National Security Action Memo 271

[William Kelly]

In one of the last National Security Action Memos that JFK issued as President, he ordered the head of the NASA (James Webb?) to begin working with the State Department in organizing cooperative ventures into space with the USSR.

While we hear a lot about the NSAM re:Vietnam and Cuba, and LBJ promised to fullfill JFK's policies and vision, he made major strategic changes in regards to Cuba and Vietnam, but in the case of NSAM 271, it was totally ignored.

We know that Project Paperclip brought in the Nazi scientists that developed the rocket program for NASA, and that one of Oswald's handlers - Max Clark worked for Convair, who developed the Army rockets, and that NASA, the Army, the Air Force nor the CIA wanted to work in any way with the Ruskies, so what was their response?

Did they know that LBJ would reverse that order?

Did Webb drag his feet and hold off implimenting the new policy until LBJ took over?

Did LBJ cancel it, or did they just let it slide?

And given the motive the Nazis at NASA had for not wanting to work with the Russians, do you think it was at least as much motive as the Mafia or the Cubans had?

Maby NASA is a crime scene that Jack White should visit.

BK

http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resou...+Desk/NSAMs.htm

NSAM 271 - Ordering NASA & State to begin organizing a cooperative space effort with the USSR:

http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset+Tree/Asset...5}&type=mpd

Edited February 14, 2010 by William Kelly

[William Kelly]

Not only was JFK's NSAM totally ignored, so was this post about it.

I think it important that JFK would sign such an important document at such a time, and that after he is murdered, his policy is not carried out.

Isn't anybody else interested in why it wasn't?

BK

In one of the last National Security Action Memos that JFK issued as President, he ordered the head of the NASA (James Webb?) to begin working with the State Department in organizing cooperative ventures into space with the USSR.

While we hear a lot about the NSAM re:Vietnam and Cuba, and LBJ promised to fullfill JFK's policies and vision, he made major strategic changes in regards to Cuba and Vietnam, but in the case of NSAM 271, it was totally ignored.

We know that Project Paperclip brought in the Nazi scientists that developed the rocket program for NASA, and that one of Oswald's handlers - Max Clark worked for Convair, who developed the Army rockets, and that NASA, the Army, the Air Force nor the CIA wanted to work in any way with the Ruskies, so what was their response?

Did they know that LBJ would reverse that order?

Did Webb drag his feet and hold off implimenting the new policy until LBJ took over?

Did LBJ cancel it, or did they just let it slide?

And given the motive the Nazis at NASA had for not wanting to work with the Russians, do you think it was at least as much motive as the Mafia or the Cubans had?

Maby NASA is a crime scene that Jack White should visit.

BK

http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resou...+Desk/NSAMs.htm

NSAM 271 - Ordering NASA & State to begin organizing a cooperative space effort with the USSR:

http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset+Tree/Asset...5}&type=mpd

[Bernice Moore]

http://www.prouty.org/271a.html nsam 271..b PROUTY..site Edited March 8, 2010 by Bernice Moore

[William Kelly]

http://www.prouty.org/271a.html nsam 271..b PROUTY..site

Thanks for that Bernice,

That explains it all.

BK

[William Kelly]

kelsocartography.com/blog/?p=1481

America was well behind Russia in its space program. The Russians were succeeding in their space missions at an alarming yet. Yet with nothing more that 15 minutes of manned spaceflight experience, Kennedy made a speech before Congress proposing the moon landing. The speech followed this exploratory memo sent to Vice President Johnson asking if there was any kind of space effort in which the U.S could catch up and beat Russia. President Kennedy wanted to devote "maximum effort" to such a program.

After meeting with NASA administrator Jim Webb and NASA scientists, Johnson came back with their mutually agreed upon idea to go to the Moon. Kennedy then drafted his famous speech. I was still in college but I was getting interested in astronomy and this got me interested in the MOON.

http://www.prouty.org/271a.html

Commentary on NSAM #271 and NASA by Nathan Gant

Here are excerpts from JFK's speech to the UN, as published in Vital Speeches of the Day:

"...Finally, in a field where the United States and the Soviet Union have a special capacity -- in the field of space -- there is room for new cooperation, for further joint efforts in the regulation and exploration of space. I include among these possibilities a joint expedition to the moon."

"Space offers no problem of sovereignty; by resolution of this assembly, the members of the United Nations have forsworn any claims to territorial rights in outer space or on celestial bodies, and declared that international law and the United Nations Charter will apply."

"Why, therefore, should man's first flight to the moon be a matter of natural competion? Why should the United States and the Soviet Union, in preparing for such expeditions, become involved in immense duplications of research construction and expenditure? Surely we should explore whether the scientists and astronauts of our two countries -- indeed of all the world -- cannot work together in the conquest of space, sending some day in this decade to the moon, not the representatives of a single nations, but the representatives of all of our countries."

