4 HISTORY OF THE COMMITTEE OX SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 



MEANWHILE AT THE WHITE HOUSE 



The reaction of the executive branch was confusing to the general 

 public President Eisenhower was asked at his October 9 news con- 

 ference: "Are you saving at this time that with the Russian satellite 

 whirling about the world, you are not overly concerned about our 

 Nation's security?" In his widely quoted response, the President com- 

 mented: "Now, so far as the satellite itself is concerned, that does 

 not raise my apprehensions, not one iota." Unfortunately, the Presi- 

 dent had become convinced that the crisis was partially a propaganda 

 and public relations problem. In later years, in his book Waging 

 Peace, President Eisenhower wrote that his short-term problem 

 following Sputnik "was to find ways of affording perspective to our 

 people and so relieve the current wave of near hysteria." 



At the same time, President Eisenhower renewed the scientific 

 commitment of the United States to the cooperative multinational 

 program called the International Geophysical Year, which included 

 the development of an Earth satellite by the United States. The 

 President called in a number of scientists for personal consultation, 

 delivered two nationwide addresses on science and defense and on 

 November 7, 1957, appointed James R. Killian, Jr. as Special Assistant 

 to the President for Science and Technology. The President's Science 

 Advisory Committee, which had been placed within the Office of 

 Defense Mobilization, was reconstituted and transferred to the White 

 House on December 1, 1957. In a nationwide radio address. President 

 Eisenhower stressed the need for expanding support of science education 

 at all levels of Government 



While Members of Congress were calling for action, and the public 

 was getting frustrated and infuriated by the "Papa-Knows-Best" 

 advice, there were scores of patriotic men of vision and principle who 

 risked their positions within the Government or military hierarchy by 

 speaking out boldly to define the crisis facing the Nation. People like 

 German-born rocket expert Dr. Wernher von Braun, working at the 

 Army's Ballistic Missile Agency in Huntsville, Ala.; Trevor Gardner, 

 Assistant Secretary of the Air Force in charge of Research and Develop- 

 ment; and Lt. Gen. James M. Gavin, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army 

 in charge of Research and Development and many others were work- 

 ing effectively as well as sounding the alarm bells in the night. 



President Eisenhower suffered from some incredible gaffes by his 

 own staff and official family. The press and the Democrats, of course, 

 seized on and magnified these mistakes, all of which helped sharpen 

 the contrast between what appeared to be a timid executive branch 

 and a forcefully articulate Congress which was seizing the initiative. 

 Outgoing Secretary of Defense Charles Wilson ridiculed Sputnik as a 



