned to take lunch with them.

At 9:30 Golovin came in with his prepared statement on the Huntsville manpower situation. This is one of those things - von Braun has the bit in his teeth and is asking for a substantial increase in the number of employees at the Huntsville center. Apparently, he has sold Golovin, Siepert, and Ostrander on the need for these additional positions. Some time ago I had set a ceiling of 5,500, whereas today the requirement is for 6,689. Obviously, I am going to give in on this because of the manner in which von Braun can bring pressure to bear in Congress and elsewhere. A year from now, he may not have the same standing. On the other hand, there is some validity in his demands as a result of the speed-up we have ordered on the Saturn project.⁶ In any event, I was dissatisfied with Golovin's statement and asked him to have a new one prepared for discussion this afternoon.

At 10 o'clock, we were on the scene in the hearing room of the House Committee on Science and Astronautics. Today was a short session due to the fact that Dryden is to receive a presidential award at noon. This is a hearing on the proposed changes in our basic legislation and should prove to be an interesting one. Unfortunately, this committee is about as poorly disciplined and poorly staffed as any on the Hill. The discussion went rather well and I doubt that we lost any ground. At 12 o'clock, at the White House, President Eisenhower presented to Dr. Dryden, and four others, the Presidential Citation for Distinguished Federal Service - the highest civilian federal service award. It was a pleasant ceremony conducted in the cabinet room with a large number in attendance, mostly families of the recipients and members of the White House staff.

[88] After a lunch at the White House mess with Secretary of Labor Jim Mitchell, I moved over to Dr. Teichmann for an examination of my scalp. Apparently I have a skin disease of the healthy person aggravated by lack of exercise, too much animal fat, too little sleep and all of the other things in which I seem to indulge myself. Dr. Teichmann was very pleasant and accommodating and gave me prescriptions with the admonition that I was to call him back in a week. He is a man who inspires confidence.

Back at the office at 3:30 to meet Harvey Pierce of the Maurice H. Connell Associates in Florida. These people seem to have done some architect-engineering work for the ABMA in connection with the development of Project Saturn. This man must have been 6 feet, 6 inches in height, a pleasant and positive talker. He had come in to determine whether or not we proposed to change the manner of contracting for construction projects in connection with Saturn. I found myself somewhat irked at the fact that he had come in through the request of Senator Holland of Florida. I told him so; there is no reason for anyone's depending on his congressman or senator to gain an audience with us at NASA. He was somewhat obtuse and we listened patiently for 15 minutes before I could get rid of him.

At 4 o'clock, Golovin came back in to discuss the Huntsville situation with several of his associates, Dryden and myself. The use of the English language to state clearly an objective seems to have escaped some of our top scientific and management people. In any event, we came to a decision on the problem before us and sent the paper back for another rewrite. On home for a pleasant dinner, a short evening, applications to my head - and bed!

Wednesday, March 9: Up at 6:30 so that Ruth could give me a half hour scalp treatment. I hope this does not continue overlong. The usual session with Frank Phillips, my assistant, with discussion of the program for the day. At 10 o'clock, we were on the stand again before the House Science and Astronautics Committee. I carried the bulk of the testimony today and managed to get through without too much difficulty. Dryden provided just the right amount of support in his own inimitable fashion. It is clear that most of the members of the committee have little or no understanding of the problems of organization and management. They seem to feel that the elimination of the Space Council must be coupled with the establishment of some other kind of a committee that would sit between the Defense Department and ourselves and report to the president on the progress or lack of progress in the two programs. It is a little difficult to deal with a matter of this kind without seeming to be egotistical or over-positive. Dryden pointed out that space seems to be considered as an area in which there must be a czar. He suggested that we didn't have such a person determining the activities to be taken on by all agencies having to do with the oceans or with aircraft activities. I thought he made a very good point - in fact, he left one of our antagonists speechless. As I turned to leave the hearing room at noon, I found that Ruth had been there for most of the session. Unfortunately, I was unable to think beyond my nose and thus let her get away when we might have visited the House gallery together. Our bill [89] authorizing a $915 million FY 1961 program was the first item on the agenda of the House of Representatives. I thought it was going to pass without a record vote when Congressman Williams, a one-armed person of origin unknown to me, suggested the absence of a quorum. We sat through the calling of the roll twice and there were still stragglers entering the well of the House. The final score: 398 to 10. Thus we have one more hurdle behind us.

Lunch at the Statler with Mr. H. J. Heneman of Cresap, McCormick and Paget. We were discussing the Case problem of developing a long-range plan and Kent Smith's interest in having a market survey undertaken. Cresap, McCormick and Paget did a study on faculty organization and conditions of employment for us back in 1954-55 and it is my judgment that the firm could help us again. Interest having been expressed, we walked back to the office where I got in touch with John Hrones in Kent Smith's absence and set up a meeting for the morning of 16 March in Cleveland. The ball is now in their hands.

At 1:45, Dr. Furnas, Chancellor of the University of Buffalo, came in to see me. I was interested in asking his advice on the number of organizational and program users. He is a fine person and one very much interested in helping. In the middle of the afternoon, Bob Bell of our security office came in to tell me of the search for the possible security violation that resulted in a story in the New York Times concerning the launching by Russia of one of her long-range missiles in the Pacific two or three weeks ago. I recall that I was very startled to see the story and I am not at all surprised at this investigation.

Golovin was back in to look at the problem of staff limitations at Huntsville. Dryden and I reworked his memorandum on policy and approved it. At 4 o'clock, Robert E. Gross, Chairman of the Board of Lockheed Aircraft, came in to make certain that I understood the capabilities of the Lockheed Marietta, Georgia organization, which is bidding on one of our projects. It was a pleasant discussion and I hope a useful one. I often wonder what would have happened had I accepted Lockheed's offer of employment in 1956 when I was asked to take on the vice presidency and the general managership of the Missile Systems Division at a salary approximating $100,000. At 4:30, Dr. Homer Joe Stewart came in to discuss a number of matters and we set up a meeting for later in the week. Packing up the bag I left the office at 6:30 for what promises to be a long evening of work at home.

Thursday, March 10: Up at 6:30 to have a half-hour scalp treatment by Ruth, then a good breakfast and off to the office. The staff meeting this morning was a pretty good one with a review of the planning for the Monterey conference. All seemed agreed that it was the best conference held thus far. There does seem to be a need for more frequent meetings of smaller and more specialized groups. We have decided to reduce the number of staff meetings to one each week. The staff surprised me by raising a question about this, saying that even though it took an hour or two out of the day, it seemed to be the best possible way of keeping abreast of the fast-moving program. I used the opportunity to admonish them once again that these meetings were only as good as the effort put into them. It was rewarding to have this kind of discussion.

[90] Dr. Stewart came in at 11:00, and we discussed the planning activities for the rest of this year. He is an academic person with all of the difficulties normally possessed by such a person in getting an orderly job done. On the other hand, he is thoughtful and knowledgeable. I appreciate the vigor with which he does attack a situation. He is now concerned over the degree to which we are planning far enough ahead on our spacecraft or payload projects. Certainly, if we are to do very much in this field we are going to have to have a good deal of support from industry. One is not going to build such support very solidly if one does not provide a continuing program for each of the industrial organizations involved. This, in itself, requires a great deal of forward-looking planning.