On Sept. 23, 1963, President Kennedy wrote a reply Rep. Al Thomas, who asked the President to clarify the national space effort to the moon(as stated in the Presidential Address to Congress on May 25, 1961) as opposed to an international effort he now had proposed before the UN on Sept. 20, 1963:

"...I am very glad...to state my position on the relation between our great current space effort and my proposal at the UN for increased cooperation with the Russians in this field..."

"As you know, my idea of cooperation in space is not new...our willingness to cooperate in a moon shot was an extension of a policy developed as long ago as 1958...[o]ur specific interest in cooperation with the Soviet Union...was indicated to me to Chairman Krushchev in Vienna in the middle of 1961...and...in my letter to him of March 7, 1962, which was made public at the time...o my statement at the UN is a direct development of a policy long held by the US Government."

"This great national effort and this steadily stated readiness to cooperate with others are not in conflict. They are mutually supporting elements of a single policy. We do not make our space effort with the narrow purpose of national aggrandizement...our readiness to cooperate with others enlarges the international meaning of our own peaceful American program in space."

But almost immediately after the UN speech, it was NASA which became uncooperative. There was serious foot-dragging within their upper ranks. For example, Dr. Robert C. Seamans(Associate NASA Administrator) had (privately) threatened to resign rather than cooperate in a joint US-USSR lunar flight. Moreover, a former head of NASA's moon flight program, Dr. B. Holmes, publically stated in an ABC television interview in Sept. 1963 that a Soviet-American mission to the moon would be, "a very costly, very inefficient, probably a very dangerous way to execute the program."

On the other hand, on Sept. 29, 1963, the Soviet responses to his speech were all quite favorable. See the NY Times article(included as file NYT1.TXT). Later on Oct. 25, 1963, at a Kremlin press conference in another positive response to Kennedy's joint space initiative, Premier Krushchev emphasized that there would not be any kind of 'moon race' against the Americans. And really from that point on, the Soviet govenment no longer made any sort of plans for a lunar landing on its own.

It would be a great distortion of the historical record to suggest that the contest to send humans to the moon was against the Soviets. The US military-industrial complex deceived the American people into believing that a race to the moon against the Russians was real when in fact the US was the only one in the race. The Russians had officially withdrawn from the 'space race' in Oct, 1963. It is important to know this because a lot of the 1960's rightwing propaganda must be exposed for what it really was all along, a big lie.

Incomplete portrayals of this historical record continues even today. Read the June 1994 issue of the Scientific American article, "Was the Race to the Moon Real?" Among other things, the author's fail to even seriously discuss the close collaboration between Dryden and Blagonravov during that time.

Let's put this all into perspective by discussing these two people at length.

At 21, Hugh L. Dryden was the youngest person to receive a Ph.D. in physics at John Hopkins University. He played a major part in the early days of NASA, having been appointed by Pres. Eisenhower as the NASA Deputy Administrator in 1959. Dr. Dryden's efforts in behalf of US-USSR space cooperation were substantial in that critical time period of 1962-1963.

Anatoli A. Blagonravov was a scientist who specialized in artillery armaments. He held the rank of lieutenant-general in the Red Army. Since 1943, he was a member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. He was appointed as the chief Soviet negotiator for matters of space cooperation because he was an internationally-recognized expert in the space field and he already held top positions in space-related institutions in Russia.

The Dryden-Blagonravov talks concerning matters of cooperation in outer space began in March, 1962 at the UN. Pres. Kennedy had appointed Dr. Dryden to represent the US in technical talks with his Soviet counterpart.

From these talks arose the Dryden-Blagonravov Agreement on space cooperation. The two countries agreed to work in 3 specific areas: meteorological satellites, mapping the earth's magnetic field, and a communications experiment on the US satellite Echo II.

By early 1963, the US and the Soviet Union were becoming more friendly in matters of space cooperation. Thus, there was no great change in US space policy when Pres. Kennedy outlined a joint mission to the moon with the USSR in Sept., 1963.

It would have been impossible to justify a war against communism on the ground in 1964 if we were already peacefully co-existing with them in outer space. It was absolutely critical for his enemies to have him removed from power immediately and at once after NSAM 271 was issued in order that they could have a 'space race' to the moon(with America the sole participant) in place of his UN project. NSAM 271 which was issued from the White House ten days before the assassination in Dallas. NSAM 271 specifically instructed NASA Administrator James Webb to take personal initiative and responsibility for substantive cooperation in space with the USSR. Pres. Kennedy personally toured Cape Canaveral, Florida the week before his assassination in Dallas.

if the foot-dragging by NASA to cooperate with the Russians had continued long enough, Pres. Kennedy may not have have signed off on the NASA appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 1964 when it would have been submitted to his desk in Dec., 1963. He could have used for his argument the fact that the Pelly Admendment was in place, a rider which passed the House on Oct. 10, 1963. The absurd, anti-communist clause read:

"No part of any appropriations made available to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration by this act shall be used for the expenses of participating in a manned lunar landing to be carried out by the US and any Communist, Communist-controlled, or Communist-dominated country, or for expenses of any aeronautical and space activities...which are primarily designed to facilitate or prepare for preparation in such a joint lunar landing except pursuant to an agreement hereafter made by the Presiedent and with the advise and consent of the Senate..".

