‘Maybe ten years ago, maybe more.’
‘Let’s say it was ten years. That means you’ve received one hundred and twenty monthly special deliveries, all saying about the same thing. Don’t you get suspicious?’
‘The danger is very great, Mrs. Pope.’
‘And in those ten years you’ve received not less than forty telegrams telling you that at the last minute the little men have refrained. Doesn’t that get monotonous?’
‘When they do land, Mrs. Pope, adventuresses like you are going to get their just deserts.’ When Penny ignored this, she continued: ‘Why do you come out here to flaunt your affair with my husband before the entire state?’
‘Please, Mrs. Grant, let’s just talk about your husband. He’s in the midst of a very difficult campaign. He could lose, you know. And this nation needs him.’
‘It does. It does. Norman’s a real patriot and the country needs him.’
‘So I come begging you to help this good man … forget your personal feelings. Your father was a notable servant in this democracy …’
‘He was indeed, Mrs. Pope. Father was a saint, as big a hero in his way as Norman is in his.’
‘I’ve often heard your husband say that.’
‘I would not want to damage Norman’s political career. I’m sure Father wouldn’t want me to.’
‘Then you must meet with the press. They’re demanding it. They’re beginning to hint at ugly reasons.’
‘I couldn’t meet the press.’ But with unrelenting pressure, applied over more than a week, Penny Pope convinced the frightened woman that she must do so. ‘It can be brief, but it can’t be silly-silly, Mrs. Grant. You must answer their questions, but I would suggest this. You must not create panic in this nation. Dr. Strabismus takes you into his confidence about the arrival of the little men. But I don’t think he would want you to circulate that news generally.’
‘You’re quite right. He always says that he will alert the world when the proper time comes.’
‘He would be most unhappy, I’m sure, if you beat the gun before he gave you permission.’
‘I’d never do that,’ she promised, so one afternoon in early October she and Penny conducted one of the most carefully orchestrated press conferences of the entire national campaign. Elinor spoke of her husband’s heroism, his commitment to honest government, and his considerable contributions to the space program which would soon place an American flag on the Moon.
Only once did she come close to breaking the fragile spell, when she alluded to the grave dangers hanging over America, but when the press bored in to ascertain which dangers, Penny interposed the word Communism—and Mrs. Grant gave a little speech on that subject. At a signal from Penny, Senator Grant happened into the room, kissed his wife for Tim Finnerty’s cameras, then left for a rally in Webster.
Later that day, when Finnerty sought Penny’s advice as to whether they should bring back the other enlisted men to wave the bloody shirt of naval heroism, she was inclined to advise against it. ‘You can use a war only so long. This Vietnam thing is beginning to worry people, especially students.’
‘Our party used the Civil War from the 1868 election through the 1908. That’s forty years, and it gained them victory after victory. Norman Grant was an authentic hero and the theme isn’t exhausted by any means.’
Reluctantly she agreed, but when she saw the three veterans in their uniforms she realized that unless the seams were let out, the effect was going to be comical. ‘Old, I don’t mind. Lends a sense of history. But tight is funny, and people will laugh.’ Actually, when she got through with the three men they looked great, and when she sharpened their speeches to give them a more topical relevance, the effect was almost as strong as it had been during that pivotal campaign of 1946, and she told the men, during the last days when it looked as if Grant might win the seat for another six years, ‘You’ve helped a really great man sustain a career that has strengthened this nation.’
She saw that Finnerty of Massachusetts and Penzoss of Alabama were touched by what she said, but that the black high-school principal, Gawain Butler of Detroit, was unmoved, and she was not surprised when the latter said, on the eve of the election, ‘If Senator Grant wins, I would like to see him as soon as possible.’
‘Why not stay over? There’s no man in America he’s more beholden to than you, Dr. Butler.’
Two days after the election, when the Republicans of Fremont were trying to decode what had happened to their man Goldwater while celebrating quietly the reelection of their senator, Penny Pope ushered Gawain Butler in to see the victor, and after the big man had adjusted his artificial leg and seated himself comfortably, he said, ‘I’m sure you must think this is about a job of some kind, but it isn’t. I’m doing very well, thank you, and there’s even some talk that I might become a superintendent of schools, either in Michigan or California.’
‘Congratulations,’ Grant said with real enthusiasm.
‘Yes, if you’ve used me to get elected to the Senate, I’ve used you to further my career in Detroit. To hear my wife talk, and she does, you’d think you made no move without consulting me.’
‘Your wife’s right. How many times have I called you?’
‘It’s not about jobs, and yet it is,’ Butler said. ‘It’s about space.’
‘Space? You mean the Moon and that?’
‘I do,’ Butler said quietly. ‘I’d like to show you some pictures,’ and from his briefcase, the imitation-leather kind favored by school administrators, he produced four glossy photographs sent him by NASA public relations. The first showed seven handsome masculine faces: Glenn, Slayton, Schirra and the other four from the first selection; Armstrong, Borman, Conrad and the six others from Group II; Aldrin, Cernan, Scott and eleven others from Group III; Claggett, Pope, Jensen and the three others from the Special Group.
‘They’re our boys,’ Grant said.
‘Thirty-six fine Americans,’ Butler said. ‘How much would you estimate it costs you to educate each of your boys, as you call them.’
‘We have no figures, but someone gave an off-the-cuff guess of about three million dollars … each one.’
As he had practiced in his office in Detroit, Butler pointed casually at the determined face of John Pope: ‘This boy’s from your hometown, isn’t he, Senator?’
‘I had nothing to do with his appointment.’
‘But he is from your town, and the government is paying three million dollars to educate him.’
‘For a very special task.’
‘A noble task, I do agree. But don’t these photographs seem strange to you?’ When Grant shrugged his shoulders, Gawain Butler said sternly, ‘Not one black face among them.’ The senator was stunned by the forcefulness of this complaint and said nothing, so Butler continued: ‘We blacks comprise about twelve percent of the national population. There ought to be about four of our young men in those photographs.’
‘We have a very careful process of selection. I’m sure that if …’
Butler was not listening. From his briefcase he produced another glossy showing the tense scene in Mission Control when a critical decision had to be made concerning a Gemini flight; it was the kind NASA took pride in circulating, for it indicated the intense concentration of some hundred men in short sleeves, grappling with the life-and-death crisis of a spacecraft two hundred miles aloft, where the blackness was intense and gravity practically null. Most of the men had crewcuts, which they believed made them look young and serious, and no one was smoking, although some were biting on pencils. They looked like the associate professors of some excellent engineering university who had just attained tenure, and they were all white.
‘By proportion, Senator, we should have twelve or thirteen black faces in that fine snapshot. We have none.’
‘I’m sure—’
‘This nation has made space its major effort. Five billion dollars a year, maybe six, I’m told. Publicity, speeches, whole magazines given ove
r to this program, and not a single black man participates. Why do you always cut us off from the best parts of our national life?’
The question came so from the heart, not only of this Detroit educator but also of the entire black community of America, that Senator Grant had to recognize its legitimacy. Why were there no blacks in this great enterprise which he had labored so strenuously to launch and keep on course? The ugly thought came to him that Lyndon Johnson and Michael Glancey were technically Southerners, so that perhaps their regional inheritance had manifested itself, but this was unworthy, because no senator or President had ever done more honest work on behalf of the blacks than Johnson, and no so-called Southern senator had employed black secretaries in his office sooner than Mike Glancey.
He wondered if the committee that selected astronauts was in any way contaminated, but then he visualized its chairman, Deke Slayton, as tough and fair a man as he had ever met, and said to himself: Deke would never permit such nonsense. If a qualified black came along, he’d grab him. Checking a folder in his desk drawer, he thought with satisfaction: Besides, he’s from Wisconsin and we Westerners have no prejudices.
He rang for a servant and asked if Mrs. Pope was in the house. She wasn’t, but the maid said she thought she might still be at headquarters, and in a few minutes Finnerty delivered her to the Grant residence.
‘You stay,’ the senator told Finnerty, and when the newcomers were seated, Grant nodded at Gawain Butler. Tell them your complaint.’
‘It’s not a personal complaint,’ Butler protested. ‘It goes far beyond that,’ and once more he spread his photographs, after which Grant asked his assistants, ‘How do you account for it?’ and Mrs. Pope had to confess: ‘The problem never came up.’
‘And that’s the problem,’ Butler said. ‘Nobody ever noticed that one of our nation’s greatest enterprises was lily-white. Nobody gave a damn.’
He took from his briefcase three other photographs, not glossies this time, for they came from varied sources and not from a government public relations office. The three white people recognized the faces immediately: Jackie Robinson from baseball, Jim Brown the great football running back, and Oscar Robertson, perhaps the best basketball player who ever lived. ‘If black men can excel in any job you give them, why wouldn’t they prove capable in space?’
The problem was so real, and pointed so directly at the men running the program, that Senator Grant said frankly, ‘Gawain, you hit me with something terribly important. I wasn’t aware of this, and I propose to do something about it. Gather three of your best people and I’ll have Mrs. Pope issue travel orders. Be in my office in Washington on Monday.’ Turning to the others, he said, ‘See that Dr. Mott is there, too.’
But if Grant had even the slightest suspicion that Dr. Mott was going to fudge the interview with bland excuses and easy promises, he did not know that tough-minded expert, for when the four black leaders were settled, and after they had made their protest in excellent fashion, he took over.
‘I’ve served on three selection committees now, and we’ve striven desperately to pick Catholic or Jewish pilots, women pilots and, especially, black pilots. We’ve wanted to show men of good will exactly like yourselves that we were not bound by religion, sex or color. But when the final moment came to make the harsh choices, from about a hundred down to six, we knew that each of the persons we selected had to have these qualifications,’ and he handed the committee mimeographed sheets listing these requirements:
B.S. degree in science or engineering
M.S. degree in science or engineering (advisable)
Military flight training
Test-pilot school
Advanced university training
Solid mastery of mathematics, physics, combustion engines, calculus
Service with a flight squadron
Test-pilot experience in at least two dozen types of aircraft
‘It’s very simple, gentlemen. You find me the young black men who have subjected themselves to training as rigorous as this, and I’ll lead the battle for their selection.’
