214. Memorandum of Conference with the President1
OTHERS PRESENT
- Dr. Glennan, General Goodpaster
Dr. Glennan said the ABMA transfer is going very well. He is receiving excellent cooperation from the Army and expects to have detailed papers ready before Congress reconvenes. He foresees certain problems when the Congress does reconvene. Although the big booster project is now being cleared up, there is still confusion regarding duality of management of the space program. He then read to the President excerpts from a memorandum on space organization (copy attached).
The President said he regards the space organization as having a major role in proving out what can be done in the field of space boosters. The military forces can then take over developments which they regard as having promising military applications.
The President suggested that Dr. Glennan next take up with the Department of Defense the proposals he had outlined. He said he was not aware of the great confusion to which Dr. Glennan had referred. Dr. Glennan said this is a concept the newspapers are trying to create and the Congress is trying to exploit. The President said it is quite acceptable to him to try to clarify the situation. This effort should not, however, be put on the basis that the Soviets hit the moon or took pictures of it. In his mind the real question is what should we—the United States—do. It seems that everything centers on the development of the big booster. He thought we should take one or two particular projects that we want to carry out and concentrate on those. Dr. Glennan said that the greatest problem is how to get into a real perspective regarding space that makes sense. He thought a Presidential public statement is essential.
[Facsimile Page 2]The President said that such a statement could be very brief. He would simply state what the law meant to those who proposed it. This could be put into proper language and placed before the American people. As to the budget and the program for space, he said he felt that should be thought out very carefully. He does not like the idea of growing and growing with no foreseeable limit. Instead we should try to find a level that seems about right. Dr. Glennan said that to develop payloads [Typeset Page 888] for the Saturn missile will take about three years and will be quite expensive. The building of a booster puts a “hump” in what would otherwise be a steady or level curve. The President said that the field of payloads is not an entirely new one. He did not think that we have to carry on expensive testing of Atlas, Titan, etc., just to hit the moon since these are being well checked out by the military forces. Dr. Glennan said he has one more immediate space shot in view—an attempt to orbit the moon using an Atlas-Able missile. Beyond this all others are scientific shots, for the study, exploration and investigation of space phenomena.
The President then spoke of his desire to see our country put on a sound fiscal basis. Sputnik gave a surge to defense spending from which we have not recovered. He said that if he has to approve another unbalanced budget he would be obliged to regard his Administration as discredited. He thought the key to our space program was the Saturn or the big booster. The job from now on is to develop it at a carefully determined speed, to decide what kind of instrumentation we would like for it to have, to consider how much of this has already been developed and what else is needed. He would concentrate on these tasks.
Referring again to the question of reorganization, Dr. Glennan said his proposal involves certain changes in the law including the elimination of the Space Council, the setting up of a NASA General Advisory Council, and the establishment of a Military Applications Committee, wholly within Defense, in lieu of the existing civilian military liaison committee.
The President recalled that Congress had wanted to put the responsibility directly on the President for deciding what would go into NASA and what into Defense. This part of our job is [Facsimile Page 3] very much behind us, and it would seem that there is less need for the Space Council and for this activity of the President. He asked Dr. Glennan to try to work the matter out with the Secretary of Defense, and if the latter agreed get the proposal published and on the record.
The President told Dr. Glennan there is one thing he would like very much to see and that would be for Dr. Glennan to put his face sternly against the working of Parkinson’s law, to hold his staff strictly limited to essentials. Dr. Glennan said this is difficult in the case of the ABMA since the Von Braun group increased about 1000 in the last year. He doubted that he could cut it back this year but would do so next year through not putting work there. Finally, Dr. Glennan said he would like to have a new name for the ABMA center. There are not many names of people famous in space activity. He asked whether the President would be favorable to naming it the George C. Marshall Center. The President said that he would, even though there was not much logical connection. Dr. Glennan said the matter would be studied further.
Brigadier General, USA
- Source: Transfer of ABMA to NASC; defense budget; reorganization of space activities. Confidential. 3 pp. Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, DDE Diaries. Drafted on December 1.↩