However, some historians insist that the Pelly Admendment never seriously affected US-USSR space cooperation one way or another since it was generated by the most extreme, reactionary members of Congress in a furious response to Kennedy's UN speech of 20 Sept. 1963 and thus it reflected little of the public sentiment in matters of outer space which was already held by at that time between the two countries.

And theoretically at least, this Pelly Admendment is still in force even today, yet nothing was said of it to prevent the the Apollo-Soyuz mission in 1975, or any of the Space Shuttle missions involving the Russian cosmonauts since then. Thus, it was and is simply a venomous piece of hysteria of no merit whatsoever. No reasonable, peace-loving person could possibly honor the Pelly Admendment in spirit or in deed. It is best left in the dustbin of history where it remains today.

But it must be noted that there was in fact serious debate about whether NASA should continue to receive funding at all, especially for the 'moon-doggle' as it was being referred to, and this made NASA's future to be very uncertain indeed prior to LBJ taking office.

For an example of the typical sentiment of the day, read "The Moon-Doggle", by Amitai Etzioni, 1964, Doubleday & Co., NY (LC number TL 789.8 U5 E8). (Mr. Etzioni is an organizational sociologist by profession. Incidentally, his son co-designed with Erin Selberg the 'MetaCrawler' search engine found on the World Wide Web today). In Amitai Etzioni's book, he proposed that NASA be completely abolished and replaced with the Science for Development Agency(SDA) which would concentrate on real-life problems that plague America, from the civilian use of nuclear energy, air pollution, unemployment, ect. All NASA personnel would be given the option of transferring into SDA or going out to work in private industry.

But it was in fact LBJ who signed, with some hesitiation, the NASA appropriations bill that December, 1963 and committed the country to a purely national space effort as opposed to Kennedy's international program. Just as he committed American ground troops to SE Asia, which was never Pres. Kennedy's intent.

Clearly, under the Kennedy Administration, we would have had no national space effort or any war in Vietnam. We would have had a joint US-USSR mission to the moon and a withdrawal of all military forces in Indochina. Vietnam would have become a socialist country in 1964 instead of 1975, without all the millions of casualties on both sides. Under the Camelot vision, we would have entered a far more peaceful world with a bright future.

Moreover, if you examine LBJ's first speech to the UN in Dec. 1963, you will not even find a single word mentioning 'space' in the entire text. What a drastic difference in policy we have here!

Once LBJ committed the country to the national space effort, one can almost think of the Vietnam war in the same terms. The national moon missions were, in a sense, cosmic struggles against the eternal forces of nature in outer space, and the ground war in Vietnam to which LBJ committed the nation was a national assault against the 'evil' forces of communism in SE Asia.

The so-called "Nixon Doctrine" originated from a public TV speech in which Pres. Nixon authorized the military to pursue the enemy beyond the Vietnamese lines and into Cambodian territory, an extremely, belligerent act which certainly helped to intensify the war on both sides. Operation Dewey Canyon/Lam Son II was perhaps the most bloodiest episode in the entire Vietnam war on the ground; approx. 50% of the entire South Vietnamese army were wiped out in the fierce battles initiated in that campaign. Notes: 10 lunar landings were originally planned. Apollo 13 failed for technical reasons and 3 were cancelled by Pres. Nixon during the political crisis(Watergate) that followed the 1972 elections. Total budget was $25 billion dollars. Now let's move ahead a few years for a sidelight to all of this.

On Nov. 4, 1984, Dr. Arthur Louis Hugo Rudolf received NASA's highest honor, the Distinguished Service Medal, at an official ceremony in the Reagan White House. He supervised the production and operation of the Saturn rocket booster which was a key component to NASA's manned moon missions during the 1960's. Interestingly, Rudolf's Saturn rocket-booster manufacturing plant in Gentilly, south of New Orleans, also housed a CIA station at the same time.

Almost immediately after he received that honor, he renounced his US citizenship and returned to Germany that year. His past was finally catching up on him. Government investigators were preparing to charge and deport him as a war criminal based on incriminating evidence in the National Archives. He joined the Nazi party in 1931 and the SA Storm Troopers in 1933. He was a close colleague of Wehner von Braun at the Mittlewerk Dora slave-labor factory in Harz, Germany where the V-1 and V-2 rockets were assembled.

Rudolf and von Braun were closely associated with General Walter Dornberger, chief of the German Rocket Center in Peenemunde. Dornberger faced the hangman's noose at Nuremburg for his war crimes. But the notorious war criminal instead became the Director of Research and Development at Bell Aircraft in Texas, via 'Operation Paperclip'.

The German Nazi immigrations into the US is documented by the British historian Tom Bower in his book, "The Paperclip Conspiracy", Little, Brown: Boston, 1987 (Library of Congress number: D810.S2 B69).

