Publicity Quotes
Also published in What Do You Care What Other People Think, 1988. This was his last publication. He realized that NASA was under so much political and public relations pressure, that important science issues could not be faced squarely. So he wrote his own appendix to the report which was embarrassing to some of the administrators and contractors but was really appreciated by almost all of the scientists and engineers.
One problem the Attorney General and the President faced was with the FBI. Director J. Edgar Hoover. He was a racist himself and he detested Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights demonstrators. He didn’t want his agents protecting the demonstrators who he regarded as Communists and rabble rousers . Further, his agents in the South were in tight with the local law enforcement officers who were allowing the white crowds to beat the demonstrators, and they didn’t want to upset their “colleagues” by arresting people who the local authorities didn’t want arrested. Only when one of them attacked an FBI agent observing the demonstration did the FBI make an arrest. That produced the dilemma the Attorney General described.
