posted 04-29-2004 02:20 PM               

Another place to start is the JFK Presidential Library, which has a good online site at:
http://www.cs.umb.edu/jfklibrary/speeches.htm

It contains the text of all JFK speeches. See also JFK's many press conferences, same site.

In addition, the JFK Library is declassifying Oval Office national security and NASA meetings.

See Scott Carpenter's memoir, FOR SPACIOUS SKIES, for analysis of one notably testy showdown (November 1962) between JFK and NASA administrator James Webb--after the Rice University speech, where Webb was on the dais applauding! Analysis of that meeting is based on the declassified transcript, where Webb can be heard waffling on the lunar program (" . . . one of many priorities.").

Webb's remark clearly annoyed JFK (as is evident from the tapes), who snapped at Webb. The lunar program was NASA's "top priority."

You can request a tape, free of charge, from the library.

In public, JFK sounded resonant themes about exploring the universe. In private with his policy advisors, he was a unsentimental cold warrior using NASA as just one arrow in his quiver in efforts to bring down the Soviet bear.

posted 04-29-2004 05:08 PM               

Might he not have been a man with a genuine unfeigned passion who turned it off when it suited him politically? Starry eyed dreaming may have worked for the public but wouldn't have impressed career politicians.

I think it's equally possible Kennedy chose to justify his personal interests to his advisers with convenient political angles.

Of course I don't know, but I feel it is a valid alternative reading of the events, one that chimes with Tom Wolfe's account of Kennedy's genuine enthusiasm for the astronauts themselves.

Cheers,
Matt

posted 04-29-2004 05:41 PM               

You make a good point, about politicians "turning on and off" about key national policies. Yet it makes sense to observe that presidents are politicians in addition to being leaders and, as a consequence, must make calculated decisions based on changing domestic and geopolitical facts.

Recall too that in 1961 NASA was a federal orphan when JFK came to power. It remained an orphan until two, really three or four, thundering events occurred nearly simultaneously that spring:

(1) the Bay of Pigs; (2) Gagarin's flight;(3) the erection of the Berlin Wall and the Vienna Summit between Khrushchev and Kennedy; and(4) Al Shepard's historic flight.

The Kennedy administration took an international pounding in April 1961 for its failed military invasion in communist Cuba. Then a communist Gagarin scored a spectacular space first with his flight.

JFK then had a personally shattering meeting, in Vienna, one on one, with the Soviet premier, a meeting that left him looking into the thermonuclear abyss.

As it happened, however, upon JFK's return to the States, Shepard made his flight, at Gilruth's heroic insistence in the face of resistance from a hidebound, anti-NASA science advisory board.

Gilruth was right. The WH science advisory board was wrong. Shepard's flight was met with spontaneous and delirious joy among the (voting) public.

Voila! NASA found a father, in a young president who desperately needed a popular and prestigious national program and a ringing national and geopolitical goal.

Kennedy responded in three ways to Shepard's historic flight: First, on a political cold war level, Kennedy realized he could use NASA to fight a proxy science and technology war with the USSR.

Second, as a political leader, JFK sought to inspire Americans to support the space program. Hence his resonant speeches about "this new ocean," mentioned above.

Third, yes, on a personal level, Kennedy liked the seven astronauts. He couldn't help himself. He was grateful--personally, as an American, and, politically, as the president. The Mercury astronauts personified rather photogenically his vision of space exploration--really, the long-term lunar landings and the long-term plan to destroy a cold war foe.

The astronauts were political gold.

The only real geopolitical calculation, I think, was Kennedy's sense that he might use American longing for greatness--exemplified by space exporation--as a way to gull the Soviets into responding in kind. Which country would be greater? that was the question.

In the process, Kennedy hoped the Soviets would end up bankrupting their rickety domestic economy by pouring resources into a prestigious but ultimately insupportable space program.

This overarching strategic and political goal explains JFK's distinct annoyance (so audible on the tapes) with Webb, who just didn't get it.

[This message has been edited by KC Stoever (edited April 29, 2004).]

posted 04-30-2004 12:42 PM               

On the contrary. It's a pretty simple matter given the documentary wealth particularly on the Kennedy administration and on NASA. Private conversations, recorded and transcribed, policy papers, press conferences, speeches.

posted 05-19-2004 09:25 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by spaceman1953:

JFK started this whole Moonlanding thing, but Richard Nixon (they guy he beat for the White House) was President when the moonlandings happened.

[/B]

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I believe I read that President Nixon made a choice to use the USS Hornet (a fine vessel), instead of a ship named after JFK, as the prime recovery ship. Is that the case/can anyone corroborate?

Sometime later, history records that he resigned his presidency. Before that he said, "I am not a crook".

Legacy complete?

posted 05-19-2004 11:34 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by LunarRover:

I believe I read that President Nixon made a choice to use the USS Hornet (a fine vessel), instead of a ship named after JFK, as the prime recovery ship. Is that the case/can anyone corroborate?

Rover
kosb

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This is a partisan myth. The John F. Kennedy served in the Med., North Atlantic etc... In fact it has never been to the Pacific Ocean at all to date. But in any event it began service in late 1968 and was first deployed April of 1969 until December of 1969 in the Med.
http://navysite.de/cvn/cv67deploy.htm

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Warm Regards

Douglas Henry

Enjoy yourself and have fun.... it is only a hobby!