A lunch with Tom Watson, president of IBM. Having read a speech of his last December, I sent him a copy of one that I had made in the same vein. He seemed flattered that I would have read his speech and that I would take the trouble to write to him. In his talk he had raised a question about the extent to which we seem to require publicity on our shots. I spent most of the luncheon telling him the facts of life about the press. Watson has been an outspoken advocate of higher taxes so we may have more adequate defense and greater support of activities that will go to strengthen this nation in its competition with Russia. At least, he is willing to pay for it. Very few people have been willing to couple additional expenditures with additional taxes. I think this luncheon was useful. I think I was able to clear up some of his misconceptions and to give him a feeling of confidence in our organization.

Back to the office for an afternoon of dealing with a variety of situations, most of them having to do with Congress. At 4:30, several of us went over to the White House to debate office space. The Inter-American Bank has been promised the same space as was offered to us. We were able, with Bobby Cutler, to compromise our differences and, as a matter of fact, NASA came away with 8,000 additional square feet. Finally, at 6:30, I locked the desk and headed for home. After a pleasant dinner I sat down to work at a speech and some other papers. About 10 o'clock, I felt dizzy and went to bed thoroughly exhausted. I had very little sleep during the night. I am certain that some of this exhaustion is a result of inadequate attention to exercise. What does one do for time?

Friday, March 11: I should have said that yesterday was the scheduled date for the Thor-Able IV shot. They counted down to within less than a minute of ignition and had to postpone the shot because of difficulty in the fueling mechanism. When I arrived at the office a bit late - it was 8:30 - the shot had gone and was well on its way. The three stages had fired properly and the payload had separated from the third stage. There was a good deal of gloom around, however, because initial returns indicated that the probe had not reached escape velocity.⁷

I was feeling very rocky after the bad night and was in no mood for foolishness. I had forgotten that at 9:15, I was to appear at Station WTTG for a 15-minute tape recording on TV with Ted Granik. He does the "American Forum of the Air," which will be played on Sunday night. I was to record this with Overton Brooks, congressman from Louisiana and chairman of the House Committee on Science and Astronautics. Fortunately, just before I left the office, a rerun of the data began to give promise of more satisfactory results.⁸ Nevertheless, when I reached the studio, I was in no mood for humor. Granik indicated that controversy and argument would make the program worthwhile. I immediately said that I had all that I could take of that without doing it over the air. This was one hell of a way to start a TV program. Actually, it went rather well although I am sure that the people of the nation will not feel that they have learned very much. It is too bad that shows such as this cannot be planned a little bit ahead of time. I would have organized my thoughts much better if I had known the general import of the program. During the course of the recording, I received word that the probe was really on its way.

Back to the office to work over the statement for the House subcommittee on appropriations, which we meet on Monday. In drafting my statement, I had indicated six areas of policy I wanted to set forth clearly as bits of philosophy guiding the conduct of our program. I asked staff members to enlarge upon these rather brief statements. I found that this had not been done and thus will have to [92] undertake it myself. Over to the Pentagon for lunch with Deputy Secretary of Defense James Douglas, Under Secretary of the Air Force Joe Charyk, and Director of Defense, Research and Engineering Herb York. We were rehearsing material for the appearance of York and Douglas before the House Committee on Science and Astronautics on Monday. They are called to testify on our legislative proposals. Yesterday, Bill Holaday, former chairman of the Civilian-Military Liaison Committee, had testified for an hour and a half and had opened up quite a keg of nails. Some of his assertions were sensible - others quite incomprehensible. In any event, I believe we developed a bit of thinking that may be useful as we move forward. The problem of providing coordination between the Defense Department and ourselves is a continuing one. In this area, it must not only work, it must give the appearance of working.

Back to the office at 2:30 to find that a meeting called for discussion of our budget presentation had been going on for half an hour. Another hour on this and we managed to get ourselves fairly well set for the session on Monday. I then discussed with Jim Gleason, Hugh Dryden and Frank Phillips the matters about which I had been talking with Douglas. Our people do not think we ought to suggest the kind of a mechanism for coordination on which Douglas and I had tentatively agreed. I am on the fence.

A call to Douglas to find that he had been talking to Holaday and that he felt he should go ahead to make a suggestion to the committee. I am inclined, as I said above, to agree that an aggressive position is very much better than one that is defensive in this situation. Jim is to call me tomorrow to finally lay this on.

This took up the rest of the afternoon. The dinner was quite wonderful, the company and the conversation excellent - a fitting end to the day, which began with a successful Thor-Able IV (Pioneer V) shot to place a 90-pound payload into orbit about the sun. I should say that the real purpose of that shot is to test our ability to transmit electronic intelligence over a stretch of fifty million miles. Think of it!

Saturday, March 12: Pioneer V is still going strong. All circuits and channels seem to be working very well. It looks as though we have a winner! After a leisurely breakfast, I met John Corson and Jack Young of the McKinsey organization at the office. Al Hodgson was with us. We spent the better part of two hours discussing the organizational study that we plan to get under way in mid-April. Jack Young showed himself to be an incisive thinker. At least, he believes in the old adage of "when in doubt, draw sabers and charge." We did come up with a schedule and plan for operations that seems to me to make sense. This could be a most interesting study.

At 12:30, I had a call from Jim Douglas at the Pentagon. He had been working with his staff people on his statement for Monday and asked me if I would come over for lunch. The statement is an excellent one although it will not please all of my people. Jim feels that he wants to make a statement to the effect that he recognizes the need for some formal method of coordination at the "management level." I couldn't agree more with him on this, and while I understand the hesitancy [93] on the part of our staff, I am going along with Jim. Sooner or later, this sort of thing has to be discussed and I see no reason for delay. One can outsmart oneself in these political jungles. As a matter of precaution, I read back to Hugh Dryden later in the day the statement Jim was to make, and he agreed with me that it could do no harm and probably would do some good.

I got back to the apartment at 4 o'clock and just had time to relax a little bit before taking a shower and starting out for the Gridiron Dinner. This turned out to be the 75th Annual Dinner and it was a pleasant and amusing affair. The Gridiron Club, consisting of an active membership list of fifty of Washington's best known newsmen, uses this annual dinner as a background against which to poke fun at official Washington.

Sunday, March 13: A leisurely breakfast with a feeling of satisfaction that Pioneer V is still on its way. I worked most of the morning on the speech for next Wednesday and then, at 1:15, Ruth and I drove to the home of Richard Harkness who had been my host the night before. Dick is a top-rated commentator on NBC television and has proven to be a very good friend here in Washington. He was having a buffet lunch for quite a crowd of people. We stayed for about an hour and a half and I had a chance to talk with Stu Symington and with Milo Perkins - the latter a very interesting economist and former member of the Roosevelt administration.

