PRESIDENT DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER WAS DECIDEDLY ANNOYED ON THE MORNING of March 19, 1959. The Argus story was emblazoned across the front page of the New York Times: “US ATOM BLASTS 300 MILES UP MAR RADAR, SNAG MISSILE PLAN; CALLED ‘GREATEST EXPERIMENT’.” Finding a top secret US military project all over the most prominent newspaper in the world was not the sort of thing a president wanted accompanying his morning coffee.
On the Times front page, as befitted their journalistic roles, Baldwin covered the military/operational side of Argus while Sullivan handled the science. Though they were working from incomplete information and were missing some pieces of the story here and there, they still managed to get most of the details right, and definitely succeeded in conveying both the scale and the significance of Argus.
“In a military sense the findings have great potential significance to the development of an anti-ballistic missile system and to the security of the nation’s early warning and global communications system,” wrote Baldwin. He described the role of Explorer 4 in studying the Argus effect and the failure of Explorer 5, noting that “partly because of the lack of adequate instrumentation and the complex nature of the experiment there is considerable controversy among scientists and military experts as to the exact interpretation of the data available. Nearly all agree, however, that the information … is still imprecise and that more experiments are needed.”
Baldwin also discussed the military implications of high-altitude nuclear explosions interfering with radio and radar, and the original Christofilos notion that “neutrons released by an exploding nuclear warhead from an intercepting missile could cause the detonation of an incoming enemy warhead—without actual physical contact between the missiles.” And he considered what Argus might mean for the ongoing test-ban negotiations: “If high-altitude tests can go undetected, as Argus did, there is apparently a substantial argument in favor of those scientists who hold that no monitoring system can possibly detect all test violations.”1
Sullivan’s story on the other side of Page 1 concentrated more on physics and the scientists involved. “It has been said that geophysics is a science ‘in which the earth is the laboratory and nature conducts the experiments.’ In this case the space surrounding the planet was the laboratory, but the experiment was conducted by man.” He described the Argus auroras and the radiation shell resulting from the detonations, noting that “although the lifetime of the man-made shell of radiation has been kept secret, it is reported to have been limited.” Sullivan also detailed how Christofilos had conceived of the Argus effect and the role of Van Allen and his Explorer 4 instruments, along with the detection of Argus phenomena reported by various IGY stations, noting that “although the results of Argus are still secret … they appear to have been world-wide.”
Sullivan included another rather alarming idea in his story. “Some physicists would like to see a ‘ladder’ of nuclear explosions, climbing into space in a manner that would disclose the patterns of magnetism and other phenomena in the entire region lying within 15,000 miles of the earth,” he wrote. But, he added, “In view of the present stalemate on suspension of nuclear weapons tests, further explosions in space would raise political problems.”2
The Times also featured additional stories on “volatile scientist” Nicholas Christofilos, the Argus secrecy debate, and diagrams, maps, and photos of the Norton Sound and key personnel. It was impressively comprehensive coverage, and this was only the first day. More Argus stories would follow the next day and in the coming weeks, not only in the Times but in various other newspapers and magazines.
Even though the administration had known the security lid was about to be blown off, it was still something of a nightmare. Eisenhower’s assistant, Brigadier General Andrew J. Goodpaster, explained to the president what had happened and the steps being taken to best control the damage. Herbert York would handle any inquiries directed to the Pentagon and “confirm that tests were held for the dual purpose of testing important scientific theories … and ascertaining other high altitude weapons effects of military interest,” which, of course, had to remain classified. Meanwhile the AEC would confirm that three high-altitude nuclear tests had indeed been conducted in the South Atlantic, but that there had been no significant fallout. If anyone asked why they had waited so long after the tests to announce them, the answer would be that they had needed to complete data analysis and evaluate military factors before any public announcement could be made.
Eisenhower was only partially placated by the efficiency of his underlings. “The President commented with vehemence upon the action of the New York Times in breaking security on this matter, and upon the irresponsibility of participants in the operation who leaked the information,” Goodpaster impassively noted in a memo. Later that morning, meeting again with Goodpaster and now joined by Killian, Eisenhower had calmed down, agreeing that a statement could be issued noting that “it had already been planned to hold a symposium on those scientific aspects of the project which did not have military implications.” He also put Killian in charge of handling all news inquiries on the scientific aspects of Argus.3 Killian decided what could be revealed and what couldn’t, separating the Argus scientific wheat from the military chaff.