If you recall, it was Michael and Ruth Paine who befriended Marina and Lee Oswald in Dallas/Ft. Worth. At the time, Michael Paine's occupation was with Bell Aircraft as a liason to the Defense Department. This job required security clearances. So what would Oswald, the 'defector' and 'communist', be doing in the company of Michael Paine? Paine's boss at Bell Aircraft was of course Gen. Dornberger. And it turned out that Bell Aircraft would later have the contract for supplying the US Army's helicopters in the Vietnam war. A war which Kennedy was going at great lengths to avoid in 1963.

In the House Select Committee Investigation on the JFK assassination, I found it to be rather interesting that the official trajectory analysis of the so-called "single bullet theory(SBT)" was performed by a reactionary NASA engineer, Thomas Canning. His conclusion only restated the Warren Commission's findings, that a single bullet fired by Oswald hit both Kennedy and Connally, and the 6th floor Texas Book Depository was the most likely firing position. But as Col. Prouty has pointed out, there are more fragments left in Connally wrist than are missing from the recovered 'magic bullet'.

David Ferrie drove to Dallas with several other characters on the night of Nov. 22, 1963. Upon his return to New Orleans, he was questioned by the FBI for unknown reasons. What are in these FBI files are still classified. One of his colleagues on that trip left immediately for Cape Canaveral, Florida to work with NASA special operations (Melvin Coffey). Strangely, NASA claims it has no records on him, because he worked as an 'independent contractor'. If you recall in Garrison's book, Oswald was talking about working for NASA in New Orleans in 1963. I believe some of the NASA-related material was brought up in Garrison's book, "On the Trail of Assassins".

Edited April 30, 2010 by William Kelly

[William Kelly]

Someone else thinks this NSAM is important.

Doug Horne, Inside the Assassination Records Review Board, Vol. V., p. 1681.

....But this part of President Kennedy's legacy is ironic because he was so intent, in the autumn of 1963, upon fostering detente with the USSR, and beginning to end the Cold War, that he seriously proposed abandoning the race to the moon, and making a project a joint endeauvor between the United States an the USSR. Most people today are unaware of this, but it is true.

On Spetember 20, 1963, in his second speech to the United Nations General Assembly, in an address called "The Quest for Peace," President Kennedy said in part:

"....I would say to the leaders of the Soviet Union, and to their people, that if either of our countries is to be fully secure, we need a much better weapon than the H-bomb - a weapon better than ballistic missiles or nuclear submarines - and that better weapon is peaceful cooperation."

"...in a field where the United States and the Soviet Union have a special capacity - in the field of space - there is room for new cooperation, for further joint efforts in the regulation and exploration of space. Include among these possibilities a joint expedition to the moon. Space offers no problems of sovereignty; by resolution of this Assembly, the members of the United Nations have forsworn any claims to territorial rights to outer space or on celestial bodies, and declared that international law and the United Nations Charter will apply. Why, therefore, should man's flight to the moon be a matter of national competition? Why should the United States and the Soviet Union, in preparing for such expeditons, become involved in immense duplication of research, construction, and expenditure? Surely we should explore whether the scientists and astronauts of our two countries - indeed all the world - cannot work together in the conquest of space, sending someday in this decade to the moon not the representatives of a single nation, but the representatives of all our countries..."

These are striking words, coming three months after the Peace Speech at American University and just two months after Kennedy's nationwide address hailing the Limited Test Ban Treaty......On November 12, to prove to NASA administrator James Webb that he was serious, President Kennedy issued the following directive to him as a National Security Action Memorandum - NSAM No. 271 - a truly remarkable action, making clear that his desires in this matter were to be considdered an order, not a request, and linking the cooperative effort to reach the moon to national security. At this time, in late 1963, President Kennedy clearly considered the national security benefits to be gained through cooperation with the Soviets in space - a powerful symbol of detente and growing international trust that everyone could understand.....

....Most NSAMs were signed by the President's National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy. This one to Webb, however, was extraordinarily important, and like NSAM No. 55 to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in June of 1961, President Kennedy wrote its directives in the first person, and signed it personally. He clearly considered this initiative extremely important. In retrospect, an agreement formalizing the coopeartion of the United States and the Soviet Union in a manned lunar landing program would have been the perfect capstone to a Presidential visit to Moscow, soemthing we know was planned by John F. Kennedy. President Kennedy suffered from no lack of vision, and he clearly was thinking ahead and trying to mold, and change history, rather than passively waiting for history to come to him.

p. 1683.

