Red Moon Rising Sputnik and the Rivalries That Ignited the Space Age - Matthew Brzezinski [126]
The Gaither report detonated like a psychological bomb in the Oval Office. Sherman Adams worried Americans would find it “deeply shocking,” and counseled against releasing the study. John Foster Dulles was of the same mind, warning that making the document public would have “catastrophic results.” Moscow would perceive it as a sign of weakness, and the Democrats would have a field day undermining the president’s position. Already that scoundrel Lyndon Johnson had gotten wind of the report and wanted a copy for his upcoming congressional hearings.
Eisenhower adamantly refused, citing a little-used constitutional clause known as executive privilege. “Its disclosure would be inimical to the nation’s security,” he flatly told Senator Johnson, who for once found his vaunted powers of persuasion ineffective.
“It will be interesting to find out how long it can be kept secret,” Ike later observed at an NSC meeting during which Vice President Nixon argued against burying the study. It would leak anyway, he predicted, and the rumors and excerpts would be taken out of context by the media and would probably sound more frightening than the actual report.
Nixon was right. Snippets from the text began appearing in the press within days, though Chalmers Roberts of the Washington Post would break the most complete and alarming account of the study a few weeks later. “The still top-secret Gaither Report portrays a United States in the gravest danger in its history,” he wrote. “It pictures the nation moving in a frightening course to the status of a second-class power . . . and finds America’s long-term prospect one of cataclysmic peril in the face of rocketing Soviet military might. . . . Many of those who worked on the report were appalled and even frightened at what they discovered to be the state of American military posture in comparison with that of the Soviet Union.”
Not surprisingly, the Gaither report undid all of Ike’s attempts to restore calm and order with his Operation Confidence pep talks. “Arguing the Case for Being Panicky,” retorted the headline in Life magazine, in what was essentially a slap in the administration’s face. Once more, columnists howled that the president didn’t seem to appreciate the gravity of the situation. “Another tranquility pill,” one pundit scoffed at the November 7 national address. “It was by no means a blood, sweat and toil speech,” commented Eric Sevareid more charitably. “It contained little suggestion that sacrifices may be ahead, or that [Eisenhower] personally thinks they are necessary.” Editorials bristled with renewed indignation over the apparent complacency in the White House, which some now called the Tomb of the Well-Known Soldier. “Two Sputniks cannot sway Eisenhower,” griped the liberal-leaning New York Post. “The President’s answer in each instance is the same: we can’t do very much.”
Amid the barrage of criticism, Eisenhower’s approval rating plunged, sinking by 22 percentage points in barely six weeks, an unheard-of pace of decline in the modern presidency, where such erosions usually occur over far longer periods. “In a matter of a few months,” noted the historian Walter McDougall, “the rhetoric, the symbology of American politics had left Eisenhower completely behind.”
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While Eisenhower tried to ignore accusations of falling behind, pressure mounted for him to act more forcefully and to spend more freely. Democrats called for the immediate construction of a national network of air raid shelters, as recommended by the Gaither report, at the horrifyingly high cost of $22.5 billion. Congressmen demanded an emergency infusion of $3 billion to jump-start America’s lagging missile efforts, while educational groups exploited the Sputnik panic to push bills that would revamp curriculums, with a focus on science and mathematics.