_Live From Cape Canaveral_ - Jay Barbree [40]
With men and women cosmonauts speeding about the heavens, the cry in Washington was heard all the way to President Kennedy’s desk: “For God’s sake, do something!”
November 16, 1963, JFK flew to Cape Canaveral. He wanted a first-hand look at the launch center and the growing moonport. Dr. Wernher von Braun took the President all over his new Saturn I rocket. The big booster was being readied for its first all-up test flight, and the famed rocket scientist told Kennedy, “With 1.3 million pounds of thrust, Mr. President, Saturn I will level the playing field with the Russians.”
Kennedy left Dr. von Braun and climbed into a helicopter with Gordon Cooper and Gus Grissom. With unabashed excitement and pride, the two astronauts pointed out the key features of the growing moonport. They showed him where one day a monster called Saturn V would stand on its launch pad. Here, the name Apollo was gaining substance with every passing day.
President John Kennedy is touring Project Apollo’s growing facilities at Cape Canaveral six days before an assassin would take his life in Dallas. (NASA).
Gus Grissom thanked him for his vision, unaware that he and JFK would not live to see Americans sail across the void between Earth and its moon. Six days after he viewed the launch areas for his Project Apollo, the President of the United States was murdered by an assassin’s bullet during a Dallas motorcade.
Shocked and stunned, America slowed to a stop. With the nation wracked by emotional loss, workers at Cape Canaveral joined in mourning for the passing of a man who had meant so much to America’s space effort. My family sought the solace of our home and watched the unending drama unfold on television. Our two-year-old, Alicia, walked our floors babbling the name Kennedy. There had never been and most likely never will be another such time. In the coming weeks, a shroud of uncertainty draped itself over Apollo. Its key supporter was dead, and a strange lassitude infected us all.
Lyndon Johnson was now President, and that old saying about a man growing into the job had never before rung so true. In the Congress, and as Vice President, Johnson may have been the top huckster on Capitol Hill, but when he took the presidential oath of office aboard Air Force One in Dallas, Lyndon Baines Johnson became a President as serious as a heart attack. He turned out to be the space program’s new best friend, but the new chief executive had much more on his plate.
In the summer of 1964, the battle for equal rights, led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was coming to a head. Surprisingly, one of the major battles would not be in the heart of the old Confederacy. Rather, it would be in the country’s oldest city: St. Augustine, a Florida tourist town 110 miles north of Cape Canaveral.
My New York desk called and said, “You’re it! Go!”
I left eagerly. Most reporters fought for story variety, and when it came to Dr. King, this was one Southerner who wanted to be there. I admired the man, thought what he was doing was long overdue, but still did my best to perform my journalistic duties ethically. I had been in St. Augustine for three weeks when the night of the showdown arrived.
Andrew Young was executive vice president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He was, in reality, Dr. King’s “right arm.” He was the same Andrew Young who would later become ambassador to the United Nations for President Jimmy Carter. He had been leading marches from a black church to the “Old Slave Market,” a downtown tourist attraction. There had been scuffles between whites and blacks, but nothing compared with what was about to take place.
The gathering storm had built to its full force in the evening darkness. Andrew Young led two columns of protestors out of the church. They moved down the street, becoming a surging sea of motion in the bright lights of television news crews.
I walked quickly along the marchers’ side, occasionally running to the front,