RACING FOR THE MOON 



S3 



speed, and was signed by the President on April 25. Once the committee- 

 had completed its executive session, the members got ready to sharpen 

 then knives for the top officials of NASA who appeared on April 13. 

 From the perspective of many years later, NASA Associate 

 Administrator Seamans described the atmosphere after the Gagarin 

 flight: 



The day after Gagarin went into orbit was one of the more hectic days in NASA's 

 existence * * *. Jim Webb and Hugh Dryden testified and people were pounding the 

 desks, and win aren't we going taster, and why aren't we working triple time, and 

 we can't let the Russians do this and keep doing this to us. 



THE COMMITTEE SEIZES THE INITIATIVE 



At the pressrooms and radio and television gallery of the Capitol, 

 demands from news editors were pouring in to obtain congressional 

 reactions to the Gagarin flight. Recognizing the tremendous popular 

 interest in the issue, Chairman Brooks convened the April 13 hearing 

 with Webb and Dryden in the huge Cannon caucus room. In opening 

 the hearing, Brooks observed that "Because of the events of the last 

 lew days, we expect a large audience, and we thought it would be 

 more comfortable for some of our friends, especially the press, radio, 

 and television people, to meet here." 



Webb related in a memo to President Kennedy's assistant, Ken- 

 neth O'Donnell, what happened on April 13 "in the atmosphere of 

 great excitement and focusing of public interest in the hearings held 

 in the caucus room." Webb added: 



The members of the committee, almost without exception, were in a mood to 

 ti \ Co find someone responsible for losing the race to the Russians and also to let it 

 be known publicly that they were not responsible and that they were demanding 

 urgent action so that we would not be behind. Pursuing this further in the days that 

 followed, the committee steadily bored in on every phase, trying to get every bit of 

 detailed information that would focus public interest on the committee, and the role 

 it had chosen fot itself as the goad to force a large increase in the program. 



It was one of the few occasions in Webb's experience when the 

 enthusiasm of the committee far exceeded his own. "The committee 

 is clearly in a runaway mood," Webb warned, adding that "I believe 

 I can assure you that NASA personnel have not so conducted them- 

 selves as to cause the type of hearing now being conducted." Webb 

 was cast in the unusual role of the calm, cool, and collected defender 

 of a program who refused to be affected by the supercharged effort of 

 the enthusiasts to get him to speedup his program. The former 

 Director of the Budget reported: 



On everv point in the budget which the committee has covered, they have 

 specifically pressed to ask what our presentation to the Bureau of the Budget included 



