[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yeah. So she went and called those kids and tried to explain it to them and they weren't buying it. You know, these are your, this is your family there.

[Assistant] They said, no, they're American.

[User] They were kind of confused. But I had brought three ukuleles with me down there that I was going to give away. So we all signed one of the ukuleles and gave it to the two boys so.

[Assistant] Right.

[User] Yeah, so they'll remember us.

[Assistant] Absolutely. Well, you've changed the lives of those two grandchildren. That's wonderful. So your four children are, shall we say, launched and doing their own things?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] They were kind of confused. But I had brought three ukuleles with me down there that I was going to give away. So we all signed one of the ukuleles and gave it to the two boys so.

[Assistant] Right.

[User] Yeah, so they'll remember us.

[Assistant] Absolutely. Well, you've changed the lives of those two grandchildren. That's wonderful. So your four children are, shall we say, launched and doing their own things?

[User] Yeah. Yeah.

[Assistant] Yeah. That's wonderful.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yeah, so they'll remember us.

[Assistant] Absolutely. Well, you've changed the lives of those two grandchildren. That's wonderful. So your four children are, shall we say, launched and doing their own things?

[User] Yeah. Yeah.

[Assistant] Yeah. That's wonderful.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] Well, before we end this, is there anything else you want to add?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Uh. Yeah, well, just. I guess that, you know, this Peace Corps experience has obviously molded the rest of my life, especially, you know, having married a local and we've been connected to Fiji and to Peace Corps all this time. And now our kids and our grandkids also have this connection. So, you know, you can kind of second guess the decisions that you make in your life and whether, you know, your life would have been better one way or another if you had done this or done that. But obviously, I have no regrets.

[Assistant] Right.

[User] You know.

[Assistant] Right.

[User] And that's, you know, I'm happy with the way everything's turned out. And my kids and grandkids and the connection. And I'm ready to do it again.

[Assistant] Well, it's not too late.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] You know.

[Assistant] Right.

[User] And that's, you know, I'm happy with the way everything's turned out. And my kids and grandkids and the connection. And I'm ready to do it again.

[Assistant] Well, it's not too late.

[User] Yeah, if I could do it again, I would.

[Assistant] Right. Is your wife now a citizen?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And that's, you know, I'm happy with the way everything's turned out. And my kids and grandkids and the connection. And I'm ready to do it again.

[Assistant] Well, it's not too late.

[User] Yeah, if I could do it again, I would.

[Assistant] Right. Is your wife now a citizen?

[User] Oh, yeah, she's been a citizen for some time.

[Assistant] Well, then you could go to the Peace Corps together.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yeah, if I could do it again, I would.

[Assistant] Right. Is your wife now a citizen?

[User] Oh, yeah, she's been a citizen for some time.

[Assistant] Well, then you could go to the Peace Corps together.

[User] Sure.

[Assistant] Yeah. Keep it in mind.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Oh, yeah, she's been a citizen for some time.

[Assistant] Well, then you could go to the Peace Corps together.

[User] Sure.

[Assistant] Yeah. Keep it in mind.

[User] Yeah, give her a call and talk her into it.

[Assistant] Right. All right. Thank you, Jay. This has been a wonderful.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Sure.

[Assistant] Yeah. Keep it in mind.

[User] Yeah, give her a call and talk her into it.

[Assistant] Right. All right. Thank you, Jay. This has been a wonderful.

[User] Thank you, Pat.

[Assistant]
Wonderful conversation.

This is Pat Wand on September 3rd, continuing briefly my conversation with Peace Corps volunteer Jay Sztuk. And I asked him how the Fiji islanders make kava. He is going to tell us now, including the name of the plant from which kava is made.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yeah, give her a call and talk her into it.

[Assistant] Right. All right. Thank you, Jay. This has been a wonderful.

[User] Thank you, Pat.

[Assistant]
Wonderful conversation.

This is Pat Wand on September 3rd, continuing briefly my conversation with Peace Corps volunteer Jay Sztuk. And I asked him how the Fiji islanders make kava. He is going to tell us now, including the name of the plant from which kava is made.

[User] All right. Well, the name of the plant is Piper methysticum. It's a type of a pepper plant and just grows three or four feet tall. But the plant takes at least four years to mature, and after that, they'll dig it up and dry the roots. Sometimes the stems, but the most potent part is the roots. So the roots are dried, they're cleaned, you know, all the dirt is scraped off and then it's pounded into a powder. So nowadays this may be done by machine, but traditionally there's a, it's done in a hollowed-out log and a big heavy stick or iron rod. And the powder is put into a cloth, then strained through water, and the juice is squeezed out of the powder. And that's all the preparation it takes. It's not fermented. It's not aged in any way. That's it.

[Assistant] And then you drink that. You drink the water that has been forced through the dried roots.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] All right. Well, the name of the plant is Piper methysticum. It's a type of a pepper plant and just grows three or four feet tall. But the plant takes at least four years to mature, and after that, they'll dig it up and dry the roots. Sometimes the stems, but the most potent part is the roots. So the roots are dried, they're cleaned, you know, all the dirt is scraped off and then it's pounded into a powder. So nowadays this may be done by machine, but traditionally there's a, it's done in a hollowed-out log and a big heavy stick or iron rod. And the powder is put into a cloth, then strained through water, and the juice is squeezed out of the powder. And that's all the preparation it takes. It's not fermented. It's not aged in any way. That's it.

[Assistant] And then you drink that. You drink the water that has been forced through the dried roots.

[User] Right. It'd be like making tea.

[Assistant] Right, right.

[User] Except that it's not brewed with hot water. It's squeezed, you know, the juice is squeezed out of the powder by dipping your cloth and water and then giving it a good, hard squeeze.

[Assistant] Right. And then everyone eats, drinks the.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Right. It'd be like making tea.

[Assistant] Right, right.

[User] Except that it's not brewed with hot water. It's squeezed, you know, the juice is squeezed out of the powder by dipping your cloth and water and then giving it a good, hard squeeze.

[Assistant] Right. And then everyone eats, drinks the.

[User] Everybody drinks.

[Assistant] Drinks the kava, served to them in a common coconut shell.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Everybody drinks.

[Assistant] Drinks the kava, served to them in a common coconut shell.

[User] Right, called a bilo.

[Assistant] A bilo.

[User] Right.

[Assistant] All right, so before I end this brief conversation, let me ask you one more question. Early in your interview, you talked about the three men that you that you met on the public bus going home one evening, and those three men invited you to spend some time with them. And that became quite a moving turning point in your Peace Corps experience. Tell us the name again, please, of those three men and what distinguished each of them.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Right, called a bilo.

[Assistant] A bilo.

[User] Right.

[Assistant] All right, so before I end this brief conversation, let me ask you one more question. Early in your interview, you talked about the three men that you that you met on the public bus going home one evening, and those three men invited you to spend some time with them. And that became quite a moving turning point in your Peace Corps experience. Tell us the name again, please, of those three men and what distinguished each of them.

[User] OK. All right. So first there was Paula. He's the Fijian guy. And although he's responsible for introducing me to the rest of these guys in the community, he really wasn't around much after that. He was from the same village as the folks that were renting the flat, Navolau. The Japanese guy, his name was Suzