Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in ... - The Black Vault

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Project Apollo: Americans to the Moon
George M. Low [signed for]
George E. Mueller
Deputy Associate Administrator
for Manned Space Flight
Enclosures:
Figure 1
Figure 2
Document II-39
Document Title: Letter to Representative Albert Thomas from President John F.
Kennedy, 23 September 1963.
Source: John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, Boston, Massachusetts.
Document II-40
Document Title: Memorandum from Jerome B. Wiesner to the President, “The
US Proposal for a Joint US-USSR Lunar Program,” 29 October 1963.
Source: John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, Boston, Massachusetts.
Speaking before the United Nations General Assembly on 20 September 1963, President
Kennedy suggested that the United States and the Soviet Union might cooperate in a “joint
mission to the moon.” Given that Project Apollo originated in 1961 in a desire to beat the
Soviet Union to the Moon, and that the president had reiterated in 1962 that this was
his primary motivation for funding the undertaking at a high level, this proposal came
as a surprise to many. But President Kennedy had been interested in space cooperation
with the Soviet Union since he had come to the White House, and according to his top
advisor, Theodore Sorenson, he would have preferred to cooperate with the Soviet Union
rather than compete with them. The reaction to the 12 April 1961 Soviet launch of Yuri
Gagarin, however, suggested to Kennedy that competition was his only option. When he
suggested cooperation to Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev at a June 1961 summit meeting,
Khrushchev rebuffed the idea, and this reinforced Kennedy’s belief that competition was the
only path open to him. By September 1963, Kennedy tried once again to raise the possibility
of cooperation.
Kennedy’s proposal angered those in the Congress who had been strongest in support of Apollo as
a competitive undertaking. In a letter to Representative Albert Thomas, who chaired the House
Appropriations Subcommittee that controlled the NASA budget, Kennedy explained how his
proposal was consistent with a strong Apollo effort. There were also a number of suggestions that
Kennedy’s proposal was primarily a public relations move, or a way of gracefully withdrawing
from the M oon race after the U.S. success during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Balanced against