On the evening of October 4, Khrushchev had joined Ukrainian leaders and guests from Moscow for a leisurely dinner in the large hall at the Mariyinsky Palace, a grand, bright-blue baroque-style building that hinted at the lavish tastes and lifestyles of Russia’s eighteenth-century czars. Once a favorite retreat of Catherine the Great, the palace now stood as a weathered remnant of another era. Khrushchev had decided to stop off in Kiev on his way back from vacation in Crimea, a popular resort destination on the temperate Black Sea. A heavy-set, complex character, with protruding ears and a volatility that left an impression, Khrushchev was a man of contrasts. He was complicit in Stalin’s crimes such as the ruthless mass executions of Polish nationals but also de-Stalinized the Soviet Union. He was flamboyant, brutal, and also decent; his wife once described him as “all the way up or all the way down.”7 That evening there was an urgent matter occupying his mind, and it was not the harried preparations under way at the Baikonur space launch facility in Kazakhstan. Rather, Khrushchev was fixated on how to oust his longtime friend—or former friend—Marshal Georgy Zhukov from power.
Zhukov was a World War II hero who personally commanded the final attack on Berlin and represented the Soviet Union at the German surrender.8 In June 1957 Zhukov, who by that time had become the most influential military man in the Soviet Union, thwarted an antiparty group’s attempt to overthrow Khrushchev. But now, a mere four months later, Khrushchev was suspicious that Zhukov was planning his own coup.9 After nearly losing his premiership in June, Khrushchev was on a mission to secure his status as the USSR’s undisputed leader. To aid this mission he had gathered the secretary of the Party Central Committee, Leonid Brezhnev, who controlled the defense industry; the first deputy minister of defense and commander of ground forces, Rodion Malinovsky; the first secretary of the Ukrainian Central Committee, Alexei Kirichenko; the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, Demyan Korotchenko; the chairman of the Council of Ministers, Nykyfor Kalchenko; Central Committee secretaries; and his son Sergei Khrushchev.10
For much of the evening, the gathering of top officials discussed the harvest, new factories that needed new equipment, and inadequate capital investments. These were typical topics, meant to loosen the premier’s purse strings. Near midnight, after hours of conversation, an aide interrupted the meal and whispered something in Khrushchev’s ear. He nodded and then excused himself to take a phone call in a nearby room. A few minutes later the premier returned to the dining hall with a smile. He quietly sat back in his chair, paused, calmly looked around the table, and then spoke: “I can tell you some very pleasant and important news. Korolev just called.”
He paused again, this time with a secretive look. “He’s one of our missile designers. Remember not to mention his name—it’s classified.” Then Khrushchev announced the news: “So, Korolev has just reported that today, a little while ago, an artificial satellite of the Earth was launched.”
The dinner guests responded with polite if indifferent smiles. At that moment no one in the room foresaw the far-reaching and long-lasting significance of Khrushchev’s announcement.11 Even the first article on Sputnik in the leading Soviet newspaper, Pravda, was buried below the fold with no mention of the imminent political and social fallout of the pathbreaking launch. It was brief, written in a clinical style with facts and figures like “the carrier rocket has imparted to the satellite the required orbital velocity of about 8,000 meters per second.”12
A few minutes after Khrushchev’s announcement, the aide returned to the dining hall, set up a radio in the corner of the room, and told the dinner guests that the satellite’s broadcast could be picked up on the device. He turned the knob, and Sputnik’s now famous “beep, beep, beep” filled the hall.13
Following the launch of Sputnik, US president Eisenhower tried to counteract the notion of a “space race” between the US and the USSR at every turn. But space exploration became the prime psychological battleground in the cold war. For more than a decade, and some would say right up until the fall of the Soviet Union, space competition served as the measuring stick for national strength, technological know-how, and the efficacy of political systems. How did spaceflight—an idea that once only existed in the imagination of a few scientists, analysts, and dreamers—receive such a lofty status within international relations in the mid-twentieth century? The answer does not simply lie in the popular appeal of spaceflight or the idea that it is in human nature to explore. The United States and the Soviet Union did not invest fortunes in space development solely to push forward the edges of human experience. So what accounts for spaceflight becoming the new political currency within the cold war world order?
