Already, the Glenn L. Martin Company: Green and Lomask, Vanguard, p. 210.
“This program has had unprecedented publicity”: Time, December 16, 1957.
“It lies with the President”: Piszkiewicz, Wernher von Braun, p. 117.
“How long, how long oh God”: Cadbury, Space Race, p. 173.
95 percent of his speech and motor skills: Eisenhower, Waging Peace, p. 229.
“There were open and widespread suggestions that the President resign”: Time, December 9, 1957.
“It is the whole free world that is sick in bed with Ike”: Divine, The Sputnik Challenge, p. 59.
243 “In my mind was the question”: Eisenhower, Waging Peace, pp. 230-31.
The move would inspire a running joke: Dickson, Sputnik, p. 144.
“This man is not what he was”: Killian, Sputnik, Scientists, and Eisenhower, p. 234.
245 The Chief Designer was diagnosed with arrhythmia, coupled with “over-fatigue”: Cadbury, Space Race, p. 175.
a region-wide search for Tsander’s grave: Ibid.
246 tales of the mixed-breed terrier Laika: Harford, Korolev, p. 132.
astonishingly detailed descriptions of the devices: Burrows, This New Ocean, p. 207.
“Tell me, Sergei Pavlovich”: Nikita Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers, vol. 2, p. 82.
247 “to deliver the Soviet Coat of Arms to the Moon”: Cadbury, Space Race, p. 179.
“Korolev works for TASS”: Harford, Korolev, p. 116.
“Before you begin your questioning”: Medaris, Countdown for Decision, p. 178.
248 “The chief reason”: Philip Nash, The Other Missiles of October: Eisenhower, Kennedy, and the Jupiters, 1951-1963 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), p. 20.
248 “was being authorized to proceed on a ‘top-priority’ basis”: Caro, Master of the Senate, p. 1025.
“With feelings much different from those”: Medaris, Countdown for Decision, p. 190.
249 “Proposal for a National Integrated Missile and Space Vehicle Development Program”: Ordway and Sharpe, The Rocket Team, p. 262.
“like a yo-yo”: NASA Oral History series, http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/oral_histories/NASA_HQ/Ballistic/SchrieverBA/schrieverba.pdf.
“Sputnik woke us up”: Ibid.
“So I also closed the door”: Medaris, Countdown for Decision, p. 188.
tried to covertly buy the Itek Corporation: Taubman, Secret Empire, p. 229.
In the summer of 1957, Bissell, Edwin Land, and Jim Killian: Ibid., p. 230.
250 “Our first goal was to put the genie back in the bottle”: Bissell, Reflections of a Cold Warrior, p. 135.
“I had to invent an elaborate cover explanation”: Ibid., p. 136.
251 “Some awful needles were stuck into this thing”: Legislative Origins of the National Aeronautics and Space Act: Proceedings of an Oral History Workshop Conducted April 3, 1992, Monographs in Space History no. 8, http://www.history.nasa.gov/40than/legislat.pdf.
“We will be walking a very tight wire with our lives”: Bergaust, Wernher von Braun, p. 226.
252 “There are too many people in government who have the right to say no”: Harris, A New Command, p. 191.
“At the Pentagon they shudder when they speak of the ‘gap’”: Prados, The Soviet Estimate, p. 80.
“a leaky ship, with a committee on the bridge”: Divine, The Sputnik Challenge, p. 118.
“Speaking so fast”: Caro, Master of the Senate, p. 1023.
“Control of space means control of the world”: Goodwin, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream, p. 145.
253 “Light a match behind Lyndon and he’ll orbit”: Caro, Master of the Senate, p. 1025.
“I’m not going to ask you about the precise date”: Green and Lomask, Vanguard, p. 214.
“Do not admit to the presence of the vehicle”: Harris, A New Command, p. 184.
“I desire it well understood”: Bille and Lishock, The First Space Race, p. 127.
“Personal observation had convinced me”: Medaris, Countdown for Decision, p. 193.
254 It consisted of four stages: http://www.history.msfc.nasa.gov/milestones/chpt4.pdf.
extending the Redstone’s burning time from 121 to 155 seconds: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/explorer/index.html.
“Ship it to Florida, it will do the job”: Bergaust, Wernher von Braun, p. 275.
255 “It became quite obvious that every effort”: Medaris, Countdown for Decision, p. 196.
