RACING FOR THF. MOON 



67 



right in here." Sisk added: "We wanted to find out the criteria, the 

 procedure used, because this agency is going to spend billions in the 

 future, and we felt right now was the time to establish once and for 

 all that this committee should have rhe right." Miller stated: "If we 

 arc going to keep scandal away from NASA, and the rest of them 

 spending this money, they certainly can stand the scrutiny of this 

 committee and the scrutiny of the Comptroller General's office, and 

 I for one think they flout the will of Congress." 



The Comptroller General, asked by the committee to assist, issued 

 a devastating report following a further denial of the documents to the 

 General Accounting Office. GAO contended that refusal of the docu- 

 ments was "an interference in our statutory responsibilities" and 

 failed to "promote confidence in the conduct of public business." 



Sisk concluded that "I feel it is absolutely imperative if we, as 

 Members of Congress, are to fulfill our responsibility to our constitu- 

 ents as taxpayers of this country, that we must have some information 

 on negotiated contracts." Glennan, however, disagreed and added: 

 "I discussed this matter with the President personally and with his 

 staff. The position I take has his approval." 



Fulton, as was his frequent custom, shifted his ground once the 

 hearing was under way and defended the practice of executive privilege 

 in the withholding of the documents in question. Most members of the 

 committee became angry, frustrated, and aghast at the belligerent 

 refusal of Glennan to budge as much as a millimeter from his position. 



Yet after many hours of emotional confrontation in a morning and 

 afternoon session on January 29, I960, Chairman Brooks closed the 

 book on the hearings with this conciliatory statement: 



I want to assure Dt. Glennan and his staff that this committee is going to con- 

 tinue to work in cooperation with NASA, difficult as it might be undet the circum- 

 stances, in the interests of speeding up our program in space and in the further 

 interests of our country. 



In another age. it seems probable that other congressional com- 

 mittees or members thereof would have exacted some form of retrihu- 

 bution in slashed funding, legislative restrictions, or highly critical 

 oversight. But the Committee on Science and Astronautics was firmly 

 dedicated to the proposition that the space program must succeed. 

 There were no recriminations. The committee felt a deep obligation to 

 point out how wrong NASA was, and the committee discovered that 

 the same problems occurred when James E. Webb became NASA 

 Administrator. Yet all memory of the unpleasantly harsh words was 

 quickly washed away overnight as the committee went on to tackle 

 the more important issue of how best to reach the Moon quicklv. 