The answer is found in the emergence of what a young Henry Kissinger—among other influential political theorists of the day—identified as the “new diplomacy.” In 1955 Nelson Rockefeller, Eisenhower’s special assistant for psychological warfare, asked Kissinger, at the time a recent PhD and instructor at Harvard University, to join a study panel on the “Psychological Aspects of a Future U.S. Strategy.” Kissinger articulated the tenets of this new diplomacy in a secret report to Eisenhower.
Today’s international relations, Kissinger wrote, required psychological strategy. Symbols, rhetoric, ideas, and images assumed new political potency in a changed geopolitical landscape. The existence of thermonuclear weapons rewrote the terms of how politics—especially diplomacy—was done. The risk of global annihilation, combined with technological innovations in mass media, revolutionized the influence of the public—especially public opinion—in both domestic and international politics. These factors contributed to a bifurcation of US diplomacy. Political negotiations were taking place on two interconnected planes. High-level political talks between governments were coupled with public diplomacy.14 After the first gathering of Rockefeller’s group, Kissinger would tell fellow panel member Walt Rostow, professor of economic history at MIT, that “the most important component of our foreign policy is the psychological one.”15
Many historians make the claim that it was not until Sputnik orbited overhead and the world reacted that Eisenhower saw satellite development in terms of prestige. His focus before October 4, 1957, was on reconnaissance and ballistic missile strategy, they say.16 But records from before the fall of 1957—especially from National Security Council (NSC) meetings—reveal an entirely different chronological arc. They show policy analysts attuned to the psychological implications of spaceflight years before Sputnik made its debut, and attuned to the bearing of psychology on international influence and power. Eisenhower and those who advised him, such as Rockefeller, recognized that satellites would have both military and propaganda advantages. From the very start, policy makers saw satellites as highly visible demonstrations of scientific and technological capability on the international stage.
In 1957 the small Soviet satellite—and more importantly the tenor of domestic and international response—cemented the association of space exploration and national strength for decades to come. The military undertones of space shots, the rapid spread of news coverage, the reverence for technological and scientific achievement at that time, and the political prominence of global public opinion within cold war geopolitics—the core elements of the “new diplomacy”—all played their part.
When Eisenhower took the oath of office in January 1953, the United States faced steep military and political challenges. The cold war raged. The Korean War stalled. During his 1952 presidential bid, Eisenhower charmed voters with his quiet confidence, “plain talk,” and smile. And with a meteoric military record—rising from a lowly lieutenant colonel to the commander of the Allied invasion of Europe in just five years—Eisenhower seemed well-positioned to lead the country safely through swelling nuclear-war fears. More so than any president before him, Eisenhower entered office with a fully formed national security philosophy. “To amass military power without regard to our economic capacity,” he warned the country at his first State of the Union address, “would
be to defend ourselves against one kind of disaster by inviting another.” Eisenhower’s fiscally responsible national security strategy, articulated powerfully and concisely just two weeks after he assumed office, remained the defining framework of his presidential security policy.17
A free-market conservative, Eisenhower believed that government expenditures must be contained. He articulated this message frequently, cautioning his country against becoming a “garrison state” because of cold war fears.18 Instead, he advocated a “New Look,” a phrase taken from the fashion industry. In designer parlance the New Look referred to the lengthening of women’s skirts, but in Eisenhower’s defense strategy it meant “more bang for the buck.”19 Eisenhower slashed the Army and Navy budgets, arguing that the country should invest in avoiding war, not fighting one. The cold war would likely last for many years, he recognized. The US, then, must take an approach that sustained both the military and economic health of the country in the long term. And because Eisenhower was confident that the Soviet Union would never directly mount an attack on the United States, he favored investment in the psychological and political—as opposed to the military—battlefields of the cold war. He turned to the “new diplomacy.”20