My discussion with Symington was anything but cordial - he accused me of taking the stump against him. We wound up betting each other $20 but, not being sure what we were betting about, the $20 bills were returned to us with no blows landed. Ruth and I enjoyed talking to Milo Perkins about some of the important problems of the day. Among these, the one that interests me most is the necessity for arousing the interest of our youth in something besides the purchase of motor cars and that quiet little home in the country.

Back to the apartment for more work on the speech and to look at some of the Sunday TV programs. Tom Lanphier, late of Convair Astronautics, was on "Meet the Press." What arrogance and stupidity! I think Senator Case of North Dakota was exactly right when he said in remarking about Lanphier's "resignation," it was about time. At 10 o'clock, Ruth and I set out for a walk in what turned out to be a brisk and beautiful evening. Back to the apartment and at the books again until midnight. I seem to have much more energy than usual today. Off to bed about 12:30 - quite a day!

Monday, March 14: Having done pretty well with my homework yesterday, I was in very good shape for the office this morning. Clearing up several matters with Frank Phillips, we moved off to the Hill at 10 o'clock to open the defense of our budget before Albert Thomas and his House subcommittee on independent office appropriations. He was in his usual good form - insulting a lot of good people but doing it with a smile. I think we got through the day fairly well. I broke off at lunch time to have a session with Ernest K. Lindley of Newsweek magazine. Lindley is a reporter on the foreign scene, of very good reputation. I [94] wanted to talk with him about the impact made by the Russian space achievements on the peoples of other nations. I think I made some progress in convincing him that there were lots of other areas in which we were competing with the Soviet Union. At least, he expressed himself as having gained an increased respect for the kind of planning and program development we are now doing.

Back to the Hill for more of the hearings and then to the office for an hour of concentrated attention to the work at hand. At 5:15, I went up to the Hill again and spent 15 minutes with Vice President Nixon. For the first time, he greeted me as "Keith" as I walked in. He was his usual suave, well-groomed self and exhibited the usual high degree of interest in our program. I was talking to him about the necessity for planning ahead on the replacement of the top management people in our agency. I leave at the end of the year, Dick Horner leaves in mid-summer and it isn't going to be easy to get replacements. I pointed out that I had a conviction that Dick Nixon was going to be the next president and that he ought to be interested in continuity of management in this operation. He agreed and said it seemed to him to make sense that I should attempt to find a person to take on the associate administrator's position with an idea that same person would replace me when I leave the scene next January. This was my solution to the problem and Dick bought it without difficulty. He asked that I respond to any particular questions about his interest in the program with a statement to the effect he strongly supports a vigorous, imaginative program. He even went so far as to say that he would support additional money for it if the need could be shown. That wound up the day and I went home about quarter of seven to a pleasant dinner and a lot more work. It is now 10:30 and I have just finished for the day.

Tuesday, March 15: Up early for a 7:30 breakfast with Jim Killian at the Metropolitan Club. I had asked to see him when he was next in Washington to determine his willingness to testify before the House Space Committee supporting the proposed amendments to the law. I'm certain that he will be willing. I brought him up to date on all of the activities that have been under way recently, particularly the new office of reliability we have just begun to staff. Back to the office where Hugh and I spent an hour with Dr. Ed Purcell of Harvard and Dr. Donald Hornig of Princeton. Both are members of the President's Science Advisory Committee and were visiting us at my suggestion following an expression of concern by the PSAC about our method of dealing with scientific groups in general and astronomers in particular.⁹ There has been some concern expressed that we were not supporting the astronomers adequately or sufficiently generously. Actually, there are five groups of astronomers attempting to put together their ideas with respect to the right kinds of experiments to be carried aloft in a satellite. As is normally the case, each of them would like relatively unlimited funding and freedom to do as they please. We [95] promised to look into the matter although it is my conviction that such a complaint was inevitable. Actually, I have been somewhat concerned over the extent to which we may be keeping as in-house tasks the interesting phases of design and development of satellites to be used for scientific purposes.

We had to excuse ourselves and move up the Hill to the continuation of the hearings of the House subcommittee on appropriations. Mr. Thomas was in his usual form and seemed determined to make it appear that we really don't know how to run our business. It is too bad that the work of the Appropriations Committee and of the Budget Bureau cannot be combined in some more effective way. I excused myself at 11:30 to dash to the White House where the president was going to sign the executive order naming the Huntsville center as the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center. I was particularly interested because I had suggested this name some months ago. Mrs. Marshall, the widow of the general, was escorted to the White House by General Persons. We were delayed because Chancellor Adenauer took an overly long time to hold his discussion with the president.¹⁰ At 12:15 - thirty minutes late - General Persons, Mrs. Marshall and I entered the presidential office. The president was most cordial to Mrs. Marshall. When it was suggested that an earlier meeting of the senators was overly extended because the senators had little in the way of terminal facilities, the president agreed but said that the chancellor suffered from the same disease. The president signed the order with three pens and handed one to Mrs. Marshall, one to General Persons and one to me. He took the trouble to take Mrs. Marshall around the office and discuss the paintings hanging there; once again, he showed himself to be a really fine human being.

A quick lunch at the White House mess and back up the Hill to try to finish out the day with the House Appropriations Committee. There was nothing unusual about the afternoon's performance. I left again at 3:30 to be available for a discussion before the Advertising Council at 4:30. Dr. Kistiakowsky and I spent an hour answering questions that had been sent in by the people attending the meetings. This is an annual session extending over two days. Cabinet members and other prominent governmental people speak frankly and off the record in an attempt to give the audience a real and factual picture of activities taking place in several areas of public interest.

Back to the office for a discussion with Horner, Phillips and Herb Rosen about appearances by the seven astronauts. It seems clear that we have "goofed" in apparently promising that one of the astronauts would appear at a meeting of the Aviation Medicine Association. I made the decision to take the rap and withdraw what seems to have been an agreement. A call to Dr. Lederer was anything but pleasant, but I shall see him next week in an attempt to mollify him and his organization. If we let the astronauts appear at one of these meetings, we will never be able to control their movements again.

[96] Wednesday, March 16: Up early to take an 8:10 plane to New York. Everything seemed fine weather-wise and I arrived at the Yale Club about 10 o'clock. Called Carter Burgess to ask him to join up as a member of the committee on NASA organization. He promised to give the matter immediate consideration. I then moved over to the Union League Club where I had a standing-room-only audience for my luncheon discussion. This was a fine audience - they were very much interested and I enjoyed the session. Dan Hickson was in attendance and we spent an hour together discussing some of his concerns about a study he was about to start with Tim Shea. A car picked me up and took me down to the Calvin Bullock Forum where I was to speak at 4 o'clock. Hugh Bullock, apparently a stockbroker, continues a practice established by his father of having important personages speak at their convenience to an audience of about 200 professional people in the Wall Street district. He has a very important collection of memorabilia from the Napoleonic and Nelson eras. This, too, was most interesting and I felt well repaid for the effort.

Back to the airport to catch the 7:25 ship back to Washington. Since my departure, snow had appeared and we had a really rough time getting back. I had called Ruth from the airport and found that she, too, had had a rough day since it had snowed throughout her trip to Cleveland. I managed to get to bed about 11 o'clock.