“We bootlegged the whole job”: Dickson, Sputnik, p. 169.
“thought it would be wise to prepare it in such a way”: Stuhlinger and Ordway, Wernher von Braun, pp. 134-35.
256 “Almost every reference to Army-developed hardware was stricken”: Medaris, Countdown for Decision, p. 196.
256 “This is our biggest challenge”: Ibid., p. 188.
257 “just about as thoroughly bored”: Nash, The Other Missiles of October, p. 35.
“The symbols of 1957 were two pale, clear streaks of light”: Time, January 6, 1958.
“make some specific arrangements”: Eisenhower, Waging Peace, p. 223.
“I decided to confine the annual message”: Ibid., p. 240.
258 “We could see the Army preparations on their launch pad”: Stehling, Project Vanguard, p. 159.
259 “The night was miserable cold and wet”: Ibid., p. 163.
“Our people did not take kindly to the idea of sitting”: Medaris, Countdown for Decision, p. 200.
260 “Above our meeting in the hangar hovered a ghostly”: Stehling, Project Vanguard, p. 175.
261 “an ardent Nazi” who had “denounced his colleagues to the Gestapo”: Cadbury, Space Race, p. 12.
polysulfide aluminum and ammonium perchlorate: http://www.history.nasa.gov/sputnik/expinfo.html.
262 apex predictor: Stuhlinger and Ordway, Wernher von Braun, p. 136.
“Do you really want to rely on this alone?”: Ibid., p. 137.
winds… reaching 225 miles per hour: Ordway and Sharpe, The Rocket Team, p. 263.
263 “What’s happened? What are you going to do?”: Medaris, Countdown for Decision, p. 207.
264 “Highly marginal. We do not recommend that you try it”: Ibid., p. 209.
winds… still gusted at 157 miles per hour: Bergaust, Wernher von Braun, p. 276.
“Everyone was going on sheer nerve”: Medaris, Countdown for Decision, p. 210.
a twenty-four-year-old first lieutenant by the name of John Meisenheimer: Harris, A New Command, p. 187.
“Every man on the crew was conscious that the hopes of a Nation”: Medaris, Countdown for Decision, p. 212.
265 “The searchlights are going on and lighting up the vehicle”: Time, February 10, 1958.
“There is nothing that I have ever encountered”: Medaris, Countdown for Decision, p. 212.
“When the countdown reaches zero, the bird will not begin to rise immediately”: Time, February 10, 1958.
266 “Go, baby! Go!”: Harris, A New Command, p. 189.
“No. Let ’em sweat a little”: Time, February 10, 1958.
267 “I’m out of coffee and running low on cigarettes”: Harris, A New Command, p. 189.
“Do you hear her?”… Do you hear her now?”: Bergaust, Wernher von Braun, p. 278.
“Wernher, what’s happened?”: Ibid.
“Goldstone has the bird!”: Medaris, Countdown for Decision, p. 224.
Epilogue
269 “It represented only a symbolic counter threat to the United States”: Nikita Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers, vol. 2, p. 80.
“It would have been better to dump them in the sea”: Nash, The Other Missiles of October, p. 3.
270 “It is entirely possible that having a failure in the oxygen equipment”: http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/dl/u2incident/departmentstatementonU25560.pdf.
at 8,500 feet by grappling hooks attached to the front of a C-119 military plane: Taubman, Secret Empire, p. 321.
271
“Those friggin missiles”: Nash, The Other Missiles of October, p. 3.
a catastrophic explosion: Mikhail E. Kuznetsky, Bajkonur, Korolev, Yangel (Voronezh: Voronezh, 1997), p. 127.
272 So poor were the harvests that the Soviet Union faced food shortages: Medvedev and Medvedev, Khrushchev, pp. 118-19.
197 of the 200 full members: Ibid., p. 172.
273 Soviet industrial growth began to slow dramatically in the mid-1960s: Haines and Leggett, eds., CIA’s Analysis of the Soviet Union, 1941–1990, p. 191.
“I did everything I could to patch up their friendship”: Nikita Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers, vol. 2, p. 79.
the cause of death was complications during routine surgery: Harford, Korolev, p. 279.
274 more commonly known as the Scud: Russian Arms Catalog, vol. 4, Strategic Missile Forces (Moscow: Military Parade Publishers, 1997), pp. 44-45 (in English).
because he refused to endorse escalating America’s involvement in Vietnam: http://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/mep/displaydoc.cfm?docid=erpn-stusym.
