General Overhaul

The U.S. came fully awake to the fact that its normal best in the cold war is no longer good enough. The U.S. satellite test vehicle, reaching for the sky and falling flat on its pad, was a symbol of the old standards: a hurry-up effort to answer moons with a moon, klaxons of witless pressagentry and, after the flop, yelps of anguish (cried Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson: "How long, how long, O God, how long will it take us to catch up with Russia's two satellites?"). Yet even if Vanguard had been successful in its first try, even if the U.S. had put a dozen satellites into outer space, it would have minuscule meaning in a cold war that calls for a general overhaul of old habits of thought and judgment.

Another symbol was the President of the U.S. in his courageous struggle, after three major illnesses, to climb not merely back to normalcy but to the surpassing heights required by the new day. Yet the magic seemed gone from the old reassurances, the rallying of forces, the bipartisan gathering of legislative leaders, the hurry-up new plans for NATO. These may once have been answers; now they were only parts of answers.

In this time of reappraisal the critics were of small help, had precious little to offer in the way of concrete suggestion. Yet the rising tide of criticism was not to be ignored. It indicated that the nation wanted programs where action would come first and pressagentry later, that the U.S. was more than ready to get moving--and nothing less than giant strides would be adequate.

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