Thursday, March 17: St. Patrick's Day and it was interesting to see that all of the non-Irish on the staff wore the green neckties, etc. The staff meeting was taken up principally with the discussion of an executive development program. There is a great need for this sort of activity and we plan to support about five persons on full year appointments to executive development courses and about 100 each year on short course assignments. At 10:30, the source selection board gave us a presentation on the Snap 8 competition.¹¹ It was interesting to see the way the earlier argument with Congress on "executive privilege" in this area was already beginning to effect the sharpness of statement made by participants in this kind of an exercise.

The president of Hoffman Electronics came in to ask about the probable market for solar cells. His company has supplied about 80 or 85 percent of the requirements of NASA to date. I sent him to Dr. Silverstein. Jack Whitney brought in one of the vice presidents of North American Aviation who wanted to assure me that North American Aviation would put their entire resources behind the development of the 200 K if they won the competition.¹² This is a seemingly normal practice [97] although it is beyond me that any significant contribution to the selection of a contractor can be made in this way. At 3:30, Clark Randt came in to discuss some of his problems. I put him off until the next morning. At 5 o'clock, I was picked up at the apartment and driven to Baltimore by one of the vice presidents of the Glenn L. Martin Company. I guess it is called The Martin Company now.¹³ This is the second anniversary of the launching of Vanguard I.¹⁴

It was a long evening and I suppose it must have done somebody some good. I got back to the office at midnight. We were preparing for a significant event which was to take place about 2 o'clock Friday morning. Pioneer V will be about a million miles from the earth at that time. I was to ask the tracking station in Hawaii to interrogate the satellite. If everything went well, we should have information back from a million miles out in space within 10 minutes telling us something about the micrometeorite count, the cosmic ray radiation intensities and [98] temperatures both inside and outside of the satellite. Chairman Overton Brooks of the House Committee on Science and Astronautics was to be with me. We had quite a group of reporters and television cameramen there. Precisely on the dot at 2:00 a.m., I talked with Hawaii, and within 10 minutes we were getting back all of the information we had hoped to acquire. It was a really good exercise and I think appropriately marked a significant milestone in our business. We had hoped to have the president do this but maybe there will be a chance to work him into the exercise later on. I think his advisers have been a little bit concerned that a failure would occur and thus create a negative impression. Actually, everything went well and we were very happy to see that some six hours later, Princess Margaret indulged in exactly the same exercise at Jodrell Bank in England. This is the first real attempt to get international coverage of a significant step in our space program. I got home at 4 o'clock.

Friday, March 18: After three hours of sleep, I got to the office about an hour late. This was one of the better days - maybe one doesn't need sleep. At 10 o'clock, we had a presentation on the new program control center. The boys have done an exceptionally fine job on this development. When it is fully operational, we will have in one place a complete and up-to-date picture of all of our programs with quite adequate information to permit detailed and effective management of all phases of the program.¹⁵

At 11 o'clock, Horner, Dryden, Phillips, Abbott, and Randt sat with me to discuss some of Randt's problems. We made the decision to change the person directing our research contract programs office and will allow Randt to manage his own research grant funds. At 1:30 I checked over a film made by Walt Disney on weather modification. It wasn't too bad but had a little of the space cadet flavor. At 2:30 Dryden, Horner, Phillips and I met with George Low of the Mercury project. We were going over the same ground we had covered two days before on the astronaut appearances. I think everything is under control now.

At 3:30, Gleason, Horner, Golovin and Dryden sat with me to plan the presentation of our appropriation legislation before the Senate committee. At 4:30, Hodgson, Phillips and I sat down to complete work on the paper to go out to our management review committee. That pretty well ended the day. I was pleased with everything that had been done during the day but found that I was beginning to feel the effects of loss of sleep.

Saturday, March 19: I got up late and went to the office about 11 o'clock to clear the desk. I took a 2:45 plane to Philadelphia. [Describes meeting with Ruth, Sally, and friends, and an evening of choral music put on by three college choruses and the Philadelphia Symphony.]

[99] Sunday, March 20: Up for a leisurely breakfast with Polly and her friend Beth. Ruth and I started out about 11:30 and reached the apartment about a quarter of three. The rest of the day was spent in leisurely living.

Monday, March 21: At 10 o'clock, Morehead Patterson came in at my request. I was asking him to become a member of the advisory committee on organization. He stayed with me for half an hour and said he would call back in the afternoon. This, he did and with a favorable reply. Later in the day, I asked Jim Perkins if he wouldn't join in this committee work and he replied affirmatively without delay. Still later, Nathan W. Pearson of T. Mellon & Sons in Pittsburgh called to say that he would join up. Thus, in one day, the advisory committee membership has been completed. A triumph!

At 11 o'clock, Abbott Washburn and Hal Goodwin of the U.S. Information Agency, Karl Harr of the White House staff met with Bonney, Rosen, Phillips and Dryden of our staff to discuss the possibilities of gaining international goodwill through the exploitation of the present success of Pioneer V and of the possible success of shots that are coming up in the very near future. There was the usual suggestion to refer to committee - this I resisted strongly. Pointing out that our public information office was charged with the responsibility of avoiding undue publicity and of controlling information relating to our activities, I insisted that some agency such as the USIA must take the creative responsibility for developing propagandistic programs for exploiting whatever successes we might have. Finally, I put the question very bluntly to Washburn: will you take this responsibility or won't you? This brought the meeting to an end with the agreement that Washburn would present a program to us without further delay. One has to get a little angry at times in this business.

I took Dryden, Horner, Abbott, Bonney and Phillips to the White House mess for lunch. We were discussing the charges made by Clay Blair of the Saturday Evening Post about our handling of the X-15 program.¹⁶ A letter came to me some three weeks ago in which Blair stated that we were jeopardizing the X-15 program by replacing Scotty Crossfield with NASA, Air Force and Navy pilots. He made several other accusations at complete variance with the facts. We were getting our ducks in a row in anticipation of his meeting with us at 1:30. Blair came in and was pretty much set back on his heels by the statements relative to the letter he had written and the articles he had published recently in the Saturday Evening Post. [100] There is no question that public interest in the X-15 program is high. Blair seemed to be carrying the torch for Crossfield, although he was professing great interest in the research achievements to be made with the X-15. Unless the information we gave him is very erroneous, Blair's case came apart like a straw stack in a tornado. I am sure he will not let it rest at this, but I believe he went away with a certain amount of respect for the integrity with which we are attempting to run this program. I was not overly considerate in my attempts to call to his attention the kind of responsible journalism I felt must support a program such as ours.¹⁷

At 3 o'clock, Newell, Dryden and Frutkin came in to discuss the proposed cooperative meteorological satellite program with the U.S.S.R. Silverstein joined in and we came quickly to a conclusion on the rewriting of the proposal. It is hoped the president may take this proposal with him on his visit to the U.S.S.R. At 4:00 o'clock, I had a briefing by Dick Rhode and others relating to structural studies of aircraft in flight and particularly of those involving the Lockheed Electra.¹⁸ It is quite evident that the NASA research centers do a thorough and workmanlike job in the areas in which they have great competence. Very fortunately, my concern [101] with this having been expressed in the setting up of this meeting, we were quite ready to be called by the FAA to a meeting tomorrow morning at which Lockheed, the airlines and the engine manufacturers are to come together with General Quesada of the FAA for a meeting on the whole question of the airworthiness of the Electra aircraft.¹⁹

Another hour at the end of the day cleared up my desk fairly well and I was able to get away at 6 o'clock to pick up Sally and Helen Hamilton at the bus depot.²⁰ They were in good shape and we returned home without delay. A pleasant dinner and an evening with the books finds me now at 10:10 ready to have a game of backgammon before going to bed.