....The hawks in Government, both in and out of uniform, must have been truly alarmed at what they no doubt considered the impending 'ruin of the nation,' i.e. JFK's 'sellout to Communism.' JFK was a 'man in a hurry' in the summer and fall of 1963; I sometimes wonder if he knew how unsettling and disturbing he was to the establishment, and how much danger his political courage had placed him in.

p. 1684

[David Josephs]

Kennedy’s 1963 efforts to end the Cold War, cooperate with the USSR on joint space missions, and share classified UFO files with the USSR created a final showdown with MJ-12. The trigger was Kennedy’s agreement with Khrushchev on November 12, 1963 on space cooperation that led to the National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) instructing the new Director of the CIA, John McCone, to share UFO information with NASA, and due to NSAM 271, with the USSR. Kennedy’s explosive NSAM to the CIA Director was relayed by William Colby, then (Deputy) Chief of the CIA's Far East Division, to James Angleton in CIA counterintelligence. It was Angleton who had the authority to implement Kennedy’s NSAM. On the bottom of Kennedy’s NSAM next to the signature space appears the following handwriting: "Response from Colby: Angleton has MJ directive 11/20/63" Colby is here acknowledging that Angleton, two days before Kennedy’s assassination, had the MJ directives – the burned document – and would use them to respond to Kennedy’s NSAM. This handwriting directly implicates Angleton in the Kennedy assassination due to the cryptic MJ-12 assassination directive.

http://www.examiner.com/x-2383-Honolulu-Ex...ssination-order

I thought I had seen you commenting on some of the MJ-12 UFO/CIA discussions and wondered if you felt this document was authentic and whether the criptic Angleton message in handwritting helped to establilsh the "M" group more definitively.

Thanks WK

[William Kelly]

Hi David,

No, I don't buy the MJ story though it is interesting and semi-sophisticated enough to warrent attention as being more than just a Clifford Irving type prank to make money. It's part of a psych warfare operation, just as the Sprigilio document is and the Bledsoe document, and the "Zipper" documents that Gregory Douglas peddles, and they all might have the same source as they have the same kind of feel and style.

I do think that Oswald was set up as the Patsy because he would shake off any pursuers from any government agency, and others have suggested that Angleton ran Oswald (Lisa Pease at Dallas COPA, 2002), but Angleton certainly wouldn't have any control of UFO documents, which were primarily military.

Around the time of the first big COPA conference in DC the military released a lot of old UFO documents, and the Army unit that declassified them ran an operation against the COPA confererence, where they followed some of those who gave talks and monitored conversations, etc. I confronted one of them late one night and he acknowledged they were sort of practicing on us. And then when we started asking for Congressional hearings on the JFK Act the UFO guys had a press conference at the National Press Club and called for Congressional hearings on UFOs - and they were all military or ex-military to a man. All very serious, like Col. Corso and Art Young's friend the Colonel who wrote books about Billy Meir, - no nut cases. Captains, Majors, Colonels, Air Force pilots, Army, Navy, they were all there calling for Congressional hearings on UFOs.

And most of the faked documents seem to blame the CIA for the assassination.

The one CIA study of the security implications of UFOs (Robertson? Commission) utilized Navy Photo Interpreters who couldn't say for sure that certain lights and film of purported UFOs taken by a Navy technician were explainable, which was enough for the CIA to hire them (Lindahl & Co.) and start NPIC. Lindahl was a UFO buff and briefed the Presidents often, but not on UFOs.

It is my hypothesis the whole UFO phenom was/is a psychological warfare ploy to disguise the advanced weapons being developed - including the U2/SR71 at Area 54, and the aliens from Roswell is actually a cover story for the Nazi Paperclip scientists who gave us rockets, jets, NASA and took us to the moon.

In his NSAM JFK mentions a Dr. Dryden as being one who breached a dialog with the Soviet scientists, and Dr. Hugh Dryden is one of the NASA directors present at this November 1962 NASA budget meeting with JFK, which also included James Webb and was recorded for posterity, so we have a transcript of what was said.

I think it is a pretty remarkable conversation about the NASA budget ($420 m), which JFK approves, but has a hard time convincing the NASA directors to make going to the moon their Number One priority, as he wants to make it a national priority.

JFK also mentions a particle accellerator, which he didn't seem to known anything about other than what it costs.

This dialog with NASA administrators is important also because it shows you how he came to the eventual conclusion that it was probably better to work with the Soviets rather than compete with them in a race to the moon.

http://history.nasa.gov/JFK-Webbconv/pages/transcript.pdf

[Evan Burton]

Don't forget that it was the Soviets who rejected Kennedy's plans for co-operation in space, and the Soviets had a manned lunar landing programme of their own: the N-1 / LOK / LK spacecraft. The LOK was an uprated Soyuz, the LK lander never flew but the N-1 launcher was flown four times... each time unsuccessfully, the last being in 1972 - after the Apollo programme had been canceled. Even in 1968, the USSR proposed a circumlunar flight using the Proton launcher (AKA UR-500) but it was decided not to launch the mission until the Proton was properly man-rated. Alexi Leonov was most upset over that decision, as he would have been on the crew... and probably beating Apollo 8.

[William Kelly]

Don't forget that it was the Soviets who rejected Kennedy's plans for co-operation in space, and the Soviets had a manned lunar landing programme of their own: the N-1 / LOK / LK spacecraft. The LOK was an uprated Soyuz, the LK lander never flew but the N-1 launcher was flown four times... each time unsuccessfully, the last being in 1972 - after the Apollo programme had been canceled. Even in 1968, the USSR proposed a circumlunar flight using the Proton launcher (AKA UR-500) but it was decided not to launch the mission until the Proton was properly man-rated. Alexi Leonov was most upset over that decision, as he would have been on the crew... and probably beating Apollo 8.

