[135] Sunday, May 1: Ruth, Sally and I went to early church so that I might be back at the house for a meeting. John Hrones came over late in the afternoon and we went over a number of problems. It is a very satisfying relationship we have. I hope that there continues to be the mutual respect that now exists.
Monday, May 2: Up at an early hour and out to the NASA hanger to meet the AEC people for a trip to the Plum Brook reactor site. John McCone was unable to make the trip because of his involvement in the negotiations of the nuclear test ban but he arranged for Jack Floberg, a good friend and another of the commissioners, to be present. Accompanying Floberg were General Luedecke and [Director of the Division of Reactor Development] Frank Pittman. Abbott and Horner were in attendance as well. An Army helicopter took us over to the site. It is an excellent reactor, well-designed and getting very close to the point where it will go "critical". I think the AEC people were a little bit surprised at the quality of the design job, the planning for operational controls, the obvious attention that had been given to experimental methods, etc. There is a real question about the use to which NASA can put this reactor. The AEC holds control over all research work involved in reactor design and this means fuel elements, as well. All we are allowed to do, really, is to place specimens in the radiation field inside the reactor. And may it be said here, the AEC is very jealous of its prerogatives.
After a quick visit to the rocket systems test area - we test medium size rocket engines at the Plum Brook site - we jumped into cars and drove back to the Lewis Research Center for lunch. We did not take the helicopter back because Dick Horner felt it was unsafe and in hands that were not as well-trained as he thought necessary. After lunch, we made a quick tour of several of the wind tunnels to look at the models of missiles and space flight vehicles now being tested at Lewis. We also saw the training device used by the astronauts to test their reactions and give them experience in orienting themselves in the face of violent tumbling.
Tuesday, May 3: Up at 5:30 and out to the NASA hanger to fly to Washington in a Convair. Several others availed themselves of the opportunity for a ride, and we reached Butler Hanger in Washington at 8:30. I went directly to the Pentagon for a meeting of the Naval Research Advisory Committee of which I am a member. This took up the rest of the morning and I found the discussion rather interesting. Nothing can be said about it in these pages, however.
I had lunch with Dryden and Horner to tell them about my discussion with Henry Reid at Langley. Reid proposes to retire but would like to work for another year or two on some projects of his own. He is now the director of Langley Research [136] Center and will step down immediately so that Tommy Thompson, his associate director, can take over. All of us believe this to be a good move - particularly if accompanied by a determination on the part of Thompson to immediately set about finding three or four candidates who can be watched closely as possible replacements for him. Thompson is now 60 years of age.
Further discussion of the problems of finding a satisfactory solution to our public and technical information problem resulted in a hope - a pious hope - that we might be able to pull off a reorganization that would place Bonney under a new man who would head the entire information services activity. The leading candidate for that job is Shelby Thompson of the AEC. He will be in later today to visit with Dryden and Horner. Another matter under discussion was the result of discussions in the plane returning to Washington between Horner, Luedecke, et al. It seems quite apparent that there is no real disposition to accept a NASA man as head of the combined operation on Project Rover. Someone has really poisoned the ground on which Harry Finger walks. I am just about as much determined to ensure there is no solution that will not be fully acceptable to NASA since we are the ultimate user of the Rover device. It was agreed I would do my best to have a further discussion with John McCone and attempt to resolve this problem. He is not an easy one to pin down and then to keep pinned.
At 2 o'clock Eugene Zuckert, an old friend and fellow commissioner on the AEC back in the early 50s, came in to talk with me. What he really wanted was to find out whether or not it was useful for his associates in a small company in Pittsburgh, started by Gordon Dean, to make a bid on an operating contract for the Plum Brook reactor. Word had gotten around that some of the very large companies were bidding and Gene wanted to know whether the small ones would get a fair shake. He was assured that this would be the case but I did ask others on the staff what might have given rise to the rumor. They were mystified and later on, I clarified the whole issue with Zuckert. His people better bid if they want to get the job. Nothing attempted - nothing gained!
W. W. Baker of the Kansas City Star came in at 2:30 for a brief visit. These newspaper chaps from the Middle West are uniformly pleasant to deal with. I hope I gave him some background information that will allow him to do a better reporting job in the future. At 3:30, Shelby Thompson came in and spent an hour with Hugh, Dick and Frank Phillips. He did a low-key selling job but was obviously in command of the situation. A later check showed that someone - I think Al Hodgson - had been operating on his own to look into Thompson's reputation and background. Finding a negative reaction from some of his pals at the AEC, Al had told Dryden, Horner and Phillips about Thompson's shortcomings. In spite of this negative approach, all later reported themselves well satisfied with Thompson's discussion and appearance. The next move is up to me.
At 5:00 o'clock, T. S. Dixon of Rocketdyne came in to assure me of the determination of his organization to win the 200 K engine contract. Home a little after 6:00 with a real load of work to get behind me before the next day.
[137] Wednesday, May 4: Arnold Frutkin was in at 8:30 to talk over the speech I am to give the Council on Foreign Relations in New York next Tuesday. Arnold has done a good job of writing up a story on our international cooperation activities. At 9:00 o'clock the source evaluation board on the 200 K engine reported. This is a stinker, in the vernacular - five companies bid and three of them are very close together at the top. In fact, they are so close in the technical evaluation that it is almost impossible to choose among them. The same is essentially true in the business evaluation except that one of them bid $138 million, a second bid $69 million, the third bid $44 million. These bids are really estimates of the total cost of the project since this research and development work is always handled on a cost plus a fixed fee basis. The costs do give an indication of the extent of experience of a company in undertaking a difficult task of this sort. For instance, one of the companies that was not in the running bid only $24 million dollars. While the highest one is undoubtedly high, the lowest indicates a complete lack of understanding of the difficulty of the job. I took the reports and will now have to sit down with myself in an attempt to find a proper answer to this question.
At 11:00 o'clock, Bob Abernathy of NBC came in to discuss the show we are doing together on 14 May. This is a good operation, in my opinion. It will, for the first time, concern itself as a total show with the reasons for our being active in the space research field. Dryden, Horner, Seipert, Johnson and Ostrander sat with me at lunch to review our source evaluation and our source selection processes. These are never simple matters to deal with and we certainly are having our problems. We are not certain whether to indicate to the prospective bidders something more of the criteria against which we will evaluate their proposals. We are not certain of the extent to which we ought to "debrief" the unsuccessful bidders. It is a fact that if 10 people bid, 9 of them are going to be unhappy because only 1 can win. With the 9 having representatives in Congress, it is almost inevitable that some charges of favoritism, lack of objectivity, etc., will be tossed our way.
