As I Saw It

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As I Saw It Page 8

by Scott, Marvin; Rather, Dan;


  A few setbacks had delayed the flight, but this looked like the morning Columbia would finally blast off into the heavens. The shuttle program was already two-and-a-half years behind schedule and $10 billion over budget. The astronauts, John Young and Bob Crippen, were ready, as were the spectators. Clouds of moist smoke encircled the shuttle, which was being fueled with half a million gallons of liquid oxygen and hydrogen.

  The sun peered out from behind scattered clouds as the count-down clock transitioned from hours to minutes. At liftoff, flames gushed from the solid rocket boosters as the shuttle, with its external fuel tanks strapped to its side, inched off the pad. Is it going to make it?—I hesitated in thought; but then the mighty Saturn V edged upward, all 36 stories and four-and-a-half million pounds of it. A crescendo of cheers roared from the crowd. With the engines generating 1300 tons of thrust, Columbia began to clear the launch complex. She rolled on her side during the initial climb, and for a moment I feared she was going to tip over—but then I realized it was the way the it was supposed to be. As I watched Columbia thunder into the deep-blue sky, I felt a tremendous sense of pride; once again America had triumphed, and I was an eyewitness to history.

  Minutes after launch, the shuttle had diminished to a flaming speck in the sky. A little over two minutes into the flight, at 25 miles up, the solid rocket boosters, their fuel consumed, separated from the shuttle and fell 160 miles downrange into the Atlantic, to be recovered for future missions. Columbia herself broke the bonds of gravity, and orbited the Earth 37 times before landing two days later at Edwards Air Force Base in California. It was the first time a spacecraft would land on Earth by gliding down a runway, instead of splashing into the ocean. Like the first moon landing, the first space-shuttle launch still stands as a testament to the brilliance of American technology and human accomplishment.

  * * *

  But along with these triumphs came other tragedies. The euphoria of Columbia’s feat was violently shattered 22 years later in 2003, when, on its 28th mission, the shuttle broke apart and disintegrated while reentering Earth’s atmosphere, killing the entire seven-member crew. The Columbia disaster ended nearly two decades of accident-free shuttle missions and signaled the end of the shuttle program, which was formally scrubbed in 2011.

  For me, it brought back memories of the program’s only other catastrophe, 17 years previous. January 28, 1986, was the date set to record a new chapter in the history of manned space flight. The Space Shuttle Challenger was about to be launched, carrying its first civilian crewmember. Christa McAuliffe, an elementary-school teacher from New Hampshire, was going to conduct two lessons from outer space. Her third-grade class had been invited to view the launch from the VIP bleachers, along with her husband, children and parents.

  I wanted to be there for the launch, but my news director decided not to send me on this one—shuttle flights had become so routine, he didn’t see a need to have a reporter there. We still broadcast the launch, using video provided by NASA. We were riveted to the TV screen as Challenger surged flawlessly into the sky. But 73 seconds into the flight, cheers of joy suddenly turned to gasps of panic as the white contrail in the sky became erratic, jutting out in different directions. A fiery explosion seconds later left no doubt that the shuttle had exploded. Wreckage rained over the ocean as NASA declared the shuttle and its crew lost.

  My news director didn’t hesitate when I suggested I get on the next plane to cover this devastating story, and I arrived in time to file a telephone report for our 7:30 newscast. Temperatures dropped sharply in the night air, down to somewhere in the 40s. I hadn’t brought clothing warm enough and I started to shiver, my teeth still chattering minutes before I was to go live. Someone brought me a hot cup of coffee, and I rolled the cup in my hands to warm them. I wondered how they could have planned on launching a shuttle in such cold conditions. Engineers had worried before about cold conditions impacting the integrity of the spacecraft, and after an exhaustive investigation, it was determined that these adverse conditions had indeed contributed to the disaster. The cold had caused the failure of the rubber O-rings that were used to prevent fuel from escaping during initial propulsion of the rocket boosters, eventually causing the boosters to rupture and explode.

