Summit on the Moon

As the President finished his summit report on television last week (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS), people watching CBS saw Ike's face fade from the screen to be re placed minutes later by a huge missile blasting off its pad. "For centuries, the histories of earthbound men have been filled with conflict," boomed an announcer, followed by a close-up shot of a pack of Luckies.

The episode, part of the Men into Space series, had been in the can since March, and no one at the network real ized how hilariously untimely it was. A team of Russian spacemen and a team of American spacemen, all moon-based, were doing their best to make the first voyage to Mars--all in the spirit of Camp David, with vodka toasts and lots of mir i druzhba ("We will meet on Mars and have a picnic").

When the race finally got under way, the American ship took a commanding lead, while an explosion wrecked the Red rocket--leaving the Russian crew alive in the capsule. Colonel Edward McCauley, U.S.A.F. (William Lundigan) knew what to do: Mars would have to wait for another try. Abandoning his perfect orbit, he went to the rescue. The next stop for Spaceman Lundigan was the White House, where he confronted the President of the U.S. (a deep, off-camera voice, not resembling Ike's). "You have," said the President, "at one stroke done more to make the American position clear than anything that has been done in the last 50 years." Back on the moon, that was worth another toast with the Cossacks--this time in lemonade.

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