At 2:00 o'clock, Dryden, Frutkin and I attended a meeting of the principals of the Operations Coordinating Board at the New State Building. Our purpose - to review with the OCB the proposal we hope to hand to President Eisenhower for a cooperative program in meteorological satellites with the Soviet Union. We have been working on this for some time - I have already reported having a visit with the president about this matter. Most of the members of the OCB were favorably inclined once they knew that this was to be prepared as a proposal to be held in readiness for possible submission to Khrushchev. John McCone, however, rather strongly objected on the basis that the question of the resolution to be expected from the television cameras in the meteorological satellites might be subject to review by Khrushchev. We had proposed that we continue to use the cameras in Tiros I because these have given us quite adequate cloud cover pictures without any possibility of recognition of bases, cities, etc., on the ground.
Both Allen Dulles and John McCone wanted us to propose reciprocal representation at the launching sites of the two countries involved. This seems to me to.....
....be completely unacceptable - the millennium has not yet arrived. If, indeed, we were to take this position with the idea that we would have a backup position in which we would avoid representation at each other's launchings, it seems silly to make the proposal in the first place. In the light of other events taking place at this very time, I think my judgment is a valid one. In any event, we came away a little crestfallen but more thoroughly aware of the difficulties of gaining agreement on matters of this kind in a government such as ours.
At 3:15, Dryden, Horner, Gleason and I met with the Michigan congressional delegation at the Capitol. As I have noted earlier today, companies have friends in Congress. In this instance, the Michigan delegation was questioning our denial of the Saturn S-IV stage to Chrysler. Chrysler apparently has made misrepresentations on the Hill that have caused these difficulties. I have called Tom Morrow [of Chrysler] to ask him just what he hoped to gain by this kind of action. He tried to beg off from any responsibility for it but refused to support the evaluation [139] process we use as I had hoped he might. I finally broke off the conversation with him by suggesting that if he didn't believe in the system of competitive bidding, I hoped he would avoid making any proposals to us in the future. As is evident, I was mad! In any event, I think we were able to give the Michigan delegation a good bit of satisfaction - particularly when we told it that the bulk of the work Chrysler would have undertaken would have been done in Florida. This fact had not been related to the delegation, which was concerned only with the labor situation in Michigan - not Florida.
Back at the office for a discussion with Jim Gleason of the program to be followed in the Senate Appropriations Committee hearings. Dryden, Horner and I will carry the ball in this one, which is now set for 17 May; this means I must come back from Florida for that day. At 5:00, Dryden, Newell and I discussed the handling of the space science panel meeting set for tomorrow noon.
Ruth and I were expected to attend the United States Chamber of Commerce dinner meeting at 7:00 o'clock. I just had to call at 6:15 and say that it was impossible for us to be present even though I was to be at the head table. I was completely worn out - went home and went right to bed but managed to do quite a bit of work by catching up on my reading.
Thursday, May 5: Staff meeting at 8:30 with other meetings during the morning on a variety of problems including particularly the public and technical information problem and the budget review planning.
At noon, the members of the space science panel of the President's Scientific Advisory Committee came in for lunch. They had sent us a long memorandum of complaint about the manner in which we were dealing with the scientific community, so called. Homer Newell did a fine job of answering, very patiently, each of their complaints. Lloyd Berkner was his usual dominant self, but we managed to deflate him a little bit during the course of the discussion. Actually, the scientific community, as such, is a bunch of spoiled individuals - the higher they rise in the hierarchy the more spoiled they become. In this instance, at least two of the men present spent most of the time arguing over projects in which they were involved. Conflict of interest? Not at all - they are scientists! In spite of these statements, these are good people and their voices must be heard. We are doing our best to accommodate their interests and to handle our program so that a maximum number of them are involved. On the other hand, the responsibility for the make-up of the program and the expenditure of the money cannot be delegated to any group outside of the government.
Dashing for my plane for New York, I stopped in with Gleason and Johnson for a few minutes to check over some papers - there seems to be time to do these jobs well. I took the plane to New York with a stop-over at Philadelphia where Ruth joined me. She had driven up to Philadelphia to leave the car there, for she plans to come back tomorrow and drive on to Cleveland in order to provide home and fireside for Sally and Polly over the mock political convention weekend at Case. We arrived in New York on time and there was ample opportunity for me to get a [140] haircut, which I had been putting off for a week. It turned out that our planned dinner had grown into quite a dinner party. I think there were 14 in all. A fine discussion was had throughout the evening. We didn't break up for bed until midnight - not much rest for the wicked.
Friday, May 6: Up at 6:15 to see that Ruth catches a bus at 6:50 so that she may get down to Philadelphia in time to pick up the car and drive to Cleveland during daylight and in time to help the girls. This was accomplished without too much difficulty and I walked back to Grand Central Station to make certain about my train arrangements for New Haven. At 10 o'clock, off to New Haven and a meeting of the university council. I had lunch with Charlie O'Hearn and Phil Pillsbury of the Minneapolis Pillsbury flour interests. The lunch at Mory's was pleasant, noisy and not quite the same as it used to be when I was a kid in college. The university council met at the building newly occupied by the Yale University Press. It is a rebuilt bakery and is rather attractive considering the use to which the building had previously been put. [Following the meeting of the council, an advisory group to the Yale president, and dinner], I boarded the sleeping car at 11:15 and immediately took a pill and went off to sleep.
Saturday, May 7: Into Washington three-quarters of an hour late, I had just time enough for a cup of coffee and a sweet roll before meeting a group at the office. We had gathered together the directors of the various divisions, Dryden, Horner and myself to discuss budgetary and program planning for the coming year. It must be understood that at any one time, we are dealing with three budgets or at least with elements of three budgets. We are attempting to spend the money in the current year sensibly, to defend the budget for the next fiscal year, and we are well into the planning for the next or third fiscal year. This meeting was intended to deal with the problem of planning our operations in the face of probable congressional action on our FY 1961 budget and developing guidelines for the FY 1962 budget, on which I am to have a preview late this month.
After three hours of it, I think we could agree that we made some progress. Bob Abernathy came in to go over the script for the television show next Tuesday and Wednesday. We are to rehearse on Tuesday morning and tape the show on Wednesday night. It will be televised on "Worldwide 60" on NBC on Saturday night, 14 May. I think the script is making good sense. Since Ruth was away, I stayed at the office working on a variety of problems until about 4 o'clock. Dashing home, I had another visit with Bob Abernathy to clarify a few points, made up a dinner of tamales, did some more work on my speech for Tuesday next and off to bed about 9:30.