275 “You want to threaten? We will answer threats”: Dunar, America in the Fifties, p. 294.
The hidden hand: Greenstein, The Hidden-Hand Presidency, p. vii.
a reevaluation that coincided, in part, with the declassification: Dunar, America in the Fifties, p. 326.
276 His farewell address to the nation in January 1961: Eisenhower, Waging Peace, p. 615.
Donald Quarles… was to have succeeded Neil McElroy as secretary of defense in 1959: http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/donaldau.htm.
Joseph P. Kennedy offered Medaris a job: Harris, A New Command, p. 213.
he accepted the presidency of the Lionel Corporation: Ibid., p. 216.
he was ordained an Episcopal priest: Ibid., p. 254.
Paris Match, the glossy French magazine, published a glowing article: Piszkiewicz, Wernher von Braun, pp. 163-64.
Arthur Rudolf… was quietly extradited to West Germany: Simpson, Blowback, p. 39.
278 it supplies the boosters that orbit private U.S. satellites: Author telephone interview with Paula Korn, Sea Launch Public Affairs Office, November 11, 2005.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Though my name is on the cover, this book is really the product of two brilliant minds. It was conceived by Scott Waxman and Paul Golob, who cajoled, conspired, and finally convinced me that I was the right person to write it. And for this I am eternally grateful—both for their collective wisdom and for their confidence.
Scott is the personification of the proactive agent, and I’m truly lucky that he represents me. Paul is the best editor I’ve ever worked with: cerebral, classy, and a man of his word. His guiding hand can be felt throughout the manuscript, and his uncanny ability to see the big picture has endowed this project with whatever weight it has. As with Scott, I count myself fortunate to have worked with him.
At Times Books and Henry Holt, a number of other people have made this book possible: first and foremost, John Sterling, whose patronage has been instrumental. David Wallace-Wells, Chris O’Connell, Jessica Firger, Claire McKinney, Maggie Richards, and Nick Caruso also richly deserve praise. They are responsible for the finished product and its placement in bookstores. Farley Chase of the Waxman Agency has also been responsible for shaping this book, and he has worked tirelessly developing its audio and foreign editions. I owe him thanks, in several languages.
In the course of my research, I have greatly benefited from the accumulated knowledge of Peter Gorin, who is probably the leading civilian expert in the United States on Soviet space and missile programs. Peter’s encyclopedic memory and vast archive of Russian scientific materials are the driving force behind the technical sections of the book. I would also be remiss if I did not thank Sergei Khrushchev, whose memory and recollections form the foundation for some the book’s best action scenes. Professor Khrushchev—himself a rocket scientist, and one of the only surviving eyewitnesses to many of the events depicted in the text—was exceedingly generous with his time, and I owe him a great debt for sharing his political insights as well.
On the political front, Eric Rubin—a friend, senior foreign service officer, old Russia hand, and student of history—nudged me whenever I strayed in trying to make sense of American domestic and cold war politics in the 1950s, and I am grateful for his counsel. In re-creating the political dynamics of the era, I’ve also relied on the accrued wisdom of many American scholars and space historians. They are too numerous to cite here, but I’ve made a point of acknowledging their contributions whenever possible within the body of the text.
And last, but certainly not least, I want to thank Roberta, my muse, critic, fan, editor, and better half. She makes everything possible.
INDEX
A-10 rocket, 15–16
ABC TV, 90–91, 234
Abramov, Anatoly, 151
Acheson, Dean, 141
Adams, Sherman, 55–56, 169, 171, 221, 231–32, 243
Adlershof research institute, 6–7
Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), 223, 274
Aerojet-General Corporation, 226
agriculture, Soviet, 37–39, 272–73
Air Force, U.S.bombers and, 57–59
ICBMs and, 79–81
intelligence, 58–59
IRBMs and, 51–52, 129
missile budget, 132
spy satellites and, 133–34, 180, 185, 249–51
U-2 and, 119–20, 126, 130
Air Force Ballistic Missile Division, 51
“Air Power” hearings (1956), 56–58, 79, 183, 214
Air War College, 82
Alaska, 129
Albania, 193
Alsop, Joseph, 252
Alsop, Stewart, 252
Ambrose, Stephen, 139, 229
American Rocket Society, 223
Anderson, Clinton, 248
Anderson, Robert, 223
Andropov, Yuri, 75
anticommunism, 23, 57, 88–89
Apollo spacecraft, 277
Arbenz, Jacobo, 118
Arkansas National Guard, 139
Armstrong, Neil, 275
Army, U.S., 8–12, 51, 86, 89, 132–34, 249
Army Air Corps, U.S., 46–47
Army Ordnance, U.S., 238
Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA, Huntsville), U.S.