‘For astronauts, maybe yes,’ Dr. Butler agreed, twisting the condemnatory paper in his fingers, ‘but how about the Mission Control people? Are we to be excluded from everything?’
Mott produced another mimeographed sheet, a long one this time, showing the educational qualifications of the men in Mission Control and a summary of the fantastic spread of special skills they had. On a large blow-up of a NASA photograph of the control crew at work, he pointed to one man after another, reciting his name and the great breadth of his education: ‘Tom Fallester. B.S. Cornell. M.S. Cal Tech. Ph.D. MIT. Qualified in all branches of engineering relating to combustion engines. Six years’ work at Lewis Center in Cleveland on rockets. Our expert during flights on fuel management and engine repair.’ On and on he went, probing behind the white shirts and the grim smiles, explaining the arduous paths these notable men had followed in acquiring the manifold skills they commanded. In the entire group there was no one of whom it could be said: ‘Tarnoff, here, had a good high-school education and one year at a teachers’ college in which his work emphasized nothing special, but he is a likable fellow.’ Tarnoff either mastered four or five fields of specific knowledge or he was in no way eligible for the team.
Stanley Mott was as distressed as the four black men to whom he was talking. ‘I cannot even guess what the solution is, gentlemen.’
‘Do the rest of the astronauts, those coming along … do they have to be so highly trained in test-piloting and the like?’ The questioner was a black professor from Harvard.
‘Each man in the capsule has to be qualified to take over,’ Mott said without a glimmer of conciliation.
‘But down the line?’ the Harvard man insisted. ‘Are scientists never going into space?’
‘They are,’ and Mott waved the list of qualifications for the Mission Control people. ‘But they will have to be at least as well qualified as these men. There will be no place for a black man who played four years of basketball and took basket-weaving to remain eligible.’
At his suggestion the four-man committee, accompanied by himself and Penny Pope, visited with the faculties of five excellent universities, three with engineering schools, two without, and at the conclusion of this most revealing tour, Penny compiled this doleful summary for her Senate committee:
We could not find in these five student bodies even one black man who was pursuing a course of hard, scientific training which would later on qualify him for astronaut selection. It was never a limitation of intelligence or ability that caused this state of affairs, for often the black males had higher raw test scores than their white classmates.
In this generation the gifted black student looks to business as his ladder leading out of the ghetto and to a top salary. His eye is not on the stars, it is on the board room, and at the conclusion of our tour, not one black member of our group could identify one black young man who was going to be eligible for selection ten years from now, nor even one who was preparing himself for an assignment to the Mission Control team. They do not take hard subjects.
Penny Pope’s accurate summary may have satisfied the committee of black protesters, but it certainly did not satisfy Senator Grant, for when he received a copy he rang bells furiously, and that afternoon he and Senator Glancey met with Dr. Mott and his associates. Grant spoke first, using white-hot profanity, which he usually avoided:
‘Goddammit, I want a black astronaut. I don’t care if we have to lower standards to the third-grade level. I want to see a black astronaut on our roster, and I don’t want to be told it can’t be done.’
Mott interrupted: ‘At this point it cannot be done. Do you want to endanger an entire program?’
‘The entire program will be shot to hell right here in Congress if you don’t find us a black astronaut. Do you think we can go on disinheriting over twenty million of our people? Barring them from a program on which we spend billions of their tax dollars
? Let me tell you, if the public ever turns against your program, Mott, you are a dead duck. Now, when the next photograph is taken of Mission Control, I want to see at least four black faces in there.’
Stubbornly, Mott asked, ‘Doing what?’
‘I don’t give a goddamn what they’re doing. They can be knitting, for all I care, but I want them to be there. Don’t you agree, Senator Glancey?’
It was agreed that before another year ended, there would be black faces in the control room, but finding them proved almost impossible, for reasons cited by the faculty and students of the five universities, but when Mott and his team really searched, they found at Wayne State University in Detroit an exceptionally well-trained young man who was gifted in meeting people, so although he lacked calculus and flying experience, he was given the job of liaison with the press, in which he performed superbly. Further search revealed a young man in Alabama, another in California and one in Massachusetts with first-class scientific backgrounds, so that when the next photographs were released, that sea of radiant white faces was speckled more realistically. Senator Grant took one of the pictures, circled the three faces in red ink, and mailed it to his good friend Dr. Butler of the Detroit Public School System: ‘Dear Gawain, you challenged us to find them and we did. Norman.’
The mishap in Scott Carpenter’s Mercury flight, which carried him two hundred and forty miles beyond Commander John Pope’s waiting Tulagi, reminded NASA that even the smallest error in calculation or execution might drop its returning astronauts in some Central or South American jungle, so it was obligatory that all astronauts practice surviving in that terrain. Some trained in Costa Rica, some in El Salvador, but the Solid Six were flown to the Amazon, and they were surprised at how near it was.
Space: A Novel Page 54