Sunday, May 8: This was another of those days spent at the work table. Everything went quite well and I think I managed to get quite a bit done. It rained most of the day and when Ruth and Polly arrived at 4 o'clock, they told me they had driven through hard rain most of the way from Cleveland. We got Polly on to the 4 o'clock train and came back to the apartment for a quiet dinner. Ruth is obviously tired after her week-end, which had apparently been a very successful one. Both [141] Sally and Polly seemed quite happy with their part in it. At least, this is what I was told.
Monday, May 9: Once again, at 8:15 in the morning, Arnold Frutkin came in. He seems to have a penchant for keeping engagements with me in the early morning. This time, we were discussing the problems of Project Comet, the possible cooperative meteorological program with the USSR. I have come to the conclusion that it makes no sense to go forward with this - that it ought to be deferred until a later date. Frutkin was at first inclined to disagree but finally came around. Dryden was quite sure this was the proper course to take. I will get the message back to Gordon Gray of the NSC and try to button this project up for the moment.
At 9 o'clock, Dryden, Horner and I met with John McCone and General Luedecke at the AEC. Once again we were trying to settle the management problems for Project Rover. McCone stated clearly that there was a very real question about Harry Finger - that he had been characterized as a person who wanted to "kill" Project Rover. No one can quite determine who started this rumor but it is obvious that Finger would have six strikes against him in undertaking this job. John McCone suggested that we ask our staffs to nominate possible candidates for the job of managing the Rover program in the AEC and NASA. We will nominate Finger and perhaps one other. I agreed to this process and insisted that it be finished by 1 June - that is, that we have a decision by that time. I then asked John to consider the use of the Plum Brook reactor. We were willing to give it to them - I am not sure all of my people would agree with this but it is a gambit I think worthwhile taking. On the other hand, we recognize the right of the AEC to deny us the use of the reactor for reactor development work. We offered, too, to operate the reactor on request from AEC - they would have to fund their requests. It appears that the best thing to do is to go ahead with our own work and to accept work from the AEC that it will fund. I think this may be the only way we can tackle the job at the moment; perhaps we can move later on to a more desirable form of organization. We have advocated a steering committee composed of AEC and NASA people who would determine the use of the reactor for whatever purpose. Why the AEC doesn't want to do this, I will never know. John asked me to stay after the meeting and handed me an "eyes only" paper that set forth his arguments against Project Comet. I did not tell him that we had effectively put the project to bed an hour or so earlier.
At 12:15, I had lunch with John Corson at the Metropolitan Club. I was anxious to have his evaluation of Shelby Thompson and found that it was really very much better than I had expected. I had asked Dick Horner to come along to lunch so that he could hear this evaluation firsthand. We also talked about the meeting of the Kimpton advisory committee on organization, which had taken place at Huntsville on Friday and Saturday last. Obviously, the directorate in Washington must concern itself with the development of good relationships with this advisory committee. There seems to be some question as to the division of effort we have decided upon between the various development centers. We agreed that a meeting [142] on Wednesday of this week would be helpful in the preparation of a paper to be given to the Kimpton committee in advance of its meeting at Langley late this month.
Directly following lunch, we had a briefing by the inventions and contributions board. These poor devils have had to review 2,000 proposals for awards arising out of supposed inventions or contributions. It seems to me that we will never get any place with this kind of an operation, and I have suggested that we seek remedial legislation. In the meantime, we will go ahead with the activities at a low key. At 3:30, John Johnson brought in a report of the long range planning committee. This is a group that is attempting to look into the economic, political and social implications of space research. Already, it has contracts with the Rand Corporation and with the Brookings Institution.1 I agreed to a further contract with a Cambridge, Massachusetts, group of Harvard and MIT professors who will look into the public acceptance aspects of our activities.
Tuesday, May 10: Out to the NBC studios at 8:30 for a rehearsal of the "Worldwide 60" program. This lasted only an hour and a half and I was able to get back to the office in time to do a little bit of work. At 11:30, Dryden, Horner and I visited with Secretary Jim Douglas at the Pentagon. Dick, Hugh and I were attempting to get Jim Douglas, Herb York and Jack Stempler to agree on the paper setting up the Aeronautics and Astronautics Coordinating Board.2 We almost made it! Some corrective language is necessary and I have left it with Dryden and Jim Douglas has left it with York to come up with the answers and put the damn thing to bed.
After a hurried lunch, I boarded a plane to go to New York to speak to the Council on Foreign Relations. I stopped at the Yale Club and had a shower, a good massage and a light sleep. At the Council on Foreign Relations I found a number of good friends and was able to talk quite forcibly to this group of some 60 people. The dinner was pleasant, the questions were pertinent and I felt well repaid for the effort. I did not read the speech; rather, I followed it as a general outline and did quite a bit of extemporaneous talking. I arrived back in Washington at midnight, satisfied but much the worse for wear.
Wednesday, May 11: At 9 o'clock, Allan Puckett of Hughes Aircraft came in to see me. I am trying to get him to take over Horner's job on 1 July with the possibility that he might replace me next January. I had not met him previously but had excellent reports on him from a number of people. I was delighted with this man - we spoke for fully two hours with Hugh Dryden coming in for the last half [143] hour. I think he would make an excellent man for us; he is well-heeled scientifically and has had substantial responsibilities administratively. He is young, attractive and asks the right kind of questions. Obviously, he has a great future ahead of him in industry. To come with us he must be willing to break off all his industrial connections, take on a job where he does not know who will be his boss eight months from now, risk the possibility of an adverse election situation - all in all not a very pleasant prospect. Further, he probably makes twice as much as he can possibly make with us, maybe more. I intend to call his boss, Pat Hyland, to urge him to help us. I doubt that this will be successful but at least I must try.
