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

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First Steps into Space: Projects Mercury and Gemini
Dear Jim:
Since our discussion on May 19th I have given a good deal of thought
to the proposal outlined in the letter you delivered to me on that date, that Alan
Shepard and Yuri Gagarin appear together in New York City on a nation-wide
telecast. I cannot see how Shepard’s appearance would serve a useful purpose,
and I believe it could be detrimental to the best interests of the United States.
Although, as I told you, your proposal involves national policy questions
beyond my own direct responsibility, I feel that it is my duty to state my conviction
that the whole plan is unwise.
The Mercury flight of Alan Shepard was performed before the eyes of the
whole world. He reported his immediate experience and reactions at the press
conference on May 8th in Washington. On June 6th Shepard and other members
of the Space Task Group will give a full report on the results of the flight at a
scientific and technical conference in Washington which will be widely reported
and whose proceedings will be published. Further reporting could add nothing
significant.
The free and open way in which we have proceeded to share our manned
contrast to Soviet secrecy and their unsupported and conflicting descriptions of
the Gagarin flight.
If, [2] as you have proposed, Gagarin would be free to tell his story in whatever
manner he so desired, it is fair to assume it would not be in a full and complete
factual framework but a rather in the same framework as previous reports.
Why then should we permit the Soviet Union to blunt the impact of the
open conduct of our program by the use of a nation-wide telecast as a propaganda
forum?
From past experience, the Russians might very well use Gagarin’s appearance
here in the United States to announce and to exploit, again without full facts, and
to a large audience, another Russian manned flight, timed to coincide with his
appearance here—perhaps a flight of two or three persons. In such a situation,
to compare Shepard’s sub orbital flight with that of Gagarin, or with some other
Russian achievement, would be inconsistent with the reporting of the flight as only
one step in the U.S. ten-year program for space exploration.
With regret that I cannot encourage your proposal, and with best wishes,
I am Sincerely yours,
[Signed]
James E. Webb
Administrator