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Nixoning the Moon
Part of:
Take Three: The Moon Landing
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2018
Extract
On the cratered surface of the moon, a small stainless steel plaque commemorates the remarkable visit made by “men from the planet earth” who “came in peace for all mankind” in the summer of 1969. It bears the name of the three men who made the journey, Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin, and Michael Collins. And it features the name of one man who did not: President Richard M. Nixon.
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- Take Three: The Moon Landing
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- Copyright © The Author(s) 2018. Published by Cambridge University Press
References
1 Article from the Washington Star reprinted in Safire, William, Before the Fall: An Inside View of the Pre-Watergate White House (New York, 1975), 145Google Scholar.
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6 “Nixoning the Moon,” New York Times, July 19, 1969, 24.
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16 Contracts and rules over media appearances and public statements restricted what astronauts could say in public and even went so far as to regulate autographs that they could give to fans. See policy documents in Folder 2, Box 146, Neil A. Armstrong Papers.
17 Neil Armstrong received thousands of letters from across the world and spent two years traveling to all fifty states as well as the Soviet Union. The Armstrong papers at Purdue University have extensive documentation of the fanfare.
18 Letters exchanged between Goldberg, Huntley, Nixon, and Armstrong, July 1970, Folder 3, Box 309, Neil A. Armstrong Papers.
19 Memo from Gordon Strachan, June 12, 1972, Folder 7, Box 14, Contested Materials Collection, Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library (RMNL), Yorba Linda, CA.
20 Haldeman, Haldeman Diaries, 73.
21 On the pursuit of loyalty and power, see Michael Koncewicz, “They Said ‘No’ to Nixon: Republicans Who Stood Up to the President's Abuse of Power,” manuscript under contract with University of California Press. On CREEP as a PR operation, see Brownell, Showbiz Politics, 207–218.
22 Memo from Gordon Strachan, June 12, 1972, Folder 7, Box 14, RMNL.
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