At 11 o'clock I taped a 15-minute program for the Voice of America. I hope these operations are useful - the people involved tell me they are. Lunch with Gleason, Dryden and Phillips served to clear up some of the problems that have arisen regarding our appearance before the Senate Appropriations Committee. Immediately following this I visited with Maury Stans at the Bureau of the Budget. We have been cut $39 million by the House. The Senate has approved or authorized $50 million more than we had requested. On the 17th, we go before the Senate Appropriations Committee to try to convince it to restore all the cuts made by the House. I think we will be successful in this. Nevertheless, in a conference between the House and the Senate we will lose something from the total amount requested. Thus it becomes a point in strategy to have the Senate appropriate more than we have requested. I cannot urge this publicly because I would be guilty of breaking the president's budget. Nevertheless, I must so conduct myself that the Senate feels it desirable to give us more money than we have requested. If this can be pulled off, the conference between the House and the Senate may then result in our getting the $915 million we had requested in the first place. Stans was very sympathetic. I can do almost anything short of committing murder or breaking the president's budget. With his understanding in this matter, I think we may accomplish our objective.
I hurried from his office to the Statler Hotel where I had to make some opening remarks at a meeting of the Catholic Press Association. As usual, they were a half an hour late but we managed to get the task over with in time so that I could retrace my steps to the office and meet with several people regarding the development of effective and proper relationships with the General Accounting Office. We have decided that we should be completely open and above board with them but we must insist on knowing what they are after. I don't know whether we will win in this argument - at least we are going to try.
At 4 o'clock, John Corson, Jack Young, and others met with the program directors to discuss the organizational matters brought up by the Kimpton Committee at Huntsville last week. This was not as fruitful a discussion as I had hoped. Everyone is so completely tired out that to even think about organizational changes or organizational methods is a real imposition. Nevertheless, it must be done and I hope that we made some progress.
At 6:30, Ruth and I appeared at the NBC studios to participate in the taping of "Report from Outer Space." Among those on the program were David Brinkley, [144] [William White] Howells of Harvard, [Robert] Jastrow of NASA, Dee Wyatt of NASA, Frank McGee and Peter Hackes of NBC. There is no need to recount the horrors of this evening. It was interesting but it took five hours before we had finished. Arriving home at 11:30, Ruth finished her packing for the morrow and I sat down at my desk to try and complete some of the activities I must button up before taking off for Florida. Finally, at 1:45, Ruth appeared to drag me off to bed by the hair. I had finished almost all of my work - at least, in some fashion.
Thursday, May 12: Up at 6:30 to pack my bag and to get off at 7:15 for a breakfast with Shelby Thompson. I neglected to say that last night I had a talk with Walter Bonney about the proposed reorganization of the public and technical information activities of NASA. I told him of the desirability of a single organization and found him, not wholly to my surprise, willing to give up his job rather than to report to someone else. In spite of all his protestations about the importance of serving his country, I find that he is just as much of a straw man as any of the rest of us. I was quite frank in my appraisal of his lack of ability to take on the total job. Once again, I can only characterize him as a "great big teddy bear." In some ways he does a quite acceptable job. Creativity seems wholly lacking as is the ability to manage a group of men. This discussion - not to say argument - did not add to my equanimity for the balance of the evening.
At breakfast, as I was saying, I found that Shelby Thompson was willing to look at the public information office as one that could be separated from the total information services operation at NASA. As a matter of fact, the entire breakfast conversation led me to the conclusion that we would be well-advised to attempt to hire Thompson without further delay. A discussion later in the day at which I bared my soul completely to Dryden and Horner resulted in an agreement on our part to move forward. We will make Thompson the director of the office of educational and technical information services, leaving Bonney as the public information officer. His wings will be clipped and I doubt that he is going to thoroughly enjoy the position in which he finds himself. At the end of the year, if Thompson has proved his adaptability in this new field, we may be able to put these two operations together. This will be true particularly if he has gained the confidence of the rest of the organization. To put him in now might well be to doom him to failure because of the lack of complete acceptance of his professional capabilities.
Dick, Hugh and I spent the rest of the morning talking about a variety of things that had to be covered before we left Washington for Miami. I pointed out to them I had spent most of the night trying to figure out how to make a decision on the 200 K engine. I proposed that we give to each of the three leading contractors a contract to further develop their ideas. Each of these might call for $250,000 and we would expect to have a solid report in our hands within four months. It seems to me that this might give us a better idea of the real capabilities of each of the companies - at least it might separate them a little bit more so a decision could be made that would stand up to public scrutiny. Much to my surprise, there seemed to quite a satisfactory acceptance of this proposal.
[145] I dashed off to the airport with Ruth only to find that the plane would be delayed about an hour because of rain. Added to this delay, headwinds brought us into Miami two hours late. Nevertheless, the sun was shining and the vacation has started with prospects for a real rest.
At this juncture, I would like to be able to review the happenings of May 1 through May 11 in respect to the U-2 incident. Unfortunately, security restrictions prevent this. Strangely enough, although NASA has been "clobbered" a bit, I find myself somewhat relaxed about the whole operation. Once again, the volatility of the American press and of American and congressional opinion has been most astounding. There continues to be general agreement that the timing of this particular flight was not a wise one. In the handling of the incident, it is now apparent that we - that is the United States - spoke too soon. Outside of this, the real crime was getting caught - circumstances being what they are in this world. Or, rather, it is a fact that we have always stood for honesty in our dealings with other nations and the fact that we have denied and then confirmed these activities makes our whole posture questionable. 3
Friday, May 13: This was pretty much a day of rest and getting oriented to relative leisure. We walked a good bit, took the sun, and spent almost half the day on the phone to Washington clearing up matters that were hangovers from earlier in the week.
Saturday, May 14: Beautiful weather. It inclined us to rise relatively early. I started on the speech for the Tulane commencement. In half a day I achieved an outline of sorts and also blocked out a farewell statement to the graduating class at Case. Throughout the day, we listened to news broadcasts about the continuing possibility of difficulties at the summit arising out of the U-2 incident.
Sunday, May 15: I was awakened at 1:00 a.m. to be told by Frank Phillips that the USSR has put a four-and-one-half ton manned capsule into a 200-mile orbit [146] above the surface of the earth. Actually, the man in it is a dummy according to the first news broadcasts. Our own stations confirm that there is something up there. It is said by the Russians that they have no plan to recover the capsule but that they will bring it back into the atmosphere and have it burn up on the way down. This is not wholly possible with a device as large as this and built of the materials that would be involved. Why didn't the Echo shot work?4
Here we are again - the Russians are successful in launching something for Ike's benefit as he steps out of his plane in Paris. They really seem to have much better control of their activities in this field than we do, as yet. We worked a good bit more on the speech; finished up the Case farewell statement. Several calls from Washington kept me pretty busy, but it was a quiet day.