Tuesday, March 22: We started the day off with a look at the film report on experiments made in connection with Project Shotput.²¹ Dr. Jaffe described how the inflation of the 100-foot balloon had been made more reliable. There was a question as to whether or not we should undertake an additional shot from Wallops Island before letting the orbital shot for Project Echo go from Canaveral. After thoughtful consideration, I decided that we should make the experimental shot and run the risk that a random failure would not occur. Most of the afternoon was taken up with the meeting of the Federal Council for Science and Technology. This may be a useful exercise but I rather doubt it. There is most certainly a need for an overall control or management of science and technology in the federal government. Surely, as one looks ahead 20 years, the very large amounts to be spent in this area will begin to overshadow almost all other expenditures by federal departments except the Defense Department. I think George Kistiakowsky is working sensibly on this problem and I hope to be able to give him a little help. Following the conclusion of the council meeting, Gleason, Dryden, Horner and I discussed the preparations for the Senate hearing to be held next week.

Wednesday, March 23: Up early and off to the Capitol Hill Club where I had breakfast with fifteen or twenty young Republican congressmen. Apparently, some eight years ago, as freshmen congressmen, these people started a club to which they invited the responsible leadership of the executive branch each day for breakfast. As I understand it, they take a new name each year. This year it is the SOS Club. Congressman Perkins Bass was my host and I was able to get about an hour's worth of solid discussion with the Republican congressmen. At 10:00, Dr. Lederer of the AeroSpace Medical Association came in to protest my ruling that none of our astronauts could appear at the association's meeting in Miami. Unfortunately, there had been a mix-up on this matter and I was, in effect, withdrawing a permission previously given and on which the association had based a certain amount of publicity. I tried to keep my temper but finally was unable to stand it any longer and told Dr. Lederer that I was tired of the protestations of his organization about the quality of their professional operations. It was so obvious that they were attempting to make a sideshow out of the astronauts that there was no reason for speaking further with him about it. We parted in assumed friendliness, but I have now passed the word that, under no [103] circumstances, will there be a breach of the instruction I thought I had given many months ago.

At 11:00, several of us went over to the motion picture projection room to view the results of efforts made by Hugh Odishaw of the National Academy and Arnold Frutkin, formerly of the Academy and now one of our own people, in preparing short motion picture subjects intended to arouse the interest of high school students in careers in science. Generally speaking, the results were quite excellent. It is obvious, however, that professionals in the field need to be brigaded with the top scientists if a really good job is to be done. I was interested in seeing this exhibition because of our own need for working in this area.

At 2:00, Arch Colwell of Thompson-Ramo-Wooldridge came in to gain information about how we were evaluating bids. Not having heard anything from the firm's bid on the Snap-8 program, he and his colleagues were worried. Unfortunately, I could not tell him that his company had lost this particular bid and that we would announce it in the next couple of days. Later in the afternoon, Dryden, Horner, Abbott, Ostrander and Finger came together to present a proposition relating to the management of the Rover program. I bought it and then tried to get John McCone to set up a meeting to discuss this matter with him. No luck.

Dinner at the Metropolitan Club with Jim Killian and the trustees of the Institute for Defense Analyses. A pleasant evening but not one that will be long remembered.

Thursday, March 24: The staff meeting this morning was an excellent one. Two papers were dealt with rather quickly and then a brisk discussion around the table brought out a good many bits of information to which all had not had access. Sometimes, I believe these staff meetings are really worthwhile. At 10:30, Admiral Rawson Bennett and several colleagues and people from industry gave us a presentation on the ANIP program.²² Actually, I was confused when I started and I was more confused when Bennett and his people finished. This is presumably a new method of presentation of an operating situation to a pilot or an astronaut. None of this came through and I will have to follow up with Admiral Bennett.

At lunch with Dryden and Horner, I discussed at some length the problems that bothered me about the public information office. We are in agreement that exploitation in educational activities is to be removed from the PIO responsibilities but how this is to be accomplished is still a mystery.²³ At 2:00, Clarke Newlon, editor of Missiles and Rockets Magazine, came in to ask me to attend a dinner at his home in honor of the editorial advisory board for his magazine. This turned into a [104] discussion of the propriety of his having Wernher von Braun as a member of that board. I promised that I would look into this matter.

At 3:00, Arnold Frutkin and I visited with Secretary Herter and several members of his staff. We were discussing the desirability of undertaking a cooperative program in meteorology with the Russians. Herter is a very pleasant person who makes one feel very much at ease. It was obvious that there was an intent to be cooperative - a real interest on Herter's part in developing such a program. However, he expressed concern over the possibility of a misunderstanding of such a bilateral U.S.-U.S.S.R. operation since we are actively participating in U.N. discussions of worldwide cooperation in space activities. I left it that Secretary Herter would look into the matter further and then would talk with me about the desirability of going to the president with this proposal. I don't want to take it to the National Security Council before having had a positive reaction, one way or the other, from the president.

A little after 4:00, Hugh Dryden and I went up to the Hill to attend a reception arranged by Congressman Brooks and the House committee in honor of their advisory panel of eminent scientists. It was a pleasant affair. A little bit late - almost 6:00 - I saw Jason Nassau at the Roger Smith Hotel. We had 15 minutes of conversation; then I went directly on home. I avoided a reception at the Shoreham - just too tired.

Friday, March 25: This was a red letter day for Sally, Helen Hamilton, Ruth and myself. We took off in the Convair for Huntsville at 9:00. Several members of the staff were with me. We were going to visit the community for the first time and I was to make a speech that evening. We were met at the airport by the president of the Huntsville Industrial Expansion Committee, which was to be our host. The committee had set aside the governor's suite at the hotel. [Following lunch,] Ruth and the children were taken through the Redstone Arsenal where they were given a complete tour of the Saturn project. In the meantime, I had gone with General Ostrander and Wernher von Braun to the Arsenal for a conference that lasted about two hours and wound up with a short visit with General Schomburg.

Back to the hotel about 4:45 and a coffee session with the members of the Huntsville Industrial Expansion Committee. There was a good bit of sparring but, I think, a great deal of useful exchange of views on the developmental problems of the region. This is really an outstanding community in the sense of its desire to be helpful to the industries of the area. Bedecked with orchids and gardenias, the girls were ready for the reception and dinner at 6:30. I spoke briefly to the assembled multitude - there must have been 250 of them - and my remarks seemed to be well received. They gave to Ruth a beautiful handmade quilt and to me a piece of one of the original wooden water pipes from the area, suitably inscribed. Immediately following the dinner, the girls changed clothes and we were taken to the airport in a cavalcade properly escorted by motorcycles. What a day! We arrived home at 2:30 in the morning and I managed to get off to sleep about 3:00 o'clock.

