Kennedy and Apollo

There has been speculation over the years that John Kennedy had become disenchanted with the space program as he watched its costs rise. Some suggest that, had the President lived, he would have scaled back Apollo, and perhaps pursued creating a joint lunar program with the Soviets. An audiotape of a meeting between Kennedy and NASA Administrator James Webb in September, 1963, released recently by The Kennedy Library, sheds some new light on that question.

On the tape, President Kennedy was clearly concerned about the amount of money being spent on space; Republicans, and some Democrats, had begun to question Apollo. However, his concerns seem to have been tactical. He wanted Webb to build a political case to support the spending; he did not, at that time, seem to support cutting spending.

What might have happened had Lee Harvey Oswald sneezed at a critical moment is a matter for science fiction writers, not historians. We do know, though, that the speech Kennedy intended to give in Dallas on November 22, 1963, included a sentence reaffirming his support of the space program.