Monday, May 16: [After listening to news broadcasts about the U-2 affair and the summit,] I was able to finish both of the speeches and now have them ready for typing when I go back to Washington later this week. I worked over the statements to the Senate subcommittee on appropriations and relayed my comments back to Washington in a telephone call lasting three-quarters of an hour. Believing that I might be able to convince Pat Hyland of Hughes Aircraft that the world situation required that he [147] release Allan Puckett to NASA as a replacement for Dick Horner, I called Pat. Unfortunately, he beat me to it. He simply stated that he had given up two very good men recently, that his company was in trouble and that the organizational problems were centered around the leadership of Allan Puckett. Accordingly, I had to back down. This is a real disappointment.
Tuesday, May 17: Up at 7:00 for another beautiful day. I rewrote portions of the Tulane speech and believe it is somewhat improved. The news from the Summit is all bad. There remains that gnawing doubt that we have appeared to the rest of the world as just another ordinary nation mouthing platitudes and moralities but indulging in a variety of activities of doubtful character. It is clear, on reflection, that we might have been taking much more of a chance in sending U-2s over Russia than we were willing to admit. If a Soviet plane were to come over our part of the world, I doubt not that we would have alerted our SAC force and started it on the way. Because the bombers can be recalled, this would have been a sensible thing to do. If the Russians had wanted to look at the U-2 as an invader, could they not have been justified in launching missiles toward this country? These are difficult questions to answer. Ruth bought some red snapper and baked it. It was good.
Wednesday, May 18: Another beautiful day and little activity that imposed any great strain on us. Ruth took me to the airport to catch a 5:25 flight to Washington. Actually, instead of a DC-7B, I found myself in an Electra. We arrived in Washington 1 hour and 20 minutes late. I found a great deal of mail at the apartment and a quantity of material brought out from the office for me. It was 2:00 a.m. by the time I turned off my light.
Thursday, May 19: Up at 6 o'clock to finish up some of the work I had started earlier in a review of the mail last night. I was at the Statler at 7:30 for a breakfast meeting with Hugh and Dick. We reviewed our strategy for the Senate hearing, which is to start at 10 o'clock, discussed some of the problems arising out of the U-2 incident, reviewed the employment of Shelby Thompson as head of our division of educational and technical information services, and generally got caught up on a variety of matters. An hour-long meeting of the staff produced no important new events. A review in that meeting of the launching schedules for the balance of the year shows that almost all of the flights have slipped from two to four weeks. I have cautioned strongly against allowing this to happen without every effort being made to counter the tendency to become complacent over technical difficulties.
We started the hearing with Senator Magnuson in the chair and Senator Ellender in attendance. This is the subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee that handles the budgets of the independent offices. Very few of the members attend these meetings. Lyndon Johnson did come in and made a strong statement in favor of a full restoration of all the cuts made by the House. I must say that he continues to stand up for us when the need arises. I tried to read my statement but found that it was almost impossible. They kept interrupting me and asking questions that had to be answered. Actually, Hugh and Dick never did get their [148] statements made; they were simply put in the record. I believe that our story was well covered, however.5
The rest of the day was spent in attempting to clear up my desk, which had become pretty well cluttered, and in planning for future activities. We determined that I should make the trip to Langley next Thursday to meet with the Kimpton Committee in a discussion over alternative methods of organizing our activities. This seems perfectly proper to me and will give me a chance to go to Wallops Island for an inspection, as well.
The plane was about an hour late in arriving in Washington, it was crowded and dirty, and I could get nothing but tourist accommodations. In spite of this, I was glad to be back in Miami and see Ruth about 11 o'clock Washington time. She had apparently had a quiet day although she was a little bit disgusted at the delay at the airport.
Friday, May 20: Another beautiful day - a day of work, for I had brought back from Washington the entire contents of my desk. I did not seem tired after having spent about six hours on it and Ruth helped me in revising one section of the Tulane speech, which seemed to be a little bit less clear than I had liked. I don't seem to be able to get started on the speech for Eau Claire.
Saturday, May 21: Up at 7:30 and right to work on more of the papers that need attention. I did finally get a bit of a start on the Eau Claire speech, took some sun, and started packing for the return to Washington tomorrow. Ruth has been quite busy cleaning house and doing the washing so that we can leave everything shipshape for the Adamses when they come down early in June. It has been a wonderful vacation for us and a great help to have "courtesy of the port," so to speak.
Sunday, May 22: We were to take off at 8:25 a.m., so I left a call for 7 o'clock. At 6:00, National Airlines called to say that the plane would be delayed an hour. I changed the call by three-quarters of an hour. Even then, we were delayed until almost 11:00 since we taxied to the end of the flightline and then had to return to have a sparkplug changed. It was a pleasant flight, however, and we did reach Washington about 4:00 in the afternoon. Thus ended a pleasant 10 days; we finished it by calling each of the 4 children and we really enjoyed having a visit with them.
Monday, May 23: I started out early in the morning with a meeting with Arnold Frutkin. I have probably said before that we seem to have our meetings the first thing in the morning, and I think this is a pretty good idea. I was anxious about the reported concern of the Mexicans over the agreement they had signed with us for a Mercury tracking station. I found that there was really nothing more nor less than a newspaper reporter's desire to have something spectacular to say as a result of the summit conference.
[149] At 9 o'clock, Golovin came in to see me at my request. I was anxious to know what his plans were since he has been deputy to Dick Horner these past several months. Obviously, he does not belong in the long-range picture at NASA; yet, it is not too good to contemplate his leaving at the same time as Horner. I think he will delay until August 1 or perhaps until October 1; this is a decision yet to be made.
A discussion with Jim Gleason confirmed my determination to visit with Styles Bridges and Congressman Brooks. I am trying to build a real fire under the Senate in the hopes that it will appropriate more money than we have asked in order that the result of the conference between the House and the Senate be an appropriation of at least as much as we have requested. I can't do this openly but, believe me, I am going to try to do it in other ways. At 10 o'clock, Hodgson, Young and Corson came in to discuss the forthcoming meeting of the organizational advisory committee. I am going to Langley next Thursday - I had wanted to go to MIT for an educational meeting that sounded very interesting - in order to spend some time with this committee. At 11 o'clock, Charlie Robbins of the Atomic Industrial Forum came in to talk about the desirability of his organization doing something about a public meeting on the usefulness and characteristics of nuclear propulsion for rocket vehicles. I told him about our planned meeting for industry and I think that I discouraged him from doing anything strenuous since we are carrying the ball in this instance.
