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If he failed, though, the space option would forever be off the table. Khrushchev would not give him a second chance. His interplanetary dreams would be over, and he would spend the rest of his career working on ICBMs—if he was lucky. Everything depended on PS-2.

Korolev’s first order of business was to get his team back to Moscow OKB-1 headquarters, and that in itself was no easy task. After Sputnik’s launch, he had given all his top engineers time off to recuperate from the months of heavy exertion at Tyura-Tam. He himself could have used a break. He was exhausted, having worked himself to the point of collapse. But he’d stuck around Moscow, expecting the call from Khrushchev, knowing that the opportunity that might present itself had to be seized. Now he could only hope that his health would hold up another few weeks, and that his men could get back on time from various resorts on the Baltic and Black seas. The Chief Designer started issuing frantic recall notices. “My wife and I were in Kudespa on the Baltic when I received the telegram from Korolev to return to Moscow immediately,” Evgeny Shabarov recalled. “I went to the airport but couldn’t get any tickets.” Soviet airlines were always booked months in advance, especially from tourist destinations. “I went to see the airport administrator, and showed him the cable,” Shabarov went on. “Oh yes, I know all about you, he said, here’s your ticket.” Korolev had called the transport ministry, warning its officials that Khrushchev would have their heads if every single one of his rocket scientists was not back the next day.

“We’re returning to Tyura-Tam tomorrow,” the Chief Designer announced when all his astonished engineers had been assembled. “Be prepared to go back to work.”

10

OPERATION CONFIDENCE

“Soviets Orbit Second Artificial Moon; Communist Dog in Space,” screamed the headlines on the morning of Monday, November 4, 1957, as Americans awoke to another media riot and fresh rounds of recriminations.

“What next?” demanded the New York Herald Tribune incredulously. “A Man on the Moon?” “Moscow Mission to Mars in Near Future?” the Washington Star speculated, its editorial dripping with defeat and resignation. “Shoot the Moon, Ike,” urged the feistier Pittsburgh Press, suggesting defiantly that the White House blow the offending Soviet satellite to smithereens.

From his desk on the second story of the Old Senate Office Building, Lyndon Johnson surveyed the stack of alarmist articles, the barest hint of a smile creasing his craggy features. “Plunge heavily into this one,” advised an accompanying note from his aide George Reedy. But Johnson needed no exhortations from underlings to spot the opportunity he had been waiting for. For several weeks now he’d been sitting on the sidelines, gauging the political winds. The deals had been cut, and his rival, Stuart Symington, had been dispensed with. The only remaining question had been the timing, since Congress was not in session.

During the past month, Johnson had busily poisoned the well against Symington, who may have “looked most like a President,” in the opinion of the New York Times, but had proven no match for the master of the “Johnson Treatment.” The Democratic majority leader had not only wooed Richard Russell but also sweet-talked the ranking Republican members of the Armed Services Committee, Styles Bridges and Leverett Saltonstall. “Let’s not look for scapegoats,” he told them, “but let’s find out what’s wrong and let’s do what’s necessary to fix it.” Johnson conceded that Symington was the Senate’s leading expert on missiles, but he said mournfully that the Missourian was also out for blood, looking only to hold Air Power hearings that would be “too shrill” in tone, “too partisan” in nature. The Preparedness subcommittee, on the other hand, would be bipartisan and interested only in “solving the problems,” not apportioning blame. Never mind that the subcommittee was defunct and had not