338 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 63 



ginning that no question would go unanswered if the answer could 

 be found. There was never "no comment !" Their thesis was based on 

 the charter of the Smithsonian Institution, which refers to "the in- 

 crease and diffusion of knowledge." They leaned heavily on that word 

 "diffusion," in the argument that the Smithsonian was a public institu- 

 tion engaged in nonclassified work. Others outside the Observatory 

 wanted the information given out differently; especially there was 

 pressure from IGY headquarters in Washington to have all news 

 statements and releases channeled through that office. Both Wliipple 

 and Hynek resisted manfully and successfully. 



The Observatory became quite literally the information center for 

 the entire Western world on this new and frightening object in the 

 sky. It was in many ways a terrible responsibility. The slightest 

 word of Wliipple or Hynek to the press carried enormous weight. To 

 this was added the complicating factor that Sputnik I was launched 

 into an orbit that made it invisible over the United States for some 

 days. Consequently, in the first few press interviews Whipple and 

 Hynek had to make judicious guesses on the basis of Russian an- 

 nouncements. Their guesses turned out to be correct, and this fact 

 helped to establish in the minds of both the press and the general 

 public that the word of Observatory officials was reliable. 



Much of the success of the Observatory in its public relations dur- 

 ing those days was the result of the hard work and tactful understand- 

 ing of Dr. John White, the Observatory's press officer. He helped 

 to "interpret" questions from and replies to the press and served as 

 a kind of watchdog over the remarks made by the Observatory scien- 

 tists. There were inevitably, of course, a few slips. Perhaps the 

 most glaring of these was a Boston headline reading "Mysterious 

 Force Grips Sputnik," which some imaginative news reporter wrote 

 after Dr. Hynek released a statement to the effect that the orbit of 

 Sputnik I could not be explained solely by the laws of Newton, since 

 other factors such as atmospheric drag were involved. 



Of the many reporters who descended on the Observatory that 

 night and stayed through the exciting days and weeks that followed, 

 only a few had any special training or background in science. Most 

 of them were pulled off other assignments. For example, one reporter 

 to the Massachusetts Legislature was sent over to Kittredge Hall 

 because at that time the legislature was not in session. He became an 

 expert in satellites almost overnight. 



The newsmen were quick, intelligent, and earnest and showed a 

 remarkable facility for moving into a complicated area of scientific 

 research and development for which they had no suitable background. 

 Most of them, incidentally, went back to their own fields later after 

 the newspapers had been able to find or train science reporters and 

 editors. 



I 