I had a very pleasant lunch with General Ostrander. He is really a fine person - perhaps a little bit less aggressive and forceful than one might like, but I am delighted that he is in the organization.
At 2 o'clock, Dick Mittauer and Herb Rosen came in to discuss a proposed interview with a producer and camera crew from the British Broadcasting Corporation. Apparently they are coming over here to do a show or perhaps two shows on space and missiles. We will do our best to keep them from combining the two. Apparently, I will have to do a tape interview for this particular show. At 2:45, Siepert and Bonney came in and I found that, in my absence, there had been plans made to release the news of the appointment of Shelby Thompson as director of our new office of educational assistance and technical information programs. It is really quite amazing to see the manner in which these people forget the individual in matters of this kind. Apparently, many of our people would have read about the proposed transfers for them long before anybody had talked to them. As might be expected, the signals were changed.
At 3:45, Dr. Randt, Dr. [Freeman H.] Quimby and [Alfred M.] Mayo came in to visit with me. The latter two are new appointees in the office of life sciences programs. They appear eager and are certainly very able. Randt is doing a fine job at bringing together a good top team. At 4 o'clock, General Ostrander, Elliott Mitchell and Abe Hyatt came in to discuss again the 200 K engine. As a result of my questions and stated assumptions about the differences and likenesses of the Rocketdyne and Aerojet proposals, a new analysis had been made of the actual differences between them. Whereas before this analysis, it had been assumed - [150] actually stated - that the Rocketdyne proposal was substantially less costly than the Aerojet simply because of the assumption that less testing time would be required, it now appears that equalizing the testing time would still leave Rocketdyne at least $11 million lower than Aerojet. Since both figures are then reasonably well within the "ballpark" of estimates provided by our own people, it appears that Rocketdyne should get the nod.6
At 5 o'clock, Ed Goodheart and Albert Lowe of the Austin Company came in to see me. Really, they were just like vultures. They were assuming that the failure of the summit meeting meant that we were probably going to go faster and spend more money, and they wanted a part of it. I laughed them out of the office! I told them that if anyone proposed that we should speed up what we were doing, I would fight it and would quit before I would allow hysteria to modify the program we have laid on. Thus ended the first day back from the holiday.
Tuesday, May 24: We started out the day with a source selection board presentation on the ion engine. In this instance, it is going to be relatively easy to select the winner since there is a very much greater separation between the competitors than was the case in either the 200 K engine or the Saturn S-IV stage. At 10 o'clock, I had a meeting with a variety of people over the Saturn selection papers. We have really put everything into the record and made the record available to the General Accounting Office as well as Congress. Nevertheless, I was concerned over the adequacy of the statement in the record. We agreed that nothing should be done but that we ought to look hard at improving the procedures we are using.
At noon, I had lunch with Mervin Kelly. I wanted to ask him for suggestions as to a replacement for Dick Horner. He did come up with some suggestions, and as a result of this discussion, I have called Fred Kappel, president of AT&T. I am going to be able to see him next Friday at Holmdel.7 The cordiality and helpfulness of Kelly and the entire Bell System group is always a wonderful inspiration to me. At 1 o'clock, we went to an early meeting of the Federal Council on Science and Technology. Roger Ravelle gave a good discussion of the importance of United States participation in the international Indian Ocean oceanographic program, and I was sufficiently interested to move approval in principle of United States participation. The rest of the meeting went rather well with some interesting discussion.
At 4 o'clock, Young and Hudson came in to give me some papers they had prepared in anticipation of the Thursday meeting with the advisory committee on [151] organization.8 At 5:30, I had a visit with Senator Styles Bridges. This was a pleasant half hour and I was really pleased with the reception. Styles agreed with everything that I was doing, gave me some good advice and was quite flattering in his comments regarding the manner in which I have been operating personally. He did call attention to the fact that the Saturn S-IV stage competition was not helping us on the Hill, but he said that there was nothing to do but to bow our heads and accept the criticism for the present time.
Wednesday, May 25: At 9 o'clock, I had an hour with Overton Brooks in his office on the Hill. He was complaining about the fact that Wernher von Braun was unwilling to come to his state, Louisiana, for a speech but that he was quite willing to make speeches in New England for $2,000 a speech.9 An interesting world, isn't it? Actually, Jim Gleason and I had a good hour with Brooks and I think it was a useful meeting. Back at the office to meet several representatives from the North American Phillips Company who came in at the request of Congressman John McCormack. A hurried lunch was followed by a long meeting with the program directors on the 1961 program. It appears that we are at least $20 million short of funds and that we will have to work like the devil to stay within our budget even though we are given more money than we have requested. It seems so very difficult for anybody to cut a piece out of the program and yet they are all very prompt to indicate a shortage of funds. At 5:30, we had a presentation on the geodetic satellite. This has been a question for a long time and it looks as though it might turn out to be a $5 million program. We certainly must determine whether or not to go forward with it. It is apparent that the Defense Department has some activity in this field but it is classified and not something that can be discussed here.10 Home about 7 o'clock with some attempts to do some work, but the mind will not carry on very well after a day like this.
Thursday, May 26: Up at 6:15 to have breakfast at 7:00 with Chancellor Larry Kimpton of Chicago University, who is the chairman of our advisory committee on organization. He was attempting to get his mind in tune with the [152] problems he seems to find in understanding relationships between our research centers and our development centers. It was a pleasant breakfast but I'm not sure that I helped him very much. We went to the airport, picked up Morehead Patterson and flew down to Langley. There we met the rest of the committee and after a visit to various areas in the laboratory, we met in executive session for a discussion of the committee's concern over the organizational arrangements linking together the headquarters and the three development centers.11 I had gone down to handle this conversation because it seemed to me important that they get some straightforward answers and opinions from the man who had asked the questions in the first place. Actually, it was impossible to stick with the subject. However, I do believe that we cleared up some misconceptions and obtained a useful result.
I climbed into an Aero-Commander and flew back to Washington at full speed to attend a special meeting of the cabinet to which I had been invited. President Eisenhower wanted the cabinet and the heads of the independent agencies to hear directly from him, Undersecretary Merchant of the State Department, and Special Advisor Chip Bohlen, the story of the summit conference. It does seem clear, the president said, that Khrushchev had determined to torpedo the conference before he left Moscow. The president stressed several times the very strong and warm support and loyalty given to him by de Gaulle and MacMillan. He said that there was never a moment's hesitation and that this made his task the more easy. Merchant gave a chronological account of events [ending with the release of a communique by the U.S., Briatin, and France] that the summit had been a failure and that Khrushchev was completely to blame in this situation.
