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

Exploring the Unknown 205
pursuing this idea. We may look into the costs and get some more
details on the scaled-up capsule.
Joachim P. Kuettner
Chief
MERCURY-REDSTONE Project
Enc:
Letters of Commendation
Copies to: M-S&M-TSM (Record copy)
M-S&M-DIR
Document I-37
Document Title: James E. Webb, Administrator, NASA, to James C. Hagerty, Vice
President, American Broadcasting Company, 1 June 1961.
Source: Folder 18674, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History
Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington DC.
James C. Hagerty had served as President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s press secretary between
1953 and 1961, and in that capacity he had dealt often with the media issues brought to the
forefront by Soviet “space spectaculars.” Upon his departure from Washington with the end
of the Eisenhower administration he keenly understood the excitement of spaceflight and in
that context tried, as this letter suggests, to play upon the public’s interest in the astronauts
to aid his new organization, ABC, by organizing a joint television special with the first two
humans in space, Yuri Gagarin and Alan Shepard. NASA Administrator James E. Webb’s
instinct was probably correct in refusing this offer. Even if the Soviets were willing to allow
Gagarin’s appearance on ABC , the question at the time of this correspondence was, why
would the U.S. want to allow the Soviet Union to upstage the 5 May success of Shepard’s
flight with the joint television appearance? Instead, Shepard spent several months making
public and media appearances to bolster confidence in the American space effort vis à vis its
rival, the Soviet Union.
Mr. James C. Hagerty
Vice President
American Broadcasting Company
7 West 66th Street
New York 23, New York
June 1, 1961