posted 10-04-2017 01:03 PM               

US intelligence, the military, and the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower not only were fully in­formed of Soviet planning to launch an earth satellite but also knew a So­viet satellite would probably achieve orbit no later than the end of 1957. For intelligence and administration officials, there was no surprise and no intelligence failure, but the Soviets achieved a political and propaganda triumph because Eisenhower had believed a rush into space was unwarranted and that a Soviet arrival there first would have little meaning. For Eisenhower, there was no "space race."