After this discussion, Chip Bohlen took up the discussion and made these points:
Bohlen indicated that it was clear Khrushchev came to Paris with a set brief and that no changes were made when it was released. It is the opinion of the State Department that had the U-2 incident not been available, the Russians would have found another way to torpedo the conference. It was stated that Khrushchev expected that he could split the Allies - that, indeed, this was the reason for his coming to Paris a day early. He miscalculated completely and the strong support of de Gaulle and MacMillan for Eisenhower upset Khrushchev's apple cart. Bohlen called attention to the fact that there was really no change in the Soviet foreign policy. He said that he had never in his life studied a document such as the transactions of Khrushchev's press conference on Thursday in Paris in which a man moved so boldly over the total field of battle without once overstepping and suggesting a change in the foreign policy posture of his country.
As a sidelight, the lights went off in the hall in which the press conference was being held during the course of the conference. Khrushchev commented that this was a fault of the capitalistic system.
The president said he had found it impossible to avoid laughing out loud during the first meeting with Khrushchev over one of the statements that was so patently erroneous. Eisenhower commented, somewhat ruefully, that one does not laugh at international conferences. Another matter of note was the fact that Khrushchev appeared at no meetings without Foreign Minister Gromyko and Marshal Malinovsky [Zhukov's successor as minister of defense]. This is a complete change from earlier meetings between the heads of state where Khrushchev had insisted on meeting without others being in attendance - that is, other than the one interpreter for each principal. The suggestion was made that Khrushchev was under wraps and that these two men were there to see to it that he stuck to the line that had been decided upon in Moscow.
The president looked tired, somewhat haggard, and acted very much like a man who is determined to take his share of the blame for everything that had happened. He is really a wonderful person and I continue to gain in my admiration for him.
Friday, May 27: Most of this day was taken up with a flight to Holmdel, New Jersey, where I met with the president of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company, Fred Kappel. I was attempting to get some advice and help with respect to my problem of replacing Dick Horner. It was, indeed, a pleasant experience. Along with Kappel, I found Jim Fisk, the president of Bell Telephone Laboratories, and Eugene McNeely, executive vice president of AT&T. They were not only interested; they were really quite sure they wanted to help me, and I left after several hours with the feeling that, if human beings could solve my problem, these men would go a long way toward providing the necessary assistance.
[154] I had an opportunity to visit the Holmdel Station of Bell Telephone Laboratories where the eastern terminus of our Project Echo satellite system is located. These men have done an exceedingly good job in the tradition of scientific and technological research for which the Bell Telephone Laboratories is justly famous. The way they continue to look ahead several years at both the technical and economic problems leads one to believe that, even with a quasi-monopoly, this nation can outstrip any other in the communications field. Certainly, the Telephone Company acts as though it were competing with everyone under the sun.
My return to Washington was not too pleasant. The plane had dropped me at Holmdel but had gone on to Monmouth County Airport because of threatening weather. When I arrived at that field, we were held on the ground for almost an hour before we could get clearance from the FAA in New York. I returned home about 6 p.m. and spent most of the rest of the time working on matters for the morrow.
Saturday, May 28: At 9:00 I had a meeting with Jim Gleason and John Johnson relating to the statement I am to make a week from now to the Senate Committee on Aeronautics and Space Sciences. This has to do with the legislative proposals we have made that have thus far passed the House committee - not the House of Representatives. At 10:00 Homer Joe Stewart and Dick Horner came in and we spent the next three hours in reviewing, project by project, a number of the tasks that have been undertaken by various elements in the NASA organization. It was not a wholly reassuring session, believe me. Actually, however, I suspect that we are doing about as well as anyone would under the circumstances. Having started out with a program fairly well established by others, we have been attempting to develop an organization, develop a program, and make sense out of all the things we are doing while growing from $100 million a year to $900 million a year in a 22-month span. I did finish up about 2:30, went home to clean up, and then took the airplane to New Orleans.
Sunday, May 29: I was quite relaxed this morning and waited with some pleasure until Joe Morris [chair of the physics department at Tulane] came to pick me up at 10:15. We drove to a restaurant known as Brennan's, which seems to be famous for its Sunday morning brunches, and we enjoyed the menu very much. Rather than run around the countryside, I went back to the hotel for a brief conference and then loafed the rest of the afternoon. At 6:45, Joe picked me up and I had dinner with the acting president of Tulane and the chairman of the various engineering departments, Maxwell Lapham. This was not a very inspiring meeting. Lapham is a really fine person, however; I could enjoy him under any circumstances.
Monday, May 30: This was commencement day at Tulane! I was picked up at the hotel at 8 o'clock and went to the Morris home for coffee. The commencement was set for 9:45, but there was the usual delay in getting the thing under way. It was held in the Tulane gymnasium, which had been air-conditioned with portable conditioning units for the occasion. Some 950 youngsters were graduating. It was not a particularly inspiring ceremony, although Lapham did an [155] excellent job of making it as intimate as could be done under the circumstances. I felt that my talk did not go over as well as I had hoped. Part of the reason for this was that the loudspeaking system was not the best. I promised to send them some information on the system we have put into the gymnasium at Case.
We then had just time enough to go down to the center of town where I purchased a gift for Ruth - a café brulôt set. I think we will have fun with this as an after-dinner or after-dessert operation.
Back to the Morrises for a quick lunch and then to the airport where I took my plane to Washington and Joe took his to New York. My flight was a pleasant one and I arrived back at the apartment about 10:15 - not too tired but not very ready for a full night of activity, either.
Tuesday, May 31: I visited with General Persons for a few minutes this morning to talk about the plans we had been developing for entertaining Sir Bernard Lovell of the Jodrell Bank Observatory in England. This discussion was a pleasant one and I secured all the approvals necessary. I went in to see Tom Stephens, the president's appointment secretary, and set the date of 7 July for the visit of Dr. Lovell. Just before 12 o'clock, I got in to see the president for 5 minutes and found that he would be delighted to receive Lovell. I suppose this sets in motion a chain of protocol about which I will now have to learn. A meeting with John Johnson clarified the 200 K engine deal and we will make the announcement later in the day. At 4 o'clock, I met with Senator Saltonstall to discuss our appropriations bill. This business of attempting to get the senators to appropriate more than we have asked for so that we may, indeed, acquire as much as we require is a task. I hope I live through it.
