The World Is My Home: A Memoir by James A. Michener
Briefly, most scientists know that unmanned vehicles projected far out into the solar system can do almost every important thing a manned flight can do at infinitely less cost and no danger to human life. It has been frustrating in recent years for knowing scientists to have to sit by and watch as time and equipment and money are dissipated in manned flights, when unmanned vehicles could have been speeding throughout the galaxy on missions almost guaranteed to deliver back to earth the data we seek. ‘The present system,’ such men argue, ‘is wasteful and nonproductive, and it is scandalous that we persist in it.’
Proponents of manned flight counter the scientists’ argument: ‘Society will not agree to finance unmanned flights for an indefinite length of time, for the average taxpayer can see no return for his money. Such flights are monotonous, repetitive and largely unproductive of usable results. One tiny bit of additional knowledge about the moons of Saturn really does not justify its cost in effort and money. But once you put an American citizen inside that machine, you escalate the project to an entirely new level of excitement. You’re back in the right-stuff arena that taxpayers can identify with—John Glenn, Neil Armstrong, Pete Conrad, they were men you could respect. Send an unmanned spaceship to Mars? People would lose interest at the end of the third day. Put two men in the same ship, people would watch breathlessly for the three years required. Two men and a woman? Even better. Two Americans, two Russians? For such an adventure we could find the money.’
My last concern, and my most persistent, was one about which I have not spoken before, but from my earliest days on the committee I was a strong advocate for allowing civilians to hitchhike a ride into space, and I furthered the applications of both Walter Cronkite and Jules Bergman. Had the program been given an earlier start, I too would have wanted to go with never a hint of hesitation. I urged such a program for three carefully evaluated reasons: (1) it could obviously be done, and safely, the work of John Young, Robert Crippen, Joe Engle and Richard Truly having proved the practicality of the shuttle; (2) Russia had carried many passengers into space, frequently citizens of other nations they wished to impress, and I felt we ought to catch up; and (3) I believed that the publicity to be garnered from such a flight would be advantageous to both NASA and the nation at large.
I served on the small committee that studied all aspects of the proposal and steadfastly defended the idea, although I remember that a woman member with experience in public relations did warn: ‘You must also factor in the negative feedback if anything should go wrong with the mission. The presence of that civilian might do us great damage.’ I was delighted when the government decided to forge ahead with the program, and again recommended that Cronkite and others be considered for selection as the first passenger. However, when someone, I never learned who, chose the lively New England science teacher Christa McAuliffe, I applauded: ‘A stroke of genius.’
But I was even more pleased to see that a young woman I had worked with in those discussions about the future had been chosen. I had first met Judith Resnick in the astronaut offices in Houston and had talked with her several times about the possibility of her getting aboard one of the missions. At Woods Hole one summer we worked together for a couple of weeks, and in that time I found her to be a most solid young woman, skilled in her field and well qualified to defend her opinions in debate. Her constant cry was: ‘Let’s get more flights going and put me in one of them.’ Sure enough, when Sally Ride broke the ice, Judith Resnick followed soon thereafter, with the delightful Dr. Anna Fisher not many months behind.
Judy Resnick was going to be the second woman to make two trips into space, Sally Ride having already done so, and I sent her a congratulatory note at having her dream come true so handsomely. As the Challenger prepared for that January takeoff with its civilian passenger I felt a sense of pride in being part of the team that had made this day possible, but I was not watching television at the crucial moment. A few moments after the launch my secretary called, her voice shaking: ‘My God, Mr. Michener. Run to the television!’ Despite the anguish in her voice I did not anticipate what I was going to see; that terrible bifurcated stream of debris signaling total disaster. I watched the horror as one branch slowly descended toward the sea and disappeared beneath the waves.
‘Judy!’ I cried as the ghostly trail vanished, and I could visualize the terrible scene in the cabin—I supposed that Judy had reached out to steady Christa McAuliffe—and then the darkness. It never occurred to me that the seven passengers might have died instantly in the blast, nor can I believe it now. They took the long plunge and it must have been terrifying.
The loss of that spaceship oppressed me. I had been with NASA when the prototype Columbia came on line and had interviewed its astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen, the latter in two extended visits. I was present for the first takeoff at Cape Kennedy and had watched with surging pride as Young, the Georgia wizard born without nerves, brought her safely down in California six days later. It was the greatest American triumph of the decade, and the subsequent flights had become almost routine. I remembered the meetings when our small committee argued so forcefully the pros and cons of civilian flight, and I recalled the quiet satisfaction I felt when the positions I had helped to defend were adopted. I felt as if I had personally sent Judy Resnik on the flight and had issued the invitation to Christa, and the sense of participatory guilt will never leave me.