cut out of ICBM program, 79–83, 89–90
dismantled, for NASA, 277
Jupiter C missile and, 134
satellite prepared and launched by, 247–51, 253–56, 258–67, 276
satellite race and, 166, 178–79, 181, 185–87, 218–20, 224–26, 238
Sputnik launch and, 161–68
Wilson tour and funding of, 45–48, 51–52, 54–55
Ascoli, Max, 173
Associated Press, 178, 220
astronaut, 108, 121
Astronautical Research and Development Agency (ARDA), proposed, 223
Astronomer’s Circular, 136
Atlas ICBM, 52, 102, 129, 144, 249, 251, 269
atomic bomb, 35, 40, 89, 148
Atomic Energy Commission, 248
atomic spaceship, 234–35
Auschwitz, 8, 12
Aviation Day air show, 58
B-29 bomber, 26
B-47 long-range bombers, 24–25, 38
B-52 Stratofortress, 25, 38, 59, 79, 101
Balanin, Grigory, 105
Balanina, Maria, 103–7
Barmin, Vladimir, 102, 198, 202
Bay of Pigs fiasco, 270–71
BBC, 76
Bear bombers, 26, 55, 57, 127
Bell Laboratories, 82, 119, 226
Bennett, Rawson, 171
Beon, Yves, 12
Bergaust, Erik, 82, 238
Berlin airlift, 88–89
Birmingham News, 177
Bison bombers, 26, 55, 57–58, 127
Bissell, Richard, 117–25, 127, 131–35, 185, 249–51, 270–71, 276
“black list” of German scientists, 9
blacklists, McCarthyite, 67, 88–89
“black” military programs, 119
Boeing, 26, 59, 278
Bohlen, Charles, 124, 130
bombers and “bomber gap,” 24–26, 38, 50, 53, 55, 57–59, 80–81, 94, 101, 117, 127, 131, 218
Boyle’s law, 121, 123
Braden, Spruille, 118
Bradley, Omar, 46, 48
Brezhnev, Leonid, 111, 149, 195, 272
Bridger, Jim, 225
Bridges, Styles, 214, 216
Brown v. Board of Education, 136–37
Brucker, Wilbur, 164–65, 265, 267
Brundage, Percival, 226
Bukharin, Nikolai, 21
Bulganin, Nikolai, 18, 28, 30, 41–42, 44, 74, 76, 109, 112
Bulgaria, 63
Bulychev, Ivan, 144
Burrows, William, 133
C-118 plane, 126
Cadbury, Deborah, 108
Cape Canaveral, 153, 232–34, 238–40, 242, 250–51, 253, 255, 258–67
Caro, Robert A., 252
Castro, Fidel, 271
Catherine the Great, czarina of Russia, 206
Catholic Church, 73
CBS, 172, 196
Central Committee, USSR, 27, 31–32, 72, 112, 192, 272
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 18, 23, 25–27, 31, 33, 39, 44, 58, 73, 94, 215, 241, 273
satellites and, 134, 227, 249–51
U-2 and, 116–21, 126–28, 130–32, 270
Vietnam and, 274–75
Chechens, 32
Chekunov, Boris, 156–57, 159
Chelomey, Vladimir, 100–101
Chertok, Boris, 6–8, 11–15, 39, 68, 85, 96, 98–100, 113–15, 154, 198
Chicago Tribune, 180
China, 89, 184, 199, 208–9
Chrysler Corp., 51–52, 224
Churchill, Winston, 237
Civil Rights Act (1957), 138
civil rights movement, 90, 136–41, 182–84
CL-282 Aquatone (later U-2 plane), 116, 119
Clarke, John, 4–5
Clarke, Rosemary Ann, 4, 5
Clemens, Samuel (Mark Twain), 118
college loan program, 222–23, 274
Commerce Department, 169, 223
communism
collapse of, 246
Republican fear of, 23–24
Communist Party of the USSR, 21, 22, 28, 111