At 5 o'clock, Hugh Dryden and I had a visit with Allen Dulles and several of his staff about several of the matters that have been in the press these last several weeks. Hugh will testify before the Senate tomorrow and I am concerned about what happens in the future. The future is not as yet settled! Now I must get back to work in order that I may go away tomorrow - to Case and its commencement - without feeling that I am leaving the job untended.
1. The Rand Corporation was an organization headquartered in Santa Monica, California, that engaged in non-profit research for the Air Force and other agencies and organizations. It began as Project RAND in 1946. The Brookings Institution was a non-profit research institute founded in 1927 in Washington, D.C., by philanthropist Robert S. Brookings to provide public service through research and education in the social sciences.
2. NASA and the DOD entered into an agreement establishing the AACB in September 1960. It was responsible for facilitating the two agencies' planning to avoid undesirable duplication of effort and promote efficiency, for coordinating activities of common interest, for identifying common problems, and for exchanging information. (Rosholt, Administrative History of NASA, p. 172.)
3. President Eisenhower had been strongly affected by the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and was determined not to be similarly surprised by the Soviet Union now that it possessed atomic weapons. Consequently, he had authorized Lockheed to develop a high-altitude, single-engine reconnaissance aircraft called the U-2 that could fly great distances at altitudes above 80,000 feet. Once the aircraft was developed, Eisenhower kept himself intimately informed about its activities and controlled them tightly. He authorized the first flight in late June 1956. To American surprise, the Soviets were able to track it and several subsequent missions, which they protested privately but vigorously. Eisenhower then kept flights to a minimum, but did authorize flights on 9 April 1960 and again before 1 May, the eve of a summit meeting with Khrushchev and the leaders of France and Britain, de Gaulle and Macmillan. He assumed that if the Soviets shot down a U-2 they would never admit it because doing so would reveal that there had been other flights they had been unable to hit. However, on 1 May a young CIA pilot named Francis Gary Powers went down in his U-2 inside the Soviet Union. Assuming that he was dead and the plane destroyed, on 5 May Eisenhower approved a statement that a NASA U-2 aircraft doing meteorological research was missing over Turkey, allowing people to infer that it had strayed into Soviet territory. As Khrushchev released more details, including that Gary Powers was still alive and parts of the aircraft captured, Eisenhower finally had to admit publicly that the overflights had been occurring for some time under his orders. As discussed below in the diary, this situation either caused or allowed Khrushchev to wreck the summit and Eisenhower's hopes for détente and disarmament. (For a good brief discussion of these events, see Ambrose, Eisenhower, the President, pp. 227-228, 340-341, 569, 571-579; for a more detailed analysis, see Beschloss, Mayday: The U-2 Affair.)
4. On 13 May 1960 an attempt to launch an Echo satellite failed because of the malfunction of the Thor-Delta launch vehicle. This was the first launch with the 3-stage Thor-Delta, and the second stage was unsuccessful. (NASA Historical Data Book, Vol. II, pp. 77, 81, 371.) As Glennan suggests below in the text, the launch date was the day before Eisenhower flew to Paris for what proved to be the abortive summit with Khrushchev.
5. See above, entries for May 11 and U.S. Congress, Senate, Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, Independent Offices Appropriations, 1961, Hearings, 1960, 86th Congress, 2nd sess, pp. 237-287. The ultimate NASA appropriation for fiscal year 1961 turned out to be $964 million, less than the $970 million the Senate approved but well above the original request for $915 million and the $876 million the House had allowed. (NASA Data Book, Vol. I, p. 128, and Hearings just cited, pp. 237, 245.)
6. A memorandum in Glennan's files for 31 May 1960 (now in the NASA Historical Reference Collection) analyzes the Pratt and Whitney, Aerojet, and Rocketdyne proposals on the 200 K liquid hydrogen-liquid oxygen engine project. All three were judged capable of delivering a satisfactory engine, but the Pratt and Whitney proposal was priced at more than twice the cost of the other two. Since, as Glennan says, Rocketdyne was lower than Aerojet, he determined to negotiate with the former for a contract to develop the engine.
7. The small town of Holmdel, New Jersey, was home to one of the Bell Laboratories. Below, the Federal Council for Science and Technology had been established by Executive Order 10807 of 13 Mar. 1959 "to promote coordination and improve planning and management of Federal programs in science and technology." (United States Government Organization Manual 1959-60, p. 541.)
8. Like Young, Hudson presumably worked for McKinsey & Co., the firm doing the study of NASA organization and contracting procedures.
9. Von Braun was in demand as a speaker and may have commanded this much money for some of his speeches. He did speak at Framingham College in Massachusetts on 3 May 1960 and at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York before the American Newspaper Publishers Assn. on 28 April 1960. But on 30 September 1960 he also spoke before the American Ordnance Association in Shreveport, Louisiana. (Von Braun speech file, 1960, NASA Historical Reference Collection.) Whether the latter speech was coincidental or a result of Bridges' complaint may be impossible to ascertain.
10. In November 1960, the DOD assumed responsibility for the geodetic satellite program in a direct administrative transfer from NASA. According to Aviation Week (21 Nov. 1960, p. 34), "From a military standpoint, the satellite has the potential to fix with great precision the location of any possible target by triangulation of simultaneous pictures taken from ground stations of the high intensity lights which will flash from the satellite." NASA had planned to launch a geodetic satellite "to establish more accurately the shape of the earth, locate and map gravity changes, analyze moon mass and establish the gravitational center of the earth-moon system," according to the same article, but the agency stated it could conduct the program only if the data obtained from the satellite could be made available to the world scientific community. Presumably, this would have compromised military secrets, although the article does not say this.
11. The research centers were of course the three inherited from the NACA - Langley, Ames, and Lewis, with the Flight Research Center at Edwards being subordinate to Ames. Wallops had been an independent installation since 1 May 1959, but it did not receive the designation of "center" until 26 April 1974. The three development centers were presumably Marshall Space Flight Center (although the formal mass transfer of personnel and facilities from ABMA did not occur until 1 July 1960); Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland; and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (although it was a contract facility, not a true NASA center). The Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, later the Johnson Space Center, did not yet exist, and the facilities at Cape Canaveral did not become a separate Launch Operations Center - later Kennedy Space Center - until 1 July 1962. (See Rosholt, Administrative History of NASA, esp. chart on p. 342; Helen T. Wells, Susan H. Whiteley, and Carrie E. Karegeannes, Origin of NASA Names (Washington, D.C.: NASA SP-4402, 1976), pp. 139-160.)