Just as I finished my assignment with NASA I was asked to serve on what has probably been my most important job with the government, one that brought me in daily conflict with Communism in all its various manifestations. Always before, I had worked in an advisory capacity, but now I was placed on the board that actually managed the American stations fighting the propaganda battle of the airwaves with the Soviet Union. The Board for International Broadcasting in Washington manages two powerful stations that broadcast news originating from Munich, Germany: Radio Liberty to the constituent republics of the Soviet Union; and Radio Free Europe to the captive nations behind the Iron Curtain. Although I was not the best candidate for the job, I had visited many of the Soviet republics, especially those in out-of-the-way areas, and I had worked in all the Iron Curtain countries except Bulgaria. I had also written a careful on-the-scene account of Hungary’s anti-Communist revolution of 1956, and this had been translated into fifty-two languages. But I was not your classic cold war proponent, for although I saw clearly the menace of Communist Russia’s expansionism and had inveighed against it, I lived for the day when the two great powers, the United States and Russia, could reach some kind of rapprochement. I never lost faith that this would one day occur, but in the meantime I was not only ready but eager to broadcast the truth about what was happening in the Soviet Union and in the nations it occupied.
The composition of the governing board gave me considerable pleasure, since its chairman was my old friend Frank Shakespeare, and this provided an opportunity to watch him once more in forceful action. He was as dedicated an anti-Soviet warrior as ever, prodding his radio stations to combat Russian propaganda and secrecy wherever and however possible. Because of my association with the Hungarian uprising in 1956, when the belligerence of the American broadcasts ignited false hopes among the freedom fighters, I was one of several who kept reminding Frank that our stations must never again raise hopes behind the Iron Curtain that we would be unable to support, and he was careful to broadcast truth, not incitement to rebellion. Nevertheless, many in our government wanted to silence our radios because of one unavoidable gaffe or another, and Shakespeare himself came under heavy fire because of his combative nature. I defended him, for I knew that although he saw Soviet-American relations as an eternal battleground he was far from being a damned fool, as his detractors sometimes called him.
Since his board consisted of nine members, he was entitled to have four loyal Republicans besides himself, and he chose with care. His right-hand man was Malcolm Forbes, Jr., a brilliant financial operative and a devout Republican wh
The other three Republican stalwarts were formidable veteran fighters for causes they believed in, especially our free society: Clair Burgener, the longtime congressman from Southern California; Ed Nye, head of one of the world’s largest public relations firms and a Republican kingmaker; and Arch Madsen, soft-spoken powerhouse who ran the television and radio empire of the Mormon Church. They were good men to work with.
But it was in his selection of the four obligatory Democrats that Shakespeare showed his Machiavellian skill at its conniving best. After choosing me because I was an outspoken liberal and thus conspicuous as a non-Republican, he made a brilliant choice: Lane Kirkland, the feisty labor leader who bore a hundred battle scars that attested to his willingness to fight for workingmen. With Kirkland aboard, no one could charge us with being a rubber stamp for the administration. But now Shakespeare proved his wizardry, for he filled the remaining two Democratic slots with two extremely sharp men who were technically registered as Democrats but whose personal convictions and public behavior placed them at the extreme right of the Republican party: Ben Wattenberg, the wise and witty statistician and political columnist, and Michael Novak, the Catholic theologian, United Nations counselor and conservative commentator. These two were among the brightest of their generation, and they were so sharp-witted that I found it a delight to work with them, despite their extreme conservatism.
Shakespeare had converted the obligatory ratio of five Republicans to four Democrats into seven hard-core conservatives counterbalanced by two liberals, exactly the kind of mix he wanted. But Kirkland and I were not powerless, for we each had access to the public prints, and if the board misbehaved in any egregious way we could blow the whistle—and no one doubted that we would if we had to. That was never necessary.
Some of the most instructive days in my later years were the sessions of this board, either in Munich or in Washington. My fellow members were amazingly competent; we had first-class managers; and we did our best to give our stations both constructive leadership in the propaganda wars and full support when any scandal broke. Many problems arose when American citizens like us tried to supervise foreign nationals who broadcast in their own language to their own people. I sometimes felt that many of our European employees would like to start revolutions in their homelands tomorrow—they were tough characters who had been through the wars—but it was our job to disseminate accurate news, not to foment rebellion. Many critics cried: ‘Close down the stations! They do more harm than good!’ but having some sense of what life behind the curtain was like, I knew that sometimes we accomplished wonders by just keeping hope alive. I was proud to be part of that effort.†
My work in Washington on various committees and boards was both exciting and rewarding because I worked with some highly intelligent political leaders. Indeed, I saw our federal government at its best, for the elected officials in charge of matters in which I was interested were not only first-class intellects but also skilled political operatives. J. William Fulbright, the junior senator from Arkansas, was strongly opposed to one of the projects on which I was working, but he expressed his opinion so openly and sensibly that it was almost a pleasure to debate with him. Dante Fascell, a congressman from Florida, was a tower of strength in the foreign affairs committee he led; Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island, as a former employee of the State Department, was exceptionally perceptive in foreign affairs; and Alan Simpson of Wyoming talked sense.
I received a lesson in Washington maneuvering when I went before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to be confirmed for an appointment to the governing board of the agency broadcasting into Russia. Jesse Helms of North Carolina tenaciously opposed everything I stood for, but he did so in such an ingratiating way, using exaggerated courtesy and never raising his voice or displaying anything but the warmest regard for me, and cut down my position with such elegant precision that I almost wanted to applaud when he finished. I did not mind being abused in high style, but was greatly pleased that he was prevented from placing his right-wing nominee on our board.
The exception to the graciousness with which we fought our battles, in which I had as many respected friends among the Republican opposition as among the Democratic majority, was a horrendous one that involved Wayne Hays, the venal congressman from Ohio, who had manipulated his chairmanship of a housekeeping committee into a czar-dom of power. ‘Above all,’ I was told upon joining the USIS board, ‘be nice to Wayne Hays, because he has the power of life and death over us, as he does over congressmen, too.’ My friend explained that Hays had quietly arrogated to himself the assignment of congressmen’s offices, telephone services and parking slots: ‘You oppose Wayne and you find yourself parking your car one mile from downtown Baltimore.’
I was always attentive to Hays and paid him due deference not because he could do anything to me personally but because I knew he had power over my board, which I had to protect. I learned how ugly his abuse of power could be when he sent us to hire immediately, for a sensitive post requiring background and judgment, one of his cronies who was appallingly inept. The officer to whose staff Hays’s favorite was to be assigned said of him: ‘The man’s a Neanderthal. I doubt if he could rise to the Cro-Magnon stage in three hundred thousand years,’ and we had to let Hays know: ‘Wayne, your man is simply not capable. Sorry.’ His response was simple and straightforward: ‘I understand what you’re saying. Now I hope you understand what I’m saying. Your agency will not receive five cents in funds until you appoint my man to the job I’ve selected for him.’
We junior members on the board almost laughed at such a blatant threat but the old-timers pointed out: ‘He means what he says. Our hundred-million-dollar budget depends on our hiring his man—right now.’ We refused, and that week Hays blocked all funds for our agency. When months passed without any money, and salaries of men and women in the field were being held ransom, it fell to Frank Stanton and me to see what kind of truce could be worked out, and a memorable meeting took place in the congressman’s office. He respected Stanton as the head of a great television empire and he had read two of my books, so we assumed that we might have some leverage with him, but he did not even rise to greet us—he remained sitting with his feet on top of his cluttered desk. He wore a garish red-white-and-blue checkerboard sports jacket and kept a cigar stuck in his mouth while in the most vulgar and profane way he rejected every plea we made: ‘You want your agency funds restored? Hire my man, and do it soon because my patience with you clowns is running out.’
Neither Stanton nor I was capable of wrestling with Hays in the snake pit he had built for himself; we were not that brutal, we did not express ourselves in his terms, which included blackmail as a strategy to solve any issue. We retreated from our session totally defeated, and said to our board: ‘This fight is now in its eighteenth month and our people in the field are really suffering. We recommend that we hire his man.’
This was so repugnant to the other members of the board that they would have rejected our advice had Stanton not pointed out that if we did not hire Hays’s man our budget would be held up for another eighteen months, which would drive us out of business. One member cried: ‘No one congressman can do that!’ and we replied: ‘Oh yes, he can, if he’s Wayne Hays.’
We hired the man, but kept him safely isolated. At the next public hearing before Hays’s committee, Wayne eulogized Stanton and me from the podium as ‘two of the finest public servants, men of the highest reputation,’ and the budget went through.
Not long after this, Hays was trapped by congressmen he had bullied the way he abused Stan
I relate this affair in detail because of the amusing aftermath. When word of the czar’s fall from power circulated, few could have been more jubilant than the members of our board, for we had really suffered under his despotism—Stanton and I more personally than most. But not one of us telephoned the other to gloat over the autocrat’s fall—we were afraid that Hays might have tapped our phones and we fully expected him to come roaring back to Congress, determined to wreak vengeance on any who had laughed at his disgrace.
In 1972, when President Nixon flew to his historic meeting with Chinese leaders in the capital, which was still called Peking, the big press plane that accompanied him had two extra seats after all the media people had been accommodated. These were assigned at the last moment to Bill Buckley and me, and we flew as interested citizens.
When people, after the scandal of Watergate, ask me: ‘How can you speak well of Nixon? Why would you have tried to save his presidency?’ I reply: ‘You didn’t see him in China at the apex of his career. He was sharp, daring and a shrewd negotiator.’ As so often happens in political life, and as would happen again with President Ronald Reagan, it is the conservative famed for his right-wing policies who can best make a complete moral and political volte-face and strike a sensible deal with his adversaries. Had Democratic presidents made these complete reversals in their relationships with Communist China and Russia, they would have been impeached; when the conservative Republican leaders did the about-face, we hailed it as political genius, and in Nixon’s case it was.