Okay Evan, I've been waiting for you to chime in on this one.

My contention is that the NSAM was ignored. You say the Soviets rejected it.

How could I forget if I didn't even know?

Please give an example, quote, citation or any reference whatsoever that the Soviets rejected JFK's offer to cooperate, as I have been looking.

JFK put a deadline in the NSAM for a report, but he didn't live to get that report.

Can you or any other space buff provide it?

Thanks,

BK

[Ron Ecker]

And given the motive the Nazis at NASA had for not wanting to work with the Russians, do you think it was at least as much motive as the Mafia or the Cubans had?

I think it could have been a motive, but it was far too late in the game for NSAM 271 to be a driving force in the assassination. By November 1963, plans were set and JFK was going to die. NSAM 271 at most would have been confirmation to the conspirators that they were "doing the right thing." IOW it could have been part of the icing on the cake, but it wasn't the cake.

[David Josephs]

Thanks William... some interesting insights that I'll need to look into for myself yet you make alot of sense.

I assume the personal stories we see/hear about Roswell are part of the psy-op yet they seem pretty convincing which menas the Military went to great lengths to make it appear like alien technology and biology. It's a little too convenient that the majority of earthly sightings are within miles of secret US airforce bases.

DJ

[B. A. Copeland]

In one of the last National Security Action Memos that JFK issued as President, he ordered the head of the NASA (James Webb?) to begin working with the State Department in organizing cooperative ventures into space with the USSR.

While we hear a lot about the NSAM re:Vietnam and Cuba, and LBJ promised to fullfill JFK's policies and vision, he made major strategic changes in regards to Cuba and Vietnam, but in the case of NSAM 271, it was totally ignored.

We know that Project Paperclip brought in the Nazi scientists that developed the rocket program for NASA, and that one of Oswald's handlers - Max Clark worked for Convair, who developed the Army rockets, and that NASA, the Army, the Air Force nor the CIA wanted to work in any way with the Ruskies, so what was their response?

Did they know that LBJ would reverse that order?

Did Webb drag his feet and hold off implimenting the new policy until LBJ took over?

Did LBJ cancel it, or did they just let it slide?

And given the motive the Nazis at NASA had for not wanting to work with the Russians, do you think it was at least as much motive as the Mafia or the Cubans had?

Maby NASA is a crime scene that Jack White should visit.

BK

http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resou...+Desk/NSAMs.htm

NSAM 271 - Ordering NASA & State to begin organizing a cooperative space effort with the USSR:

http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset+Tree/Asset...5}&type=mpd

Let us not forget about Operation 'Bloodstone'. The Gehlen were actually sold to the U.S alongside their Islamic Terrorist Brotherhood by the British. The OSS acquired the TOP notch Nazi's, which of course were used in 1953 in Iran. Back on topic lol.

[Evan Burton]

Debate in the U.N. divided along ideological lines, and NASA's desire to use that body as the foundation for developing a program of space cooperation foundered.** Glennan and his colleagues came to believe that negotiations with the Soviets would have to be direct, bilateral, and more private than the open forum of either COSPAR or the U.N. As a consequence, the NASA leadership sought to engage the Soviets in less formal talks. Typical of these early contacts were the discussions between representatives of the Soviet Academy of Sciences and NASA during the annual meetings of the American Rocket Society. At the mid-November 1959 meeting of the Society in Washington, for example, Soviet space scientists Sedov, Blagonravov, and V. I. Krassovsky presented papers on the nature of Soviet space research.(27) Dryden met privately with the Soviets to exchange views. They agreed that their countries should cooperate more closely in space science, and Dryden made it clear that NASA was ready to talk about issues of mutual interest. The Soviets warned that such an undertaking should proceed "step by step." However, Frutkin reported that "when pressed, they were not prepared to identify the first possible step."(28)

** In Jan. 1960, NASA created an ad hoc Office for the U.N. Conference that was to address the issues raised by the General Assembly call for an international conference on the peaceful uses of outer space. This office was headed by John Hagen. When the conference failed to materialize, the office was disbanded in Sept. 1961. Rosholt, Administrative History of NASA, pp. 127-128.

27. William Hines, "Soviet Space Scientists Tell Little of Ventures," Washington Star, 18 Nov. 1959.

28. George M. Low to Ezell, "Comments on December 1975 Draft of ASTP History," 29 Dec. 1975; Frutkin, International Cooperation in Space, p. 89; and U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences, Soviet Space Programs: Organization, Plans, Goals, and International Implications, 87th Cong., 2nd sess., 1962, p. 179.

