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Tuesday, October 11 (1960): [i]Arriving at Friendship Airport without much sleep, I made tracks immediately for the White House where I was to attend another meeting of the National Security Council. For the first time, my car telephone came in handy as I kept in touch with developments between the airport and the White House. As luck would have it, after I waited thirty minutes, the item on the National Security Council agenda in which I was interested was canceled. Immediately after lunch, I reviewed the Portland situation with Bob Nunn and Homer Joe Stewart. We must move rapidly on this communications business before it gets out of hand. At 3 o'clock, I met with the president. I had called in from Portland the day before in order to get this date because of the probability that the president was going to be away from Washington for two weeks. [b]I found him [Eisenhower] tired and preoccupied. I simply brought him up-to-date on our activities, told him of my speech in Portland and what meaning it had for the executive branch and then indicated that we were going to require additional money in the way of a supplemental. He had no comment to make on this matter. I told him something of the costs that appear to be involved in Project Apollo, the follow on to Project Mercury. He expressed himself once more as having little interest in the manned aspects of space research. He was cordial enough but it was obvious that he was not at his best today.[/b][/i] Tuesday, December 20 (1960): [i]At 2:30, we met with the National Security Council. I presented our budget and 10-year plan as revised while Hugh described in more detail the activities to be undertaken under the 1962 budget, which is now set at $1.16 billion approximately. Of that amount, $50 million will be requested in a supplemental for the current fiscal year. After we had completed our story showing the NASA budget increasing to more than $2.5 billion annually by the end of the decade, Kistiakowsky talked about the manned space flight program beyond Project Mercury. Most of his information had been derived from presentations given by our people to a committee of the President's Science Advisory Committee. The total dollars estimated to be required for landing a man on the moon and returning him to earth are really quite staggering. One can support a figure anywhere from $10 billion to $35 billion and even then, not know whether or not he is in the right ballpark. [b]The president was prompt in his response: he couldn't care less whether a man ever reached the moon. There was desultory comment by others in the meeting who were concerned over the increasing cost of space research.[/b] I pointed out that our presently planned program did not contemplate the tremendous expenditures mentioned by Kistiakowsky - that some of these decisions must be made by a later administration [293] following more significant results from research now in progress. Finally, I stood up and addressed the president saying that my toughest problem in the face of congressional, public and other pressures - some of them from within the administration - had been to develop a sound program in this area. Facts cannot be changed - this is a difficult, complex and costly business. I stated my belief that we had succeeded in avoiding the clamor for "spectacular accomplishments" that had no basic scientific interest. In some ways, the meeting was discouraging. However, I think that feeling might be considered a natural one under the circumstances.[/i] Tuesday, January 3 (1961): [i]Now I will get on with the chronicle. At 9 o'clock, several of our people came in to talk about the establishment of the theoretical division at some site near Columbia University in New York. I have approved this in principle and am now awaiting budgetary and logistic proposals. It seems a good idea to have this group, which is largely academic in character, associated with an academic community. At 9:45, Dryden and I visited Kistiakowsky to attempt to get a change made in the budget message of the president, which is to be delivered on 18 January. [b]Apparently, following the National Security Council meeting on the 20th, a statement was prepared for inclusion in the message that would, in my opinion, be unwise. The president proposes to say that there is no scientific or defense need for man in space beyond Mercury.[/b] It is much better, if I am any judge of the political realities of the situation, to say that we need much more research and development before a definite decision can be made in this matter. Actually, such a statement would be in complete agreement with the facts as they will be presented in the budget message. After much telephoning, we were able to get this statement changed.[/i]
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