"Theodore W. Hall" wrote in message ...
h (Rand Simberg) wrote in message . ..

Listen to what he said about it in private, not in public.


william mook wrote:

Pointers? Source material? I'm willing to listen to facts and
understand the context of those facts.


Google for the quoted phrase

"not that interested in space"

Thank you Theodore, I'll look into this...



JFK's disinterest has been widely reported in the mainstream press,
following the release of one of his Whitehouse audio tapes.

Here's a link to an article in the JFK library:

http://www.jfklibrary.org/newsletter...002_14-15.html


Excellent!

"Everything that we do should be tied into
getting on to the moon ahead of the
Russians. We ought to get it really clear
that the policy ought to be that this is the
top priority program of the agency and
one... of the top priorities of the United
States government," he said.

"Otherwise we shouldn't be spending this
kind of money, because I am not that
interested in space," Kennedy said. "I think
it's good. I think we ought to know about
it.

"But we're talking about fantastic expenditures,"
Kennedy said. "We've wrecked our budget, and all
these other domestic programs, and the only
justification for it, in my opinion, is to do it
in the time element I am asking."

It seems fairly clear that he had little interest in supporting
NASA beyond the first successful moon landing. Winning the
race was everything.

I understand these comments were reported in the press in the way you
say. And I admit, parsed the way you have them above, it certainly
looks like JFK had a public and private view of things that were
diametrically opposed. Very dramatic. But, clearly those reports are
slanted for sensationalism - not accuracy.

It makes a big splash to say that private and public statements made
by Kennedy were 180 degrees apart. Things weren't that way at all.

In fact, the very source your cite gives a little more context than
you did above. Which gives us a clue as to what is really going on AT
THAT MEETING:

The JFK Library, Librarian says,"At the November 21, 1962 meeting,
President Kennedy and his staff were discussing a supplemental budget
for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the
effect the increased money would have on expediting the scheduled
orbital flights and the Apollo Space Program"

Plainly this was a meeting to discuss the supplemental budget
requested by NASA following the President's speech. His response,
sticker shock. VonBraun in an earlier meeting before his address to
Congress privately indicated a far smaller amount would be needed than
NASA requested in their supplemental budget JFK was discussing here.

Look, suppose you talked to a sales person about buying a new car and
he said on the telephone that it cost $350 per month. Lets say this
sounded good to you and you said, I'll be down to sign the papers!
Then, when you get down to the dealership you get the papers and the
monthly payment is $650 per month. What would you say? It depends on
how much you want the car doesn't it? If you didn't want the car,
you'd walk out of the dealership altogether right? If you *did* want
the car, you'd negoatiate. Of course you would.

If you really wanted the car you'd say things like, well, lets focus
on getting the car as close to $350 per month as we can. Do we need
in seat heaters? No. How about metallized paint job? No. How about
the 10 disc CD/DVD player with back of the seat color LCD screens?
Nope. In the end you buy the car for $450 per month - if you really
wanted it, despite its high cost.

Of course someone could tape you negoatiating with the dealer and play
it out of context years later when your grandkids told stories about
how much you loved your car. Right? Someone could respond and say,
hey, he never even wanted that car! Listen! Then they'd here you
say, "No! NO WAY! I can't pay that much!" and all sorts of
interesting sound bites.

This is what's happening here.

President Kennedy is being assasinated again - this time by the press.

Check it out, here's a statement made at Press Conference #58 on July
17, 1963 (6 years before the moon landing);

QUESTION: Mr. President, there have been published reports that the
Russians are having second thoughts about landing a man on the moon.
If they should drop out of the race to the moon, would we still
continue with our moon program; or secondly, if they should wish to
cooperate with us in a joint mission to the moon, would we consider
agreeing to that, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, in the first place, we don't know whether the
Russians are-- what their plans may be. What we are interested in is
what their capabilities are. While I have seen the statement of Mr.
Lovell about what he thinks the Russians are doing, his information is
not final. Their capacity is substantial; there is every evidence that
they are carrying on a major campaign and diverting greatly needed
resources to their space effort. With that in mind, I think that we
should continue. It may be that our assumption or the prediction in
this morning's paper that they are not going to the moon might be
wrong a year from now, and are we going to divert ourselves from our
effort in an area where the Soviet Union has a lead, is making every
effort to maintain that lead, in an area which could affect our
national security as well as great peaceful development? I think we
ought to go right ahead with our own program and go to the moon before
the end of this decade.

The point of the matter always has been not only of our excitement or
interest in being on the moon; but the capacity to dominate space,
which would be demonstrated by a moon flight, I believe, is essential
to the United States as a leading free world power. That is why I am
interested in it and that is why I think we should continue, and I
would be not diverted by a newspaper story.

QUESTION: What about the second part of my question?

THE PRESIDENT: The second question is what cooperation we would be
willing to carry on with the Soviet Union. We have said before to the
Soviet Union that we would be very interested in cooperation. As a
matter of fact, finally, after a good many weeks of discussion, an
agreement was worked out on an exchange of information with regard to
weather, but we have never been able to go into more detail.

The kind of cooperative effort which would be required for the Soviet
Union and the United States together to go to the moon would require a
breaking down of a good many barriers of suspicion and distrust and
hostility which exist between the Communist world and ourselves.

There is no evidence as yet that those barriers will come down,
although quite obviously we would like to see them come down.
Obviously, if the Soviet Union were an open society, as we are, that
kind of cooperation could exist, and I would welcome it. I would
welcome it. I don't see it as yet, unfortunately.

****

Clearly JFK is fully committed to a space program that has larger
import than merely landing on the moon. Plainly JFK has a vision of a
space faring humanity coming together in the nuclear age and moving
into a far larger world than any leader today has capacity to see.

Of course, GW Bush has announced today that he wants America to return
to the moon. So, perhaps I am being overly pessimistic about that. I
hope GW doesn't feel like he has to trash Kennedy's vision to make his
worthwhile though.