Saturday, March 26: The day was spent, that is from 10:30 on, with John Hrones and Kent Smith in discussions of the studies that are necessary to be made [105] on the [Case] campus. Helen had to go on home to Cleveland at noon and Polly arrived from Swarthmore at 1:15.

Sunday, March 27: This was Sally's sixteenth birthday. She got up when I arose to go downtown for a further session with John and Kent. She opened her presents. It is really a great privilege to have these young ladies with us for a few days. Maybe I'm getting a little bit older and more mellow, maybe they are getting a little older and more responsible - in any event, I am proud and happy when they are here with us. Actually, this goes for all of the children - I wouldn't play favorites at all. I finished up with the boys at the office about noon and took them all to the airport for their return trip to Cleveland. Coming home, we had some soup and then I took the family out for a drive in the hope that Sally could have a chance to try her hand at driving. She is well coordinated and did excellently in the few minutes devoted to that part of the activities of the day. Dinner was fun with a birthday cake topping off the ceremonies. I have done very little work today - actually, I am proud of that fact.

Monday, March 28: This was another one of those Mondays. I doubt that I got very much of any real use done even though we had a full afternoon of Senate hearings. After a hurried luncheon, I repaired to the Senate Office Building to be the principal witness at the hearings on our authorization request for the fiscal year 1961 budget. Senator John Stennis of Mississippi is the chairman of this subcommittee. He is a fine gentleman. We went up a few minutes early in order to pose for pictures along with a model of Pioneer V. I was on the stand for most of the afternoon and I think I managed to do a reasonable job. A reading of the transcript later on indicated that my grammar has not improved very much but I think I got most of the thoughts across satisfactorily. On turning around during the course of the hearing, I saw Ruth, Polly and Sally in the audience. Later information indicated that Polly and Sally had not been able to get into the Library of Congress because Sally was not a college age gal. When thus frustrated they had called mother and gone shopping. Back home for dinner and a rather restless evening.

Tuesday, March 29: This was a rather full day. I was not in the best of moods when I arrived at the office at 8:30. Going up to the Hill at 9:00 for a TV recording with Congressman Bruce Alger of Texas, I was somewhat less than civil to Herb Rosen. I did manage to get through the recording satisfactorily, however. Back to the office for a variety of meetings and then over to the Hamilton Hotel for a luncheon with the Sloan Fellows.²⁴ This was a good hour of give-and-take - I was very frank and I hope that some of my words do not come back to bite me.

At 2:45, Jack Parsons of Ames Research Center came in to present to me a memento of the first experiment in bringing back from a satellite orbit a simulated capsule. Actually, it was a very small button of nylon-type material. The experiment had been done through use of a light gas gun and only 2-1/2 percent of [106] the specimen had been lost during the heating of reentry.²⁵ At 3 o'clock, another meeting with Bonney about his problems. I agreed to approve the manufacture of 12 models of the Pioneer V space probe. We talked over some of his organizational problems - I think he is slowly coming around to a realization that it just isn't going to work, that there will have to be a revision in organization and responsibility. Up the Hill at 4:00 o'clock again for a TV taping with Senator Keating of New York. Out to the home of Consul General Fiorio of San Marino for cocktails with [Luigi] Broglio of the Italian space committee. A crowded and noisy throng from which I escaped rather promptly. A hurried dinner with the children and off we went to the Yale Drama School production of "John Brown's Body."²⁶

Wednesday, March 30: An 8:30 meeting this morning with, Randt, Horner and Dryden to discuss the desirability of our providing support for and using the services of the Armed Forces-National Research Council Bioastronautics Committee resulted in a negative decision. We should be appointing our own advisory committees. I managed to get hold of Dr. Bronk to set up a meeting to discuss this matter with him. He is president of The National Academy of Sciences, the parent organization to these committees. A brief meeting with Bill Pickering corrected some misapprehension he had about the testimony he was supposed to give on the Hill this morning. I think Bill wants to do what is right. At 9:45, a meeting with Kistiakowsky to discuss possibilities for replacement of Horner and myself. This did not turn out very well.

At noon, Dick, Hugh, Frank and I ate a sandwich luncheon while we tried to prepare a bit for the meeting to be held later in the afternoon with Jim Douglas and the other people over at the Defense Department.²⁷ I think we made sufficient progress, but it is clear that we need more time to debate some of these issues. The meeting with Jim Douglas and the others at the Pentagon was clouded a bit by the news that Roy Johnson had testified on the Hill in a manner quite injurious to Herb York. Some of these people who have no responsibility ought to learn to keep their mouths shut or at least to talk in a constructive manner. The meeting with the Defense Department people went rather well, and all of us came away satisfied. I got away from the office a little bit early and came home to find that Sally had made the dinner - sauerkraut, wieners and a pudding cake that was quite delicious. More work brought the day to an end about 10:30.

Thursday, March 31: The staff meeting at 8:30 went off fairly well. We were discussing grievance procedures and then had about an hour of discussion around the table on matters of interest to all concerned. I had to break it up at 10:00 o'clock because of a date to speak to the Foreign Service Institute of the State Department. About 20 senior foreign service officers plus a few military types make [107] up this class of some 25 people. I was going to speak for only 10 minutes and then introduce Frutkin. Instead of this, I spoke for 25 minutes and then spent another 20 minutes answering interesting questions. It's always a pleasure to do this when there are real, solid people in the audience. Back at the office to speak briefly with the chairman of our advisory committee on loads. Ed Gray of Boeing spoke frankly and well about his concern and that of his committee on this matter. All of this has to do with the kinds of problems that may well have been involved in the recent crashes of the Lockheed Electras.

I dashed off to lunch at the Washington Hotel where a meeting of the Washington section of the American Rocket Society was to be addressed by Senator Wiley of Wisconsin. He was late but gave a good speech. It didn't say too much, but the manner of delivery and the atmosphere created was worth watching.

Back to the office in a hurry to talk to Max Lehrer of the Senate Space Committee and Jim Gleason. Max wants the authorization bill language to provide for the authorization of $50 million over and above the amount we have thus far requested. I doubt that it will get us any place but it is a gesture in the right direction anyway. It will amount to a slush fund or emergency fund if it is passed.

