This Day In History, 1969: "In Event Of Moon Disaster" And A Disaster On Earth - Updated

Fifty years ago, on July 18, 1969, Apollo 11 was on its way to the moon. The hope and the prayer was that everything would go exactly as planned, but what if it didn't? As outlined in a Washington Post story written by author James Mann and published six days ago, there was a contingency plan:

America’s landing on the moon stands as such a stunning success that, 50 years later, we have trouble imagining it could have gone terribly, tragically wrong.

But in the days before the landing, on July 20, 1969, there were acute fears of a mishap. Officials in the White House and at NASA laid out lugubrious contingency plans in case astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon, but then were unable to get off the surface and back to the space capsule. If that had happened, they would have been doomed to die there, either by slow asphyxiation or perhaps by suicide.

The White House chief of staff instructed William Safire, then a White House speechwriter (and later a New York Times columnist), to draft a remarkable speech for President Richard Nixon to deliver to the nation if the astronauts were stranded on the moon. Along with the speech, Safire included instructions for other actions that should be taken. In particular, he wrote, Nixon should telephone the wives of the astronauts, whom he chillingly referred to as the “widows-to-be.” At a certain point, NASA would “end communications” with the astronauts, Safire wrote, and a clergyman should then conduct the equivalent of a burial at sea, ending with the Lord’s Prayer.

Safire’s undelivered speech lay hidden for nearly three decades before I found it. In the late 1990s, researching a book on America’s opening to China, I was rummaging through the archives of the Nixon administration (then in College Park, Md.) when my eyes suddenly fell on something I wasn’t looking for. It was a memo from Safire to White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman titled, “In event of moon disaster.”

The short text still brings tears to the eyes. It begins, “Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace.” It ends with the words, “For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind.”

What Safire wrote would have qualified as the most eloquent speech Nixon ever gave — and one of the most poignant by any American president. Thankfully, it never had to be delivered. (This is the article in its entirety.) 

Safire typed the speech into a memo, dated July 18, 1969, and sent it to White House Chief of Staff H.R Haldeman:







Click here to see a larger copy of the speech.

Apollo 11 turned out to be a triumph, of course, truly a giant leap for mankind. Back here on earth a much less elevated narrative was also taking place, starting the night of July 18:

Fifty years ago, as men prepared to land on the moon and millions of those stuck on earth followed each staticky dispatch from space, Senator Ted Kennedy drove his car into a pond. The weekend of the Apollo 11 moon landing should have cemented the Kennedy family’s legacy of public service. Seven years earlier, Teddy’s brother President John F. Kennedy proposed putting an American on the lunar surface before the decade was out. And on the evening of July 18, 1969, Neil Armstrong was hours away from doing just that. But for the new patriarch of Camelot, the weekend instead was marked by a tragic accident at best, an unconscionable act at worst—one that ultimately killed a young woman, 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne.

Looking back 50 years on, Chappaquiddick says much about its era, a time when a privileged, powerful man could manipulate a system to avoid prosecution while a young woman who had ascended in male-dominated Washington—when only 11 women were in Congress—had both her life and death engulfed by the senator’s political ambitions and America’s fascination with the Kennedys. 

... In the accident’s aftermath, Kennedy deftly managed to escape both his Oldsmobile Delmont 88 and the incident itself with little punishment. Numerous books, documentaries, and movies have been released over the years, including the full-length feature Chappaquiddick, in 2017, often meticulously focusing on the hours after the accident and those involved. But the people with firsthand knowledge of Chappaquiddick have rarely spoken. And even today, the truth still feels just out of reach. (From Vanity Fair, read more here.) 

In the short term the incident at Chappaquiddick was overshadowed by the moon landing but it was still a big deal. Would it have gotten more attention at the time if it hadn't happened while Apollo 11 was on its way to the moon? Probably. (To put it another way, did Ted "luck out" with the timing of his plunge into the pond? My understanding is that non-admirers of the Kennedys have occasionally voiced this thought.) Would the outcome have been different in any way, specifically in terms of consequences for Ted Kennedy, if the timing had been different? Probably not.

For what it's worth, and I'm by no means an expert on Chappaquiddick and we'll never know for sure, but I believe the reason Ted Kennedy waited so long to call the police is that he was drunk that night. He wanted to sober up before putting himself in contact with the authorities. I believe his various advisers were telling him that "Yes, this looks bad but a DUI conviction would be worse. Much better to wait a few hours until your blood alcohol level has gone down. That way they'll never be able to say for sure that you were driving drunk." 

On the other hand, what if Chappaquiddick had never happened? Would Ted Kennedy have been able to connect himself to his older brother's historic vision, share in the triumph of the successful moon landing and ride that wave to the presidency? Maybe, but call me skeptical.

In reality, Chappaquiddick did happen, the same week as the moon landing. In the short term Kennedy avoided serious consequences but in the long term he was never able to completely escape the shadow of his behavior and choices during that time. It's not the only reason he never got to be president but it's certainly a stain on his reputation, even now. 

And one more thing. On a different July 18, 43 years later, Donald sent out the following tweet:

As I always said, the "Birthers" were after the truth. Thanks to @RealSheriffJoe @BarackObama can't hide anymore.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 18, 2012

Update on Saturday morning. How cool is this:

Here’s the cover and opening pages of Arthur C. Clarke’s 1986 future-telling book July 20, 2019. Published 17 years after the moon landing, it predicts what the world will look like on the event’s 50th anniversary.

From the Kirkus review:

“Clarke invo… https://t.co/PMQKLpT3H2 pic.twitter.com/P84JjP2f2w

— 70s Sci-Fi Art (@70sscifiart) July 20, 2019