Meanwhile, it was time for the administration to face the press directly. At 11 AM at the Pentagon, Deputy Secretary of Defense Donald Quarles held a press conference, joined by York, ARPA Director Roy Johnson, and Argus scientists Frank Shelton and William Thaler. They were not facing a friendly audience.
As Sullivan later noted, for Quarles it was “probably the most discomfiting press conference of his career.”4 The Deputy Secretary had to walk a fine line between the appearance of openness and the needs of security, and he had to do it before a roomful of skeptical reporters. He stuck to what had become the official line from the DOD and White House: “Like all programs where we are probing space and science in this area, we see the potentiality of military implications; but the program, the experiments as conducted were essentially in the spirit of scientific experiments.” Quarles made sure to emphasize the IGY connection and to assure all present that scientific data would be released as IGY rules required.
Predictably, the reporters were not satisfied. Quarles easily fended off questions about the yield of the Argus shots as classified, and in any case “the yields in these explosions are not part of the International Geophysical Year experimentation.” That didn’t stop further questions about the military side of Argus. Another reporter inquired whether Argus was “directly involved in the antimissile program.”
Quarles deflected further queries about the relevance of Argus for missile defense systems then under development, sticking to the emphasis on the science angle. He announced that because the National Academy of Sciences would soon be publishing all the scientific data officially, he would have to “reserve the answers to questions of that kind for the scientific publications.”
“Are we to infer from your remarks that all of this information is being withheld from the public by the National Academy of Sciences?” asked someone.
Of course not, replied Quarles. “What I said is that the National Academy of Sciences is organizing for the publication through normal scientific channels … I did not mean to imply that everything we know is going to be published, nor did I mean to imply that the National Academy of Sciences is holding up everything we know from publication.”
That didn’t sit well with the press. “Well now, Mr. Quarles, let me get this straight,” challenged another reporter. “Were these experiments not financed by the American people at taxpayer expense, and if this is true do the results not belong to the American people rather than the property of the scientists?”
“The results are not the property of the scientists,” Quarles retorted. “Of course the scientists publish those things which we collectively judge to be in the interest of the American people to publish. There is no inherent right of publication, and in fact, the public interest will prevail in deciding what will be published and what will not be published … I think it would be inappropriate for me or my associates here to attempt to even brief for you the scientific results.”
The press tried a different tack: Well, in that case, how about some broad information in layman’s terms? In response, Quarles let York answer some general questions about the Argus effect and its measurements through Explorer 4 and sounding rockets.
The press conference was becoming something of a Mexican standoff by this point. Another reporter inquired that if Argus really was intended as a scientific experiment, and given the public’s great interest in science, “Why can we not just have a general briefing right now explaining the general results of this? We are fairly intelligible [sic] men, Mr. Quarles, and we can convey this in turn to the American people”—most of whom, he noted, did not read relatively obscure scientific journals. (“Hear, hear!” someone added.)
Quarles continued to walk the line. “I would like to make it clear that we do not represent this to be solely a scientific experiment any more than the first reactor that went critical near Chicago was solely a scientific experiment. The scientific aspects of it were exceedingly important, but there were other aspects of it that were exceedingly important.” And not open for public discussion, in other words.
“Sir, we have been here more than an hour and we still don’t know what your basic purposes were in the experience,” complained another journalist. “We would stay many more hours if we thought it would be useful.”