The New Look is often remembered as Eisenhower’s call for the massive buildup of a nuclear arsenal to defend the country while avoiding straining the budget. These weapons would have a psychological impact, deter the enemy, and in turn avoid the need for costly direct conflict with the Soviet Union. But Eisenhower’s defense policy steered a more comprehensive global governance agenda. Under the New Look, the United States nurtured international trade, funded development programs, encouraged formal and informal alliances, moderated conflicts between other countries, invested in cultural and educational exchanges, and increased overseas propaganda. The United States would pursue international influence by winning the hearts and minds of the world’s public and political leaders.21
Eisenhower’s experience on the European front during World World II had convinced him that psychological warfare figured prominently in the Allied victory. Propaganda and persuasion, he saw, were integral to power and influence. When he entered the White House, he pushed for an elaborate propaganda program to contain the spread of Communism. At his very first Cabinet meeting, on January 23, 1953, psychological warfare became a focus of discussion. In short order, Eisenhower appointed a special assistant for psychological warfare, put him in charge of the Psychological Strategy Board, and created the President’s Committee on International Information Activities to assess US psychological warfare programs and to make recommendations for improving and centralizing these efforts.22 The committee submitted a report on June 30, 1953, with forty recommendations, including the creation of the Operations Coordinating Board (OCB) within the NSC to manage the psychological aspects of foreign relations and national security. Eisenhower agreed with almost all of the committee’s recommendations. However, he decided to consolidate information activities within a brand-new agency instead of under the jurisdiction of the State Department. The CIA continued its covert psychological warfare program, and the newly formed United States Information Agency (USIA) took on the organization of the nation’s public information activities.23
Under Eisenhower, the USIA grew quickly. Employing five media divisions—press, radio, television, motion pictures, and the Information Center Service—the USIA disseminated information about the United States to cities and towns in each region of the world. By 1960, the agency ran more than two hundred United States Information Service (USIS) posts in ninety-eight countries. More than a thousand Americans managed these posts with the help of more than seven thousand locally employed foreign citizens. Larger posts were staffed by motion picture officers, exhibit officers, press officers, book translation officers, radio officers, and librarians. In some of the most populous countries, such as India, more than fifty Americans worked with nearly five hundred local employees, whereas in countries such as Sierra Leone one US public diplomat would work with three local employees. Each USIS post tailored its information programs to support the particular US political and psychological objectives in that country.24
The USIA also operated 164 libraries in 68 countries; distributed news releases, features, and photographs to local newspapers; organized English-language courses in 52 countries; and produced and acquired documentaries and newsreels, which ran in 42 languages for audiences of some 150 million people per week. To reach rural populations, the USIA sent mobile film vehicles equipped with kerosene generators to project these films. The agency showed programs on local television stations and circulated hundreds of exhibits around the world. From Washington, the Voice of America (VOA) broadcast radio programming in 35 languages, 600 hours per week to an audience of 20 million listeners.25
During the early years of the Eisenhower administration, the USIA focused on producing information programming that was factual and straightforward. “The agency struck a balance between the posture of objectivity necessary to enhance the agency’s credibility and the selectivity and manipulation of information needed to further US objectives,” according to historian Kenneth Osgood.26 The USIA director attended a monthly meeting at the White House with Eisenhower to update the president on agency activities and foreign public opinion.27
It was within this larger context of Eisenhower’s parsimonious security strategy, and increased investment in psychological warfare, that the satellite program took shape. The president supported US satellite development but remained wary throughout his eight years in office about investing significant national resources in a space program. The real cold war threat, Eisenhower held, was economic security. Prosperity was central to the nation’s soft-power appeal internationally: the economic vitality of the United States was the surest proof of the rightness of the capitalist system. By keeping budgets tight while also promoting the peaceful and progress-oriented intentions of the United States within the international arena, the Eisenhower administration looked to its satellite program as a demonstration of national superiority in the global competition for geopolitical alignment.28
Dreams of artificial satellites far predated Sputnik and arose far before Eisenhower articulated his New Look policy. Within the United States, a decade ahead of the space race, the newly formed R&D industry-government think tank RAND evaluated the feasibility of launching a satellite into space. In addition to an engineering analysis, a 1946 RAND report perspicaciously claimed that launching a satellite would not only have military and scientific implications but that it also “would inflame the imagination of mankind, and would probably produce repercussions in the world comparable to the explosion of the atomic bomb.”29 RAND followed this report with another analysis of satellite development four years later. The 1950 report focused on the military and psychological impact of Earth satellites even further. Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Walter McDougall called this second report “the birth certificate of American space policy.”30 Requested by the Air Force, it explained that although the primary use of satellites would be for reconnaissance—both strategic and meteorological—the US government should emphasize their scientific uses as opposed to their military applications. Allies and enemies alike would quickly realize the potential surveillance capabilities of satellites. For this reason, it was vital to US foreign relations to conduct an “open” program and emphasize—at least in public—the peaceful nature of America’s space efforts.31
Also in 1950, on an April evening at the tail end of a dinner party in the suburbs of Washington, a group of scientists came up with a bold idea over dessert. Physicist James Van Allen had thrown the dinner in honor of the eminent British geophysicist Sydney Chapman, who was visiting the United States. Described as unassuming but also a “doer,” Van Allen had been placing Geiger counters aboard V-2 rockets to record cosmic rays in the atmosphere since 1945. Although he did not know it at the time, the dinner party discussion would ultimately lead to his most noteworthy contribution to
science and the first major discovery of the Space Age: Earth-circling radiation belts, later named in his honor. Rocket-based research techniques, like Van Allen’s Geiger counters, were opening exciting new avenues in Earth science, capturing the imagination of his friends and colleagues as they feasted on chocolate cake.32
Conversations that spring evening ranged from discussions of high-altitude science to the plausibility of coordinating atmospheric research on a worldwide scale. Lloyd Berkner, a physicist, Antarctic explorer, and government advisor, suggested that a third International Polar Year (IPY) should be held. During the two previous IPYs, in 1882 and 1932, scientists from around the world banded together to conduct standardized research. In 1957, as they all knew, the sun would be at its most active. Why not organize a large-scale Earth science research program timed for the solar cycle? Described as “a big man concerned with big ideas and big things,” Berkner spoke forcefully and seemed to talk “in capital letters.”33 His “big idea” on that April evening planted the seed for what would become the largest international scientific program up to that point, the International Geophysical Year (IGY), and ignite the Space Age. As the small group of scientists sat together in James Van Allen’s home, they agreed that the timing was right to start planning for a worldwide effort to study the Earth and its environment.34
The scientific rationale for holding another international science program easily convinced the group, but Berkner had other motivations for proposing it that night. He had just completed a report commissioned by the under secretary of state, James Webb, who would later become the NASA administrator during the Apollo program. Titled “Science and Foreign Relations,” the report outlined the benefits that science brings to national security, welfare, and general progress. It recommended placing scientific attachés at US embassies around the world, gathering scientific intelligence, and providing technical assistance to newly independent nations, among other initiatives. Berkner’s work on the report, combined with a recent appreciation of the military significance of the polar regions, inspired him. For Berkner, scientific internationalism served US national security and global power interests.35 By 1954, Berkner and others foreseeing the benefits of satellites to science as well as national security advocated for their inclusion in the IGY. The following year the United States and Soviet IGY committees announced satellite programs, but not without political interest outside the world of science.36
Operation Moonglow Page 3