Red Moon Rising Sputnik and the Rivalries That Ignited the Space Age - Matthew Brzezinski [105]
At the White House, an alarmed Vice President Nixon was keeping tabs on the scheming Texan, the man he well knew was lining up to challenge him in 1960. Go to Congress, he urged Ike, to defuse the situation. Disarm Johnson and Symington by offering concessions that will knock the wind out of their sails. Bring the Senate into the conversation before it tries to bring you down, he counseled, knowing that it was his political future that could suffer most in the long run. But Ike, who had a stubborn streak that belied his gentle, outwardly docile nature, declined. He would maintain a posture of business-as-usual and would not dignify the uproar by pandering to a bunch of self-serving lawmakers.
At an emergency session of the National Security Council on Thursday, October 10, Nixon once more advocated a stronger response. The session was opened by Allen Dulles, who outlined Sputnik’s far-reaching implications. “We do not, as of yet, know if the satellite is sending out encoded messages,” he said. “Furthermore, we must expect additional launchings.”
Dulles had warned Eisenhower in late September that a Soviet launch was imminent, and he and Nixon had proposed going public with the information to lessen the potential shock. Their suggestion had been rejected, and now Dulles listed the consequences. “Khrushchev has moved all his propaganda guns in place,” he said. Sputnik was merely “one of a trilogy” of public relations coups. “The other two being the announcement of the successful testing of an ICBM, and the recent test of a large scale hydrogen bomb at Novaya Zemlya. Incidentally,” he added, the Soviets had just exploded another big H-bomb “late last night.”
The close timing of the three feats, Dulles noted, was having “a very wide and deep impact” abroad. The Chinese, he said, were treating Sputnik as proof of Soviet military and technological supremacy over the United States. Similar statements were coming out of Egypt and other countries in the Middle East, and Moscow was giving “the theme maximum play” with its Eastern European satellite states. Even America’s Western European allies, Dulles reported, were rattled, and confidence in NATO, particularly in France, had taken a psychological hit. All in all, the situation on the foreign policy front was “pretty somber.”
Eisenhower interrupted at one point to inquire about Sputnik’s weight: Was it really so heavy? he asked, saying he had heard that “someone here had gotten a decimal point out of place.” Unfortunately, he was assured, it was indeed 184 pounds.
The floor was then turned over to Quarles, who once more launched into an impassioned defense of why the government had chosen to separate the IGY project from ballistic missile programs to pave the way for spy satellites. “In this respect,” Quarles reiterated his point from Tuesday’s meeting, “the Soviets have now proved very helpful. Their satellite has over-flown practically every nation, and thus far there have been no protests.”
Two things stood out about the Sputnik launch, Quarles reluctantly conceded. First, it was “clear evidence that the Soviets possess a competence in long-range rocket and auxiliary fields which is more advanced than we had credited them with.” And second, the outer space reconnaissance implications of the launch were “of very great significance.”
Both conclusions contradicted Ike’s public statements. But they must have rung loud and clear for Allen Dulles, for already Richard Bissell had approached him with the idea of quietly stealing the spy satellite mandate away from Quarles and the air force, as they