The two-day confrontation between Kennedy and Khrushchev during the June 1961 Vienna summit was from Kennedy's perspective a disaster. But in one of the rare moments of amicability, Kennedy suggested that the two nations pool their space efforts and "go to the moon together." Khrushchev's immediate response was "all right," but upon reflection the mercurial Soviet leader decided that such a venture would not be practical. The boosters used for manned space flight had military implications. That triggered considerations of disarmament, and that brought the discussions back to the Cold War. There the proposed joint trip to the moon died.(53)

53. Dept. of State, Memo of conversation, "Vienna Meeting between the President and Chairman Khrushchev," 3 June 1961 [John F. Kennedy Library]; Pierre Salinger, With Kennedy (Garden City, New York, 1966), p. 178.

Threats to world peace posed by the succession of summer and autumn crises, while not unnoticed, seemed far distant from the pleasant atmosphere of the lodge at Smugglers Notch, Vermont. For four days, 5-8 September 1961, scientists from ten countries, including the U.S.S.R., gathered for the Seventh International Conference on Science and World Affairs. Included in a broad spectrum of proposals relating to greater cooperation among the world's scientists were suggestions for a program of space cooperation between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. Four areas in which the scientists felt that cooperation was possible were 1) a worldwide system of weather satellites and forecasting; 2) an international program of communications satellites; 3) an international exchange of data relating to space biology; and 4) a joint program for the scientific exploration of the moon and the planets.(55) Despite the international debate engendered by the Soviet resumption of nuclear arms tests, there was an atmosphere of good will at Smugglers Notch.(56) The fragility of such scientist-to-scientist efforts was clearly demonstrated two months later.

In November 1961, NASA and the U.S. Department of Commerce sponsored an International Satellite Workshop in Washington. American representatives explained their plans for the further exploitation of weather satellites and encouraged other nations to participate in the gathering and use of satellite data. The Americans expected delegates from the U.S.S.R., Poland, and Czechoslovakia, since visas had been sought by representatives of those countries. On the second day of the workshop, it became apparent that the Soviets would not attend. To most contemporary observers the lesson was clear: cooperation in space matters was a political consideration that could be understood only in the broader context of East-West relations.(57)

55. Harrison E. Salisbury, "World Scientists Map Coordinations," New York Times, 8 Sept. 1961; and Salisbury, "Space Proposals for World Near," New York Times, 9 Sept. 1961.

56. For the tenor of the time, see Harry Schwartz, "Khrushchev Presses Hard to Force Settlement on His Terms," New York Times, 11 Sept. 1961; John W. Finney, "U.S. Tests to Preserve Lead over Soviets," New York Times, 11 Sept.1961; and Richard Lowenthal, "Negotiating with Russia - What's the Use," New York Times Magazine, 11 Sept. 1961, pp. 21 and 116-117.

57. John W. Finney, "Soviet Block Boycotts U.S. Weather Satellite Symposium," New York Times, 15 Nov. 1961.

Late on the following day, Bundy called Webb to tell him that the President had decided to include a statement about space cooperation with the Soviets in his U.N. address. Bundy informed Webb that Kennedy wanted "to be sure that you know about it."(64) The new paragraph, drafted by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., another Kennedy aide, had not been included in the earlier drafts of the speech circulated at NASA.(65) Upon receiving the President's message, Webb immediately telephoned directions to the various NASA centers "to make no comment of any kind or description on this matter."(66)

The President's proposal for a joint expedition to the moon was intended to be a step toward improved Soviet-American relations. The impact of the speech was quite the reverse. Moscow and the Soviet press virtually ignored the U.N. address.** (67) Officially, the Soviet government did not comment.(68) In the U.S., the public remarks either strongly supported the idea of a joint flight or equally forcefully opposed it.(69)

** The paper Za Rubezhom saw the Kennedy proposal as a propaganda stunt. A Walter Lippman column reprinted by Pravda saw the primary value of Kennedy's speech to be the opportunity it offered the U.S. to escape a unilateral visit to the moon.

64. Interview, Webb, 19 Sept. 1972; and Webb to Ezell, [May 1975].

65. Interview, Dryden-Frutkin, Sohier, and Emme, 26 Mar. 1964, p. 25. Schlesinger's role is related in A. M. Schlesinger, Jr., A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (Boston and Cambridge, Mass., 1965), pp. 918-921.

66. Interview, Webb, 19 Sept. 1972.

67. Za Rubezhom [Abroad], 28 Sept. 1963, as cited in "Russian Says Moon Shot Idea of President Is Premature," Washington Post, 29 Sept. 1963. The Walter Lippman column, "Today and Tomorrow: Purifying the Moon Project," had been published in the American papers on 24 Sept. 1963 and was reprinted in Moscow as "Trezvii podkhod" [sober approach], Pravda, 2 Oct. 1963.

68. Harvey and Ciccoritti, U.S.-Soviet Cooperation in Space, pp. 124-126.

69. A sample of the responses is as follows: Howard Simons, "Opinion Divided Here on Joint Moon Shot Plan"; "Russian News Reports Delete Moon Trip Plan"; "Goldwater Criticizes Moon Plan"; "A Lofty Appeal," editorial, Washington Post, 21 Sept. 1963; Thomas J. Hamilton,"Kennedy Asks Joint Moon Flight by U.S. and Soviets as Peace Step; Urges New Accords in U.N. Speech"; and John W. Finney, "Washington Surprised at Retreat from Insistence That U.S. Reach Moon First," New York Times, 21 Sept. 1963. A quick analysis of the Kennedy proposal was prepared for the RAND corporation by Alton Frye, The Proposal for a Joint Lunar Expedition: Background and Prospects, report no. P-2808 (Santa Monica, 1964).