  A pall of grief and disbelief had fallen over the Space Center and its surrounding communities. Space-agency workers appeared dazed as they walked along the complex. Many were so distraught they had difficulty speaking, their voices choked with emotion. Once again, flags were draped at half-staff, and marquees around town bore the names of the seven lost astronauts along with the words, “You are heroes.” America’s loss felt like a personal loss to each and every one of us. It was impossible not to be touched by the loss of these seven young souls, particularly the crusading teacher who had volunteered to teach kids everywhere a lesson from space. What a moment that would have been.

  It made me reflect on my own fantasy to venture into space, and the risks involved. I had already made the initial cut as a candidate for the Journalist-in-Space program, which was to follow these early civilian ventures. I was not deterred by the Challenger disaster, and felt more eager than ever to make such a pioneering journey; it would have been the ultimate assignment. But it wasn’t to be. In the aftermath of the tragedy, the program was scrubbed, along with many other ambitious projects. It would be two years, in fact, before America’s space program would resume, with the launch of the space shuttle Discovery.

  * * *

  Astronauts, like all explorers, understand that with the spirit and reward of exploration come risks. Our astronauts continued to take them as they forged ahead with their conquest of space.

  A few weeks before he was killed in the Apollo 1’s launch pad accident, Gus Grissom said, “We hope if anything happens to us, it will not delay the program.” And though there were setbacks, the space program did continue, with 11 subsequent Apollo missions and 136 space shuttle missions. In the process, we helped build a space station, sent telescopes to probe the vastness of the universe and landed unmanned spacecraft on distant planets like Mars. And back on Earth, decades of space research have benefited our lives in so many ways, leading to the development of innovations from microchips, cell phones and GPS technology to solar panels and implantable heart monitors. The rewards of our exploration have been far more than ideological; they have been real human triumphs, and every day redeem the tragic sacrifices that made them possible. As Grissom said, again so prophetically, “The conquest of space is worth the risk.”

  13

  THE ALCOHOLIC WHO SAVED MY LIFE

  The devastating scene on Sterling Place, Brooklyn, where the United Airlines jet fell after colliding with a TWA plane over New York. Photo Courtesy: New York Fire Department.

  The bells on the teletype were ringing incessantly, alerting us to a major breaking story. Bulletins morphed into newsflashes, with developing details of a mid-air collision between two commercial airliners over New York City. It was Friday, December 16th, 1960, and I was working the tail end of my overnight shift at radio station WCOL in Columbus, Ohio. I interrupted regular programming with our first bulletin of the disaster.

  My pulse quickened as the story unfolded. A seven-alarm inferno was raging in the streets of Brooklyn, where a United Airlines jetliner had just plunged from the sky. Groping its way through snow and fog, and off-course by 11 miles, the jet broadsided a smaller prop-driven plane, sending it spinning wildly through the air before crashing on Staten Island. In all, 134 people died that day, including six people on the ground. In addition to being a national tragedy, this was a devastating local story for our Ohio listeners: the smaller of the two planes, TWA Flight 266, originated in Columbus and had many Ohio residents aboard. And as the bulletins came through, I was shocked to realize that I could very well have been one of the passengers aboard that ill-fated flight.

  * * *

  It had seemed the perfect weekend to visit home in New York. It was just before Christmas and my moth
er’s birthday, and it provided the ideal opportunity for me to get to the Israeli Consulate to pick up the credentials they had approved for me to cover the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. My initial plan was to begin a long weekend that Friday, and the TWA flight out of Columbus looked like my best bet.

  As it turned out, a colleague’s irresponsible behavior saved my life. A few days before my scheduled trip, News Director Allen Jeffries called me into his office to tell me he needed me to stay a day longer to work the overnight shift. One of my fellow news anchors, who regularly worked that shift, had been suspended after a third incident of being too intoxicated to go on the air. “Just leave on Saturday,” Jeffries advised me, “and take an extra day on Monday.”

  By staying on the job, I found myself working past my shift to continue reporting the story and conducting telephone interviews with local airport officials and people who’d had loved ones on the doomed plane. Later, exhausted after working overnight, I headed back to my apartment for some much-needed sleep. I returned a few hours later for the station’s annual Christmas party, which quickly turned into a celebration of me, with colleagues hugging and toasting me for not having been on Flight 266 that day.

  * * *

  Less than 24 hours later, I boarded another TWA plane bearing the same flight number as the one that had crashed the day before. I could sense the tension among my fellow passengers, many of whom gripped newspapers emblazoned with headlines of the disaster. The notes I scribbled during that flight are now yellowed, and tattered from age. But my memories of the disaster remain quite vivid.

  After they picked me up at LaGuardia Airport, my parents drove me to the scene of the crash on Sterling Place in Brooklyn. I had a note from my news director, identifying me as a reporter and requesting that I be given access to the crash site. What I saw was like a scene from the worst disaster movie. Twisted and mangled chunks of a once-sleek airliner littered the street. The jet’s right wing could be seen sliced into a four-story brownstone, the nose resting amid the charred remains of the Pillar of Fire Church. Somehow I managed to walk across the water-soaked carpet covering a portion of the fuselage that lay across the street. The seats had been torn from their mountings. Parts of the twisted landing gear were scattered beside a tree. An overturned car lay crushed under the plane, parts of which had fallen into a nearby funeral home with the passengers still strapped in their seats. Bloodstains were slowly vanishing in the melting snow.

  Out of all the carnage there was life, if only briefly—a lone survivor who touched the consciousness and entered the prayers of people worldwide. 11-year-old Stephen Baltz, who had been on the United flight on his way to spend Christmas with his grandparents, was thrown clear of the crash and into a snow bank. When rescuers found him, he was in shock and had burns over 80% of his body, along with scorched lungs and broken bones. Through all his pain, he managed to joke with a hospital attendant, telling her, “The next time, I want my private plane.” He asked his rescuers if he was going to die, and they tried to reassure him that he would not. But 26 hours later, Stephen succumbed to his injuries.

  A permanent memorial to what was, at the time, the nation’s worst aviation disaster is today located a dozen blocks from the crash site. On the back wall of the chapel at New York’s Methodist Hospital, where the courageous young Stephen Baltz was treated, is a bronze plaque with the words: “Our tribute to a brave little boy.” Attached to the plaque are nine burned nickels and dimes—the 65 cents rescuers found in Stephen’s pocket when they pulled him out of the snow bank in Brooklyn.

  Each anniversary of that disaster serves as a reminder of the fragility and preciousness of life. Every year, I give thanks to my drunken colleague who gave me reason to work that fateful day. And missing Flight 266 has had another impact on me. As silly as it may sound, I make every effort not to fly on the 16th of December.

  14

  ADDING A VOICE TO HISTORY

  Frame 237 from Abraham Zapruder’s film of JFK’s assassination. Photo Courtesy: Zapruder Film © 1967. Renewed 1995 The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza.

  It is arguably the most graphic and chilling visual record of a murder ever filmed, and surely the most controversial. The Zapruder film—the 26.6 seconds of silent imagery that captured the instant on November 22nd, 1963, when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated—served as the centerpiece of the investigation that led the Warren Commission to conclude that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone shooter. Yet intense scrutiny of the film also gave rise to numerous conspiracy theories, including theories that the film had been created by the CIA using special effects.

  In the fall of 1966, I went to Dallas to produce a documentary for the Mutual Broadcasting System, on the third anniversary of the Kennedy assassination. I was determined to interview dress manufacturer Abraham Zapruder about how he had come to be at the right place at the right time to record one of the darkest moments in American history.

  It was to be a challenge. A quiet, unassuming man, Zapruder consistently shied away from public attention, and did not like to do interviews. When I called him from a motel near his office, he accepted my call, but—very graciously—declined to meet with me. Though I assured him that the interview would be brief, he would not relent. Not willing to give up so quickly, however, I engaged him in further conversation, talking with him about New York, particularly Brooklyn, where he had lived until he was 15 with his Jewish parents, who had emigrated from Russia.

  With a subtle hint of an immigrant’s accent, he seemed to enjoy talking with me about the New York yesterdays. About ten minutes into our conversation, he became interested in knowing more about me. As we chatted, it became apparent that we had something in common: we were both Jewish. We shared a few Yiddish words, and he wanted to know if I had been Bar Mitzvahed. That did it! Before I knew it, we had bonded, and the doors to his office suddenly parted.

  “Can you be here at 2 o’clock?” he asked.

  “Absolutely,” I replied, buoyant to have snagged the prized interview. I would later learn that it was one of only a handful of broadcast interviews Zapruder had ever done.

  A short, balding man, “Mr. Z,” as his employees called him, welcomed me into his office that afternoon. Right away he explained his usual reticence, telling me how difficult it was for him to talk about that fateful day three years earlier. He had broken into uncontrollable tears after witnessing the murder, and reliving the event always brought those intense feelings back. I promised to respect his sensitivity.

  He was agreeable to joining me downstairs, just across the street, to conduct the interview on the grassy knoll where he had stood on November 22, 1963. His assistant, Marilyn Sitzman, 20 years his junior, joined us. Mr. Z told me how he had forgotten to bring his camera that day, and was encouraged by his secretary, Lillian Rogers, to go back home to get it.

  “How many times will you have a crack at getting color movies of the president?” she reasoned. He said he loved President Kennedy, and was looking forward to seeing him and his beautiful First Lady up close.

  Zapruder’s voice dropped into the back of his throat as the dreadful moment went into rewind, and he began to bring it all back.

  “I saw the motorcycles, then the car approached and Jacqueline and the president were waving,” he said, his voice growing haltingly slower. “As it came in line with my camera, I heard a shot. I saw the president lean over to Jacqueline, then the second shot came; and then I realized I saw his head open up, and I started yelling, ‘They killed him, they killed him,’ and I continued shooting until they went under the underpass. It’s left in my mind like a wound that heals up, yet there is some pain left as to what had happened.” Zapruder removed his glasses to dab a tear from his eye. Sitzman recalled that her boss had become “hysterical” in the minutes after the assassination, which led us to an interesting revelation. Contrary to the findings of the Warren Commission, which determined that Lee Harvey Oswald had fired three shots from the sixth-floor window o
f the Texas School Book Depository, Zapruder said that he and Sitzman only heard two shots from behind and over their left shoulder, where the building was located. He explained that he did not dispute the Commission’s conclusion, expressing his belief that he may not have heard the third shot because he was so traumatized by witnessing the murder of the president.

  My interview with Zapruder and Sitzman lasted about 20 minutes. I was so appreciative, I invited both of them to join me for dinner; but Mr. Z would hear nothing of it.

  “I want my wife to meet you,” he insisted, smiling warmly.

  That evening Zapruder brought me to his home, where we shot pool and his charming wife Lillian served us cocktails. He reached into a cabinet to show me the unopened camera that Bell & Howell had sent him in exchange for his B&H Zoomatic, which he had given to the company for their archives. He said he could never look through a viewfinder again, because it brought back all the awful images. He also told me he never wanted to have a copy of the historic film at home, for fear that someone would break in and steal it.

  The Zapruders then hosted me at dinner, in a magnificent restaurant overlooking Dallas. With the lights of the city twinkling below, we kept the conversation light and entertaining. Mrs. Zapruder teasingly wanted to know why “a nice Jewish boy” like me wasn’t married.

  * * *

  The 8-millimeter Zapruder film runs 26.6 seconds. The audio portion of my interview, in which he described just what he saw, runs 33 seconds. The first time I saw a full screening of the shocking film, I had the idea to synchronize that portion of the interview with the video to make it sound like Zapruder was actually narrating it. All I needed was the film. No easy task! It took me 40 years to make it happen; for decades, I was unable to get permission to use the film without paying an exorbitant fee.

  On the 40th anniversary of the assassination, however, I learned that the Sixth Floor Museum in Dealey Plaza had been given the licensing rights by the Zapruder family.

 

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