Known and Unknown - Donald Rumsfeld [39]
Because I had decided to help Gerald Ford defeat one of the old bulls in a leadership contest, I had earned the enmity of another member of the leadership, the second-ranking Republican in the House, Congressman Les Arends. Arends was one of the oldest of the old bulls, having been in Congress since 1935. Making matters worse, Arends was also the chairman of the Illinois GOP delegation. Among other privileges, he played the deciding role in all committee assignments for members from our state. I had been hoping for a spot on the Foreign Affairs, Armed Services, Appropriations, or Ways and Means committees. But helping Don Rumsfeld, a member of the GOP rebellion that threatened him, was at the bottom of Arends’ agenda. He adopted the philosophy of “don’t get mad, get even.”
Instead, I was assigned to what was considered one of the less important committees—the House Committee on Science and Astronautics, also known as the Space Committee. I was disappointed with the assignment but never had any regrets about supporting Ford for the leadership. Because the space race was heating up between the United States and the Soviet Union, the committee turned out to be more interesting than I had expected.
In 1957, the Soviets had launched Sputnik, the first satellite to orbit the earth, and the American people were surprised to find our country having to catch up to the Russians in an area where we had presumed superiority. President Kennedy had proposed a sharp increase in America’s investment in our space program. He put forward an ambitious proposal—to have the United States “commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.”1 The audacious promise captured the country’s imagination. In a can-do era, Americans felt, why shouldn’t we be able to go to the moon?
As a member of the subcommittee on manned space flight, I spent time with the men selected to accomplish President Kennedy’s bold pledge, including Neil Armstrong, years before he became the first person to take “one giant leap for mankind.” I admired their professionalism and their courage.
I understood the appeal of having an American walk on the lunar surface. I also knew that the administration was attempting to blunt criticism from its left that space would become the next frontier in the Cold War by making a point of emphasizing NASA’s peaceful, civilian missions.2 But I looked at the idea of a lunar landing somewhat differently. Was that, I wondered, the best use of finite resources? The Soviets were not worried about demonstrating peaceful intentions. Indeed, they announced that they had no interest in putting a man on the moon and concentrated on less dramatic but more practical efforts, such as manned orbital missions and satellite technology. By making the possible military use of space a lower priority, I was concerned America might allow the Soviets to gain superior capabilities in reconnaissance, intelligence, and communications, and in the process also develop the ability to destroy or neutralize other nations’ capabilities.
Another person shared that concern. Dr. Wernher von Braun was one of the brilliant scientific minds on our side. Two decades before I met him, he was Germany’s leading rocket engineer. Hitler rallied his forces after their defeat at Stalingrad with the help of von Braun’s V-2 rocket, called Hitler’s “wonder weapon,” that claimed thousands of lives. Thankfully, von Braun’s achievement came too late to turn things around. After the war, while other German scientists defected to or were captured by the Soviet Union, von Braun arranged the surrender of hundreds of his top German scientists to our American troops. This action, too, stirred anger. “He behaved like a traitor,” said one critic. “He smashed up half of London and other cities and he went crawling off to America with Germany’s secrets and became a hero.”3
Von Braun