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

410 Project Apollo: Americans to the Moon
supplemental budget request for FY 1963 and a late 1967 target for the first lunar
landing. The second was to examine the budget implications of an accelerated
program along the lines being advocated by Holmes. The final option examined
the impact of slipping the landing date target by a year. Bell told the President “I
agree with Mr. Webb that alternative 1, the NASA recommendation, is probably
the most appropriate choice at this time.”
Holmes remained unhappy. He was the apparent source for a second Time
story that appeared on 19 November, titled “Space is in Earthly Trouble.” The
magazine’s editors had deleted a Holmes quote from the story before it was
published that said “The major stumbling block of getting to the moon is James
E. Webb. He won’t fight for our program.” 30
Given the now-public controversy, President Kennedy scheduled a 21
November meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House to discuss NASA’s
plans for Apollo. Like a number of meetings while Kennedy was President, this
meeting was tape-recorded; a transcript of the discussion provides a rare insight
into the interactions between Kennedy and Webb. (II-33) During the meeting,
Kennedy and Webb had the following exchange:
President Kennedy: Do you think this program [Apollo] is the toppriority
of the Agency?
James Webb: No, sir, I do not. I think it is one of the top-priority
programs, but I think it’s very important to recognize here . . . and that
you have found what you could do with a rocket as you could find how
you could get out beyond the Earth’s atmosphere and into space and
make measurements. Several scientific disciplines that are very powerful
are beginning to converge on this area.
President Kennedy: Jim, I think it is the top priority. I think we ought to
have that very clear. Some of these other programs can slip six months,
or nine months, and nothing strategic is gonna happen, it’s gonna . . .
But this is important for political reasons, international political reasons.
This is, whether we like it or not, in a sense a race. If we get second to
the Moon, it’s nice, but it’s like being second any time. So that if we’re
second by six months, because we didn’t give it the kind of priority, then
of course that would be very serious. So I think we have to take the view
that this is the top priority with us.
Later in the meeting, the President and the NASA head continued their debate:
President Kennedy: Everything that we do ought to really be tied into
getting onto the Moon ahead of the Russians.
30. Dwayne Day has provided a discussion of these issues which can be found at http://history.
nasa.gov/JFK-Webbconv/pages/backgnd.html (accessed 25 August 2006).