Dryden's cautious testimony during the March 1965 congressional hearings indicated that progress had been slow. Data from ground-based magnetic observatories had been exchanged, and the transmission of weather data on the "cold line," a special cable link between Moscow and Suitland, Maryland, had been started in October 1964. (87) Dryden summarized the status of the joint efforts; "I would describe the situation as a form of limited coordination of programs and exchange of information rather than true cooperation." He continued his report saying, "they have not responded to any proposals which would involve an intimate association and exposure of their hardware to our view." Nor had the Soviets demonstrated "anything in the nature of a joint group working together." When asked if the prospect for the future was one of continued competitiveness, Dryden answered in the affirmative, "As near as we can tell at the moment."(88)

87. An official report on the status of the Soviet-American meteorological exchange was presented by the U.S. Weather Bureau, as cited in Subcommittee on Space Sciences and Applications, 1966 NASA Authorization, p. 900.

88. U.S., Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Independent Offices, Independent Offices Appropriations for 1966: Hearings, Pt. 2, 89th Cong., 1st sess., 1965, p. 1007. For summary of Dryden's last meeting with Blagonravov, see "Memorandum of Conversation between Dr. Hugh L. Dryden, Deputy Administrator, NASA, and Academician A. A. Blagonravov, USSR Academy of Sciences, Held May 14, 1965, at Mar del Plata, Argentina, 2-3:15 PM"; and diary note, Frutkin, "Notes on US/USSR Bilateral and Soviet Participation in COSPAR Meeting, May 1965, Mar del Plata, Argentina," 15 May 1965.

(Source for the above text: The Partnership: A History of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project NASA SP-4209)

“…But there was no hint of co-operation from Khrushchev, not only because he was convinced he was ahead, but probably also because he believed implicitly that it would have opened the way for American spying in some capacity. It was fear of espionage that prompted him to turn down Eisenhower’s “Open Skies” aerial observation offer.”

(pp 304-305, THIS NEW OCEAN – The Story of the First Space Age, William E. Burrows, Random House 1998)

[Evan Burton]

Although Soviet planners gradually warmed toward space cooperation in the 1970s, the 1950s and 1960s were characterized by U.S. overtures for space cooperation which were, for the most part, rejected or ignored. They were marked by only sporadic and low-level cooperation, against a background of strident competition.

(Chap 2, p15)

Largely because of Soviet reluctance to engage in extensive information exchange, however, cooperation in space activities both in planning for the IGY and during the IGY itself remained on a token level. Although the Soviet Union did participate in the IGY, it applied restrictions to IGY agreements for exchange of information in space, and Soviet compliance with IGY requirements in space science was poor.

(Chap 2, p16)

Soon after taking office President Kennedy formed a special panel—a Joint NASA-President’s Science Advisory Committee-Department of State Panel, directed by Jerome Wiesner—to study the possibilities for international cooperation in space activities and related fields. Focusing its attention primarily on collaboration between the United States and the U. S. S. R., the Panel made a series of concrete proposals for cooperative activities. Again Soviet interest, however, was not forthcoming on any of these proposals.

(Chap 2, p18)

Despite “frequent and repeated efforts to persuade the Soviets to enter new space projects", U.S.-Soviet relations generally remained cold, and the level of cooperation in space seemed to follow suit.

During the mid to late 1960s, efforts to expand U.S.-Soviet space cooperation became more modest. Despite previous disappointments, the Johnson Administration continued to pursue such cooperation. But now studies on potential areas for U.S. cooperation in space—such as the Webb Report —stressed caution, urging that sights for cooperation be lowered, the serious limitations of cooperating with the U.S.S.R. be recognized, and a “measured approach” with respect to high level initiatives vis-a-vis the U.S.S.R. be adopted. While the Kennedy Administration had hoped for big projects—extending even to a proposed joint lunar landing–the Johnson Administration shifted back to an emphasis on small “first steps” which might be a basis for broadening cooperation in the future.’ Cooperation was left primarily for the established NASA-Soviet Academy channels, with few overtures for cooperation coming directly from the President himself. Soviet planners, for their part, seemed less inclined to cooperate, given the greater belligerence in foreign and domestic affairs of the new Brezhnev / Kosygin leadership, the escalation of the war in South Vietnam and, as before, the fact that relationships with respect to space activities were very much determined by the nature of the broader political relationship.

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But proposals for more substantive bilateral cooperation in space were consistently rejected, ignored, or sidestepped by Soviet officials.

(Chap 2, p19-22)

Source: U.S.-Soviet Cooperation in Space (Washington, DC: U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, OTA-TM-STI-27, July 1985)