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The first of the televised talks occurred on November 7, four days after Sputnik II, and on the same day that newspapers across the country carried another saber-rattling interview with Khrushchev. “The fact that we were able to launch the first Sputnik, and then, a month later, launch a second shows that we can launch ten, even twenty satellites tomorrow,” the Soviet leader boasted, neglecting to mention that Korolev had used up his last R-7. “The satellite is the intercontinental ballistic missile with a different warhead. We can change that warhead from a bomb to a scientific instrument,” he added, in case anyone missed the point.

In his speech that evening, Eisenhower issued his retort. “The United States can practically annihilate the war-making capabilities of any other nation,” he said, listing the country’s lethal arsenal of long-range bombers, fleets of submarines parked under the polar ice cap, and the powerful rockets of its own that were being developed. “We are well ahead of the Soviets in the nuclear field both in quantity and in quality,” Ike declared. “We intend to stay ahead.”

“Although the Soviets are quite likely ahead in some missile and special areas, and are obviously ahead of us in satellite development,” he conceded, “as of today, the overall strength of the Free World is distinctly greater than that of Communist countries.”

As the president spoke, the camera panned back, revealing first his Oval Office desk, where a small brass plaque displayed the motto GENTLE IN MANNER, STRONG IN DEED, and then a strange white triangular object on the carpet at his feet. It was a nose cone from one of Wernher von Braun’s Jupiter C test rockets, and Eisenhower informed viewers that it had been shot into outer space during successful missile reentry tests. This was evidence, he said, that America was forging ahead with its own space and rocket programs, and that the situation was well in hand. “It misses the whole point to say that we must now increase our expenditures on all kinds of military hardware and defense,” the president warned. “Certainly, we should feel a high sense of urgency. But this does not mean that we should mount our charger and try to ride off in all directions at once. We cannot on an unlimited scale have both what we must have and what we would like to have. We can have both a sound defense and the sound economy on which it rests—if we set our priorities and stick to them.”

The message was clear: America was safe and strong, and no panicked deluge of defense dollars should be expected from the White House anytime soon. Eisenhower did, however, offer one concession to the new post-Sputnik reality: “I am appointing Dr. James Killian, president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as special assistant to the president for science and technology, a new post,” he said, outlining his major initiative to counter the Soviet threat.

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Among the millions of viewers that evening who had expected to hear the announcement of some major American initiative, General Bruce Medaris watched the address with an equal mix of bewilderment and frustration. Killian—that was it? No new money? No crash programs? No special national priority designations? The general was flabbergasted. Killian, to be sure, was widely respected in the rocket community. As head of the Technology Capabilities Panel that had recommended fast-tracking missiles in 1954, he had been the driving force behind America’s belated efforts to compete with the Soviets. But the appointment of a lone academic whom the New York Times described as “somewhat cherubic” and “as disarmingly pleasant as a successful hotel manager,” hardly evened the score with two Sputniks. Besides, in his new role as a presidential adviser, Killian would not even be in charge of streamlining the various lagging missile efforts. That job was given to an oil company executive with no rocket expertise or technical background.

Damn it, Medaris cursed, pacing around the grand piano that dominated