IN THE BEGINNING, THE SELECT COMMITTEE 



5 



"neat scientific trick"; Wilson added that "nobody is going to drop 

 anything down on you from a satellite while you're asleep, so don't 

 worry about it." Another high administration official, Clarence E. 

 Randall, characterized Sputnik as "a silly bauble," and Presidential 

 Chief of Staff Sherman Adams joked about the "outerspace basketball 

 game." When he wrote his memoirs, Firsthand Report, Adams 

 conceded that "Eisenhower said he preferred to play down the whole 

 thing. * * * | W as only trying to reflect the President's desire for 

 calm poise." 



Despite the frenzied flurry of activity at the working levels of 

 Government, the public gained the distinct impression that Congress 

 was the only branch of Government which had the correct sense of 

 urgency. When the Soviets lofted their second Sputnik in November, 

 The New York Times carried an account the tone of which was dup- 

 licated throughout the Nation: 



The White House said today that the new Soviet satellite was "no surprise" as 

 it fell "within the pattern of what was anticipated." 



Mrs. Ann Wheaton, Assistant Press Secretary at the White House, said the 

 President had received considerable information in advance on expected Soviet 

 achievements 



Members of Congress, however, increased their clamor for an investigation of the 

 US missile and satellite program 



THE JOHNSON COMMITTEE HEARINGS AND VANGUARD 



The boldest, most positive reaction on Capitol Hill came from 

 Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson. The Preparedness Investi- 

 gating Subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee on 

 November 25, 1957, started what turned out to be voluminous hearings 

 on the Nation's satellite and missile programs. A future Secretary of 

 State, Cyrus Vance, was assistant counsel of the investigating sub- 

 committee, which helped dramatize the initiative of the Congress to 

 meet the crisis. One of the recommendations of the Johnson subcom- 

 mittee was to "start work at once on the development of a rocket 

 motor with a million-pound thrust." 



While the Johnson hearings were going on, America was plunged 

 into deeper gloom as the eyes of the world were focused on the spec- 

 tacular failure of the first attempt by the United States to orbit a 

 satellite. The Navy's Vanguard, with a payload of less than 4 pounds, 

 made a pitiful effort to get off the ground, but blew up on the launching 

 pad on December 6, 1957. The December 7 headlines made it awesomely 

 clear that America had suffered another Pearl Harbor for science and 

 technology 



"This administration does not appreciate the urgency of the 

 situation," proclaimed Majority Leader McCormack. Speaker Rayburn 