As the New York Times noted the following day, the news conference “was characterized by heated exchanges between [Quarles] and newsmen who charged they were not getting sufficient details … Mr. Quarles refused to permit the officials and scientists with him to respond to questions without his specific permission in each instance.”5
Uncomfortable and trying as it may have been for Quarles and the assembled newsmen, Quarles succeeded in holding the ground for the administration. As Lisa Mundey points out, “Quarles managed to give less information about the test at the two-hour press briefing than Sullivan and Baldwin had presented in their stories.”6 The Los Angeles Times complained, “His answers were so guarded that it was virtually impossible to learn specifically what had been accomplished in the tests.”7
One thing that Quarles did reveal, whether inadvertently or on purpose, was his displeasure at the whole affair. “He announced that he was sorry that the project was no longer a secret, noted the New York Times.8 Walter Sullivan observes, “What seems to have distressed him in particular was the fact that the timing of the announcement of so momentous an event was determined by a newspaper and not by the government.”9 He quoted Quarles: “It isn’t playing the game with the Department of Defense just the way I would like to see it played.” Still, the Times pointed out that “Mr. Quarles, however, would not confirm that he was, in effect, accusing the Times of a security breach.”10
But whether the Pentagon, the White House, and the military liked it or not, Argus was now public knowledge, and that meant it was fair game for the press corps, as James Van Allen found out that day. He was in California on the morning of the Argus revelations, attending a symposium on “The Realities of Space Exploration” along with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s William Pickering and several other luminaries. Though he had of course seen the morning papers and knew in advance that the story was going to break, he was perhaps unprepared to face questions on Argus just yet, and declined to comment on specifics. But a reporter from the Los Angeles Times hit him: “If a host of neutrons could be released at great altitude, could they split the nuclei of a missile warhead and detonate it?” Fortunately, Van Allen was used to handling impertinent questions from nosy newsmen. He answered carefully, “Yes, if there were enough of them,” stressing that he was speaking purely hypothetically. That didn’t stop the Times from headlining the article “Space Blast Can Stop Missiles, Expert Says.”11
The next day’s edition of the New York Times featured more coverage, focusing not only on the Quarles press conference but also implications for the test-ban negotiations and a profile of Frank Shelton, the enigmatic DOD scientist, technical director of the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project “responsible for developing military requirements for atomic weapons and for conducting atomic tests,” and scientific director of Argus.
As the story rapidly spread from the New York Times to the wire services and various other newspapers, and news outlets strove to find different angles on the fairly limited information that had been so far released, several figures in the Argus story found themselves the objects of unaccustomed, mostly unwanted attention. For men such as Shelton or Admiral Mustin, who were most comfortable working in the shadows of official obscurity, publicity was anathema. Fortunately for them, the most colorful character of Argus—and thus the one most attractive to the press—was the man who started it all, Nicholas Christofilos.
Beginning with the Times initial coverage on March 19, which featured a biographical sidebar on Christofilos and a photo captioned “Can argue as well as a Paris taxi driver,” the “Crazy Greek” quickly became the vaguely whimsical public face of the Argus project. His unconventional background and personality coupled with his by-his-own-bootstraps life story were just too good to ignore, and nearly every paper featured a prominent sidebar about Christofilos with their Argus coverage. Whether he wanted to be or not, the scientist had become something of a media star.
It probably mattered little to Christofilos personally. Individualist that he was, he had always been rather indifferent to what anyone else thought or had to say about him, and he had other problems. Not long after the Argus story broke, he filed for divorce from his wife Elly in Berkeley, California, citing “extreme cruelty.”12 Unfortunately, his new celebrity made such personal matters fair game for the press.
Married for about five years, they had already been separated for four months, but Elly still claimed it was a surprise. “I never expected him to do this,” she told reporters, sobbing and clutching their two-and-a-half-year-old son Nicholas Jr. “I cling to the hope he may not go through with it.” An article in the Washington Post noted, “She expressed amazement at the grounds her husband selected. It was plain that to her the words ‘extreme cruelty’ implied more than what they have come to mean in the United States divorce context.”13
The Argus revelations affected another principal player in a very different way. While Walter Sullivan was delighted with the big exclusive that he and Hanson Baldwin had brought to the Times, noting that “particularly within the scientific community and in the press, the disclosure was welcomed,” it had caused Baldwin considerable personal anguish. Baldwin’s biographer Robert D. Davies noted that Baldwin “agonized” over revealing the Argus secret. His dual identity as a reporter and as a former naval officer and Annapolis graduate made either decision—to publish or to keep quiet—a betrayal of his personal principles. “His dilemma was acute,” Davies wrote. It was only when he heard rumblings that the Pentagon was about to go public anyway at the upcoming NAS conference that he decided to publish.
The story made Baldwin and Sullivan heroes both at the Times and among their journalist colleagues. Time magazine, for example, praised Baldwin and Sullivan for having “played the game at its best—with initiative and responsibility.”14 But Baldwin was not consoled by such accolades. “Baldwin felt a responsibility of the Times to the public, as well as to the country and the freedom of the press,” said Davies. “His military contacts thought that Baldwin, as a newspaper writer, had had no right to determine what the public should read on military-political subjects, but he would reply that that was what a free press was all about … the Argus Project was to Baldwin just another example of the ‘developing attitude of the government that the public must know only what the government thinks it is good for it to know’”—a sentiment of which Donald Quarles would no doubt have approved.
