HI < [SION ON I HI SP '.< I Mil I I I I 2S1 



January 28, 1971. Among the aerospace leaders who attended were 

 Thomas G. Pownall. President. Aerospace Group, Martin Marietta 

 Corp.; L. J. Evans. President. Grumman Corp.; Allen E. Puckett, 

 Executive Vice President, Hughes Aircraft Co., and D. J. Haughton, 

 Chairman of the Board, Lockheed Aircraft Corp. Teague used the 

 opportunitv to indicate that the aerospace companies were not doing 

 as much as they should to publicize and "sell" the necessity of main- 

 taining a vigorous space program. Pownall, in a letter to Teague on 

 February 4, 1971, acknowledged: 



Please he assured that we did get a message and that we will make an effort to 

 improve our usefulness in some of the ways suggested. 



Yet the evening's discussion failed to produce a firm consensus 

 among all concerned as to how to recapture the spirit and vigor of the 

 space program of the 1960's. As observed by Puckett in a letter to Chair- 

 man Miller on February 3: 



1; seemed to me that our discussion gave evidence once again that even among 

 quite knowledgeable people in this held there is a c< nsiderable diversity of \iews as 

 to where our space program shou d go, and what should be its rationale. 



TEAGUE ACCENTUATES THE POSITIVE 



Early in 1971, President Nixon decided to appoint Dr. James C. 

 Fletcher as NASA Administrator to succeed Dr. Thomas O. Paine, who 

 had resigned September 15, 1970. Dr. Fletcher remained during the 

 Nixon and Ford administrations until 19 __ . winning the respect of the 

 committee for his candor and leadership. 



Even before Dr. Fletcher took office, he received a jolting reminder 

 from Capitol Hill that underscored the intense interest and concern 

 which the committee had for the future of the space program. On 

 Sunday, February 28, 19 _ 1, Tiger Teague picked up his copy of the 

 Washington Sunday Star, and did a slow boil as he read an Associated 

 Press interview with Dr. Fletcher, based on a press conference in Salt 

 Lake City. "We may tend to reduce manned space flights in favor of 

 unmanned flights. It would be very exciting for man to go beyond the 

 Moon but I suspect that's beyond the country's budget. We will go 

 beyond the Moon but probably with unmanned flights," Dr. Fletcher 

 correctly predicted. What really caught Teaguc's eve, and angered him 

 was the line reading: "Fletcher said public interest is waning in the 

 space program and it's going to be up to us to have more exciting 

 things to rekindle that interest.' 



When Teague reached his office on Monday morning, March 1, 

 he was really fuming. He got on the phone to Jim Fulton, who was 



