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

Exploring the Unknown
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In his Inaugural Address, delivered on a wintry Washington afternoon,
President John F. Kennedy suggested to the leaders of the Soviet Union that
“together let us explore the stars.” 6 In his initial thinking about space policy,
Kennedy favored using space activities as a way of increasing the peaceful
interactions between the United States and its Cold War adversary. Soon after he
came to the White House, Kennedy directed his science advisor to undertake an
intensive review to identify areas of potential U.S.-Soviet space cooperation, and
that review continued for the first three months of the Kennedy administration,
only to be overtaken by the need to respond to the Soviet launch of Yuri Gagarin
on 12 April. Soviet-U.S. cooperation in space was a theme that Kennedy was to
return to in subsequent years.
A first order of business was to select someone to head NASA. After a number
of candidates indicated that they were not interested in the position, on the
advice of his Vice President, Lyndon B. Johnson, powerful Oklahoma Senator
Robert Kerr, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space
Sciences, and his science advisor Jerome Wiesner, Kennedy turned to James E.
Webb on 31 January. The NASA position was one of the last top-level jobs to
be filled by the new administration. Webb was from North Carolina, trained as
a lawyer and veteran of both congressional staff and senior executive branch
positions during the Truman administration, and had business experience
working for one of Kerr’s companies in Oklahoma. 7 Webb agreed to take the
NASA job, but only after meeting with the President, who told Webb that he
wanted “someone who understands policy. This program involves great issues
of national and international policy.” Webb got assurances from the President
that respected scientist and manager Hugh Dryden would be allowed to stay
on as NASA’s Deputy Administrator. Webb also decided to retain Associate
Administrator Robert Seamans, who served as the Agency’s general manager.
Seamans was a Republican, and Webb wanted to present NASA as not being
influenced by partisan politics. Webb was sworn in as NASA Administrator on
14 February. 8
John Kennedy’s closest advisor, Theodore Sorenson, was later to comment
that “Webb was not what we would call a Kennedy-type individual. He was
inclined to talk at great length, and the President preferred those who were
more concise in their remarks. He was inclined to be rather vague, somewhat
disorganized in his approach to a problem, and the President preferred those
who were more precise.” However, according to Sorenson, “I don’t know that the
President ever regretted his appointment of Webb, or wished that he had named
someone else.” (II-43)
Once Webb arrived at NASA, a first task was to review the Agency’s proposed
budget for FY 1962 that had been prepared by the outgoing Eisenhower
6. Public Papers of The Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1961 (Washington, DC:
Government Printing Office, 1962), p. 2.
7. For a perceptive biography of James E. Webb, see W. Henry Lambright, Powering Apollo: James
E. Webb of NASA (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995).
8. W. Henry Lambright, Powering Apollo: James E. Webb of NASA (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins
Press, 1995), pp. 82–87.