At 2:00 o'clock, Senator Javits of New York with four congressmen and five labor union people headed by Victor Reuther, came in to talk about the Buffalo area as a labor distress area. Actually, they were trying to get us to pay particular attention to the proposal of the Bell Aircraft people on our S-IV Saturn stage and the 200 K engine.²⁸ I thought Senator Javits was very decent about the whole thing. This is one of those situations where overly much dependence upon the federal government has led to a catastrophe with the only remedy available apparently in the federal government. These are captive organizations, not private industry. This is the case with most of the aircraft industry. I am reasonably certain that we are involved in a slowly changing relationship between industry and the federal government. The entire question of large government expenditures on health, education, welfare, defense, space, atomic energy, etc., involves a reexamination of the way we do business. Perhaps Tom will have some part in the solution to this problem.²⁹

Detlev Bronk came in at 2:30 to advise with us on problems we are having in attempting to deal with the Armed Forces-NRC Bioastronautics Committee. Det is a wise person full of experience in government matters. He agreed with our concept that we were now sufficiently mature to have advisory committees of our [108] own - that we should look to the National Academy of Sciences for ad hoc advisory committees or special purpose committees that can free-wheel without assuming undue responsibility for program matters. Starting at 3:30, Dryden, Horner, Phillips, Silverstein and Ostrander continued until about 6 o'clock on a variety of problems. It is interesting to note the changing attitude toward von Braun - all are concerned about some of his shortcomings but all seem determined to help him be successful in his new responsibilities.³⁰

About 6:30, over to the Statler to attend for a while the reception given by Senator Young of Ohio. Actually, I think Senator Young was acting for Thompson-Ramo-Wooldridge in hosting a party in honor of Pioneer V. Space Technology Laboratories, a subsidiary of TRW, was the prime contractor on this particular space probe.³¹ It was a fine job and deserves lots of plaudits. What was behind all of this display I am not quite sure. Back home in a hurry to get into tails to attend the White House musicale at 9:00 o'clock with Ruth. She had made herself a new dress that was quite pretty - a sort of deep blue brocade. I daresay there was not another homemade dress in the entire house of some 400 "little cabinet" members. We were there only an hour and a half with the president, the vice president and their wives in attendance. Carmen Cavallero played the piano accompanied by a couple of other Latins. I was not overwhelmed by the music, but it was a pleasant experience.

On the way home, we stopped at the Carlton Hotel on the off chance that we might find Dave Wright of Thompson. As I opened the door, there he was along with several of his colleagues from the TRW organization. We had a liqueur with him and then on home to find Sally ready for bed although we didn't make it until some time after midnight. Enough for tonight - tomorrow morning at 5:44 a.m. the first real meteorological satellite is scheduled to be launched.³² I'll keep my fingers crossed all night.

1. As appears from what follows in the diary, Dr. Glennan visited Ames Research Center and then attended a semiannual conference of senior NASA managers at Monterey. From there, he went on to Vandenberg Air Force Base, returned to Monterey, and then stopped off in Cleveland on the way back to Washington, D.C.

2. Tom and Martha were the Glennans' son and daughter-in-law.

3. The Titan was an early, liquid-fueled, two-stage intercontinental ballistic missile. The Titan I used radio guidance and employed kerosene and liquid oxygen for propellants. It was first launched from Cape Canaveral with a dummy second stage on 6 February 1959. The first successful separation and ignition of the second stage occurred almost a year later, and on 24 October 1960, a Titan fired 6,100 miles - 100 miles further than any previous missile - while equipped with a simulated tactical nose cone. Later versions of the Titan were used as boosters in the space program. (Robert L. Perry, "The Atlas, Thor, Titan, and Minuteman," The History of Rocket Technology: Essays on Research, Development, and Utility, Eugene M. Emme, ed. [Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1964], pp. 142-161, esp. p. 156; Emme, Aeronautics and Astronautics . . . 1915-1960, pp. 106, 119, 129.)

4. The Atas was the first U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile and, as such, was less sophisticated than the Titan. Unlike the Titan, it was not a true, two-stage missile. Slightly shorter than the Titan I, the Atlas D was 81 feet long to Titan I's 98 feet. The Atlas, too, burned kerosene and liquid oxygen. Its first test occurred on June 11, 1957, and on December 17, 1957 a successful test firing placed the Atlas missile in the target area after a flight of about 500 miles; the rocket became in its various models an important booster for the space program. (Perry, "Atlas, Thor . . .," Emme, History of Rocket Technology, pp. 142-161; Emme, Aeronautics and Astronautics . . . 1915-1960, p. 93.)

5. The Thor missile was initially developed by the Air Force as an intermediate-range ballistic missile. Tested on a launch pad in January 1957, it completed a successful, full-range flight in September of that year and a launch from its operational training site at Vandenberg on 16 December 1958. The basic rocket used liquid oxygen and kerosene as propellants. It was 65 feet (19.8 meters) long and had a body diameter of 8 feet. In a modified form, the rocket became the first stage of launch vehicles for several spacecraft.

6. Personnel (both permanent and temporary) at the Marshall Space Flight Center climbed to 6,843 in FY 1962 and reached a high point of 7,740 in FY 1966 (figures as of the end of the FY) before declining to 6,325 in FY 1970. (NASA Pocket Statistics: History, Jan. 1971, p. E-9.)

7. This was the launching of Pioneer V, successful as it turned out. The Pioneer V probe sent back excellent data on radiation, magnetic fields, cosmic dust distribution, and solar phenomena in interplanetary space between Earth and Venus. The Able upper stage for the Thor rocket was derived from the Vanguard launch vehicle. The IV designation referred to one of four variations of the Able, having to do with weight, thrust, and engine numbers. (NASA Historical Data Book, vol. II, pp. 67, 72-73.)

8. I.e., for the launch of Pioneer V.

9. President Truman established the PSAC on 20 April 1951 within the Office of Defense Mobilization. The White House announced an enlarged membership on 22 November 1957 and transferred the committee to the White House effective 1 December of that year. The purpose of the PSAC was to advise the president on scientific and technical issues. (United States Government Organization Manual 1960-61, p. 557.)

10. Adenauer was on an informal visit to the U.S. on the way to Japan.

11. SNAP (System for Nuclear Auxiliary Power)-8 was a joint NASA-AEC project to develop a nuclear-powered electrical generating system to produce 35 kilowatts of electrical power and be capable of continuous reliable operation in space flight for periods of about 10,000 hours. On 28 March 1960, NASA announced selection of Aerojet-General to build the power conversion equipment for SNAP-8 and to integrate the reactor into an operational system. NASA ultimately decided in 1970 to phase out the SNAP-8 program during FY 1971, but in 1983 NASA, the Defense Department, and the Department of Energy began a new SP-100 nuclear space reactor program. (Emme, Aeronautics and Astronautics . . . 1915-60, p. 121; "SNAP-8" folder, NASA Historical Reference Collection; Aeronautics and Space Report of the President, FY 1991 Activities, p. 100.)

12. The "200 K" was evidently what later became the J-2 engine used in the second stage of the Saturn IB and Saturn V rockets. On 31 May 1960 NASA selected Rocketdyne Division of North American Aviation to develop a 200,000-pound-thrust engine using hydrogen and oxygen propellants; it was later designated the J-2. (Emme, Aeronautics and Astronautics . . . 1915-60, p. 123.)

13. Glenn L. Martin (1886-1955), an American airplane inventor, established the company that bore his name in Cleveland in 1917, moving it to MD near Baltimore in 1929. Meanwhile, in 1928, it incorporated as the Martin Company. By 1960 its major concerns were the design, development, and manufacture of missiles and electronic systems for the government and nucleonics for the AEC. In 1961 it merged with the American-Marietta Company. The new firm produced chemicals, aluminum, cement, and aerospace products such as missiles, rockets, space-launch vehicles, and electronic systems.

14. Vanguard was a National Academy of Sciences-Navy project to launch the first U.S. satellite. On 6 December 1957, however, the Vanguard test vehicle failed in its attempted test launch, and an ABMA-JPL satellite, Explorer I, became the first U.S. satellite to enter orbit. Then, on 17 March 1958 Vanguard I joined it in orbit. For details of the Vanguard story see Constance McLaughlin Green and Milton Lomask, Vanguard: A History (Washington, DC: NASA SP-4202, 1970).

15. This is an apparent reference to the program management system and the office of program analysis and control that was a part of it. Both were established during the spring of 1960. (See Rosholt, Administrative History of NASA, pp. 150-151.)

16. Designed in the 1950s by the NACA, in conjunction with the Navy and the Air Force, as a test vehicle for research leading to manned space flight, the X-15 was capable of speeds up to 6.7 times the speed of sound and altitudes in excess of 350,000 feet. Between 1959 and 1968, three X-15 aircraft performed 199 test flights, providing data on hypersonic aerodynamics, engine capabilities, structures, reentry techniques, and reaction controls over attitude in space. As such, it was an essential research vehicle for subsequent Apollo and Space Shuttle missions. (X-15 file, NASA Historical Reference collection; for further information see Hallion, On the Frontier, esp. pp. 104-129, and M. O. Thompson, At the Edge of Space: The X-15 Flight Program [Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992].)

17. Interestingly, about this time Clay Blair was helping Crossfield write Always Another Dawn: The Story of a Rocket Test Pilot (New York: World Publishing, 1960).

18. The Lockheed Electra was the only large turboprop airliner developed in the U.S.A. Delivery began in 1958, but although the aircraft was efficient and offered high performance, Lockheed never produced it in large numbers because the Boeing 707 jet airliner appeared about the same time. The Electra could not compete with it commercially. The U.S. naval version of the aircraft, the P-3 Orion, performed antisubmarine patrol duties. (Laurence K. Loftin, Jr., Quest for Performance: The Evolution of Modern Aircraft [Washington, DC: NASA SP-468, 1985], p. 140; Jane's All the World's Aircraft, 1955-56 [London: Sampson Low, Marston & Co. Ltd., n.d.], pp. 275-276.)

19. Electra aircraft had been involved in crashes on 3 February 1959 into East River in New York (due to pilot error) and four subsequent dates by 4 October 1960, with the last crash due to bird ingestion into the engines. In two of the crashes, the aircraft had disintegrated in midair due, according to the FAA, to a structural defect that could be corrected. Pending modifications to the aircraft, amidst controversy, Quesada allowed the Electras to continue to fly at reduced speeds. (Stuart I. Rochester, Takeoff at Mid-Century: Federal Civil Aviation Policy in the Eisenhower Years, 1953-1961 [Washington, DC: FAA, 1976], pp. 234, 280.)

20. Sally, it will be recalled, was his daughter. Helen Hamilton was apparently a family friend.

21. Project Shotput employed Sergeant-Delta launch vehicles to test payloads for the Echo project, which successfully launched a passive communications satellite on 12 August 1960. On 28 October 1959 NASA had launched a 30-meter (100-foot) inflatable sphere into a suborbital trajectory from Wallops Island (see above in diary) as part of Project Shotput. A second suborbital shot occurred on 16 January 1960. The suborbital vehicles provided useful scientific information, and further suborbital tests followed, including a test of the Italian San Marco satellite from Wallops in 1962. (William R. Corliss, NASA Sounding Rockets, 1958-1968: A Historical Summary [Washington, DC: NASA SP-4401, 1971], pp. 42-43.)

22. The acronym stood for Army-Navy instrumentation program.

23. On 31 May 1960, NASA created an Office of Technical Information and Educational Programs, responsible for acquisition and dissemination of technical information such as scientific reports and for educational programs explaining NASA's activities. ("Shelby Thompson," biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection.)

24. The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation started a program for Sloan Fellows in 1955. It consisted of young faculty members at institutions of higher learning who received grants for basic research.

25. Apparently, this had occurred on 27 February 1960 in a simulator. (See Emme, Aeronautics and Astronautics . . . 1915-1960, p. 120; on the gas gun, see Edwin P. Hartman, Adventures in Research: A History of Ames Research Center, 1940-1965 [Washington, DC: NASA SP-4302, 1970], pp. 236-239.)

26. A long narrative poem by Stephen Vincent Benét, dramatized by Charles Laughton in 1953.

27. I.e., Dick Horner, Hugh Dryden, and Frank Phillips.

28. On the 200 K engine, see note 14 in this chapter. The S-IV Saturn stage was the second stage in the Saturn I launch vehicle used in the early Apollo launches. It consisted of four Pratt & Whitney engines using liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen as propellants and had a total thrust of 80,000 pounds (355,800 newtons). The last 4 of 10 launches for the Saturn I were considered operational, but none carried humans. They did, however, prove the viability of a clustered-engine concept and paved the way for the later Saturn IB and Saturn V boosters. For the most succinct and comprehensible discussions, see the NASA Historical Data Book, vol. II, pp. 54-55, and vol. III, pp. 26-27; Brooks, Grimwood, and Swenson, Chariots for Apollo, p. 47; and Roger E. Bilstein, Orders of Magnitude: A History of the NACA and NASA, 1915-1990 [Washington, DC: NASA SP-4406, 1989], pp. 78-79. For the full details, see Bilstein, Stages to Saturn.)

29. This is a reference to Glennan's son.

30. The reference to von Braun's shortcomings concerned the implications of his belief in meticulous attention to small details and in proceeding in rocket development incrementally. As a corollary to these beliefs, the Germans sought to control all aspects of their work by doing as much of it themselves as possible rather than handing it over to contractors not only to develop and build but also to coordinate. Dr. Glennan and his successor, James Webb, on the other hand, worked successfully to contract out the bulk of NASA's work and to build up the capabilities of the U.S. aerospace industry. The Air Force had also used the latter approach in developing its ballistic missiles. The competing viewpoints later came to a head in the famous controversy between the von Braun team and George Mueller, who had worked with the Air Force missile program, over all-up versus stage-by-stage testing of the Saturn V. Here, von Braun also represented the overall NASA approach, not just that of the Marshall Space Flight Center, but the Mueller approach won out because of the need for speed to achieve President Kennedy's goal to reach the Moon by the end of the decade. (For excellent treatment of these competing cultures within NASA, see Howard E. McCurdy, Inside NASA: High Technology and Organizational Change in the U.S. Space Program [Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993], pp. 16-17, 37-38, 92-97, 167.)

31. The headquarters of TRW, Inc. was Cleveland, Ohio, the state from which Young was a senator.

32. On 1 April 1960, a Thor-Able rocket did, indeed, launch the first known weather observation satellite, Television Infrared Observation Satellite (TIROS) I. It took some 22,500 cloud-cover photographs on a global scale from roughly 450 miles above the Earth until 29 June 1960 and was regarded as beginning "a new era of meteorological observing." (Emme, Aeronautics and Astronautics . . . 1915-1960, pp. 121, 146.)

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