Baldwin decided he needed to make some amends. “A week following the story’s release, he felt obligated to write to his old friend and valuable news source, Admiral Arleigh A. Burke, the chief of naval operations,” noted Davies. Baldwin “confessed that he had ‘played the game completely and in fact bent over backwards to avoid injury to the country which all of us serve.’ He was very upset that the Navy had been blamed for leaking the story … a lie that he wanted to set right with Admiral Burke.”15
Because of Argus, Davies concluded, Baldwin “was forced to reassess his views on the Washington bureaucracy. The press corps and government officials no longer shared the belief that they were on the same side, as was the case during World War II … with considerable passion, Baldwin told Admiral Burke that the real issue in all this was neither the security of information nor the denial of data to the Soviets; instead, it was the issue of ‘controlling information and … issuing when the government wanted to and under the terms it wished.’ In his view, Washington’s concern to maintain secrecy had exhibited a ‘fundamental failure to understand the first principle of good public relations and of democratic government.’”16
A few days after Argus broke, reactions from other quarters began to appear, including from the American citizens who, as a reporter had noted at the Pentagon press conference, paid for the whole thing. Referring to reports that Soviet scientists had in fact detected the Argus explosions, a letter to the editor in the New York Times noted, “the Pentagon kept secret from the American people something which was known to the Russian Army. One wonders who is fighting whom and why.”17 Another reader asked, “By what right can any nation or group proceed to envelop our earth in a band of radiation, the harmful effects of which are still open to debate? … What will be the verdict of future generations, if any remain, on the irresponsibility of conducting nuclear tests without more concern for human welfare and moral issues?”18
Others weren’t as troubled by such grand moral issues. An editorial in the Washington Star noted, “Certain data will remain classified, regardless of those who clamor about the public’s right to know. Such secrecy seems reasonable and necessary. After all, given an age as dangerous as the one we live in, there is much to be said for holding one’s tongue on occasion … why should we publicize in detail what he have learned? Why should we shout about it from the rooftops?” The Star went on suggest that perhaps more high-altitude tests should be conducted, both for the sake of scientific and military knowledge. “Why should man debar himself from these probings? Indeed, how can he do so without enchaining his own mind and sinning against his own questing nature?”19
It was not only Pentagon officials and American taxpayers who were exercised about Argus secrecy and the question of revealing it to the world. Seeing the Argus story hit the papers on March 19, Senator Clinton P. Anderson, chairman of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy (JCAE), was quite annoyed that, as administration officials had previously agreed, the JCAE had not been informed of the release in advance. He promptly wrote to General Herbert Loper at the Pentagon, who was the official liaison to Congress on atomic matters, and demanded an explanation. Loper sent a conciliatory answer, detailing the drama that had transpired within the Pentagon before the Times story and accepting full responsibility for failing to notify the JCAE. He had been briefly in Walter Reed Hospital on the evening of March 18 and so had missed hearing about the Times informing the government it was about to go public.20
Anderson wasn’t mollified. He had been pressuring the Pentagon and AEC for more data on fallout, in preparation for public hearings on the issue later in the year, but the administration had been stalling and dragging its heels. Anderson viewed this latest fiasco over Argus as yet another example of deliberate obstructionism. As political payback, he released to the press some of his recent correspondence with the government on the fallout issue, stating, “The process of making public the ARGUS and fallout information is an example of how difficult it is to make available to the public the information it is entitled to have.”21
Another prominent member of the Senate, Margaret Chase Smith of Maine, worried about possible fallout from Argus. Apparently reacting to a letter from an aggrieved constituent, Smith wrote to the AEC asking for more information about Argus’s safety. AEC General Manager A. R. Luedecke responded promptly, assuring the Senator that because of the small Argus yields and the great altitude of the detonations, Argus did not “in any way represent a health hazard to human beings at the altitudes of air transport or on the surface of the earth.” As to the secrecy of Argus, Luedecke noted that “all nuclear test detonations by the USSR have always been conducted in secrecy. It is possible that an experiment similar to ‘Argus’ has been conducted by the Russians.”22 If the Russians did it, then so could we, seemed to be the implication.
Meanwhile, preparations were underway behind the scenes, as Killian’s PSAC and others in government debated over how much more to reveal in an official White House release at the end of March, and at the upcoming NAS conference the following month. At long last, after playing ball with the government and military and dutifully keeping their secrets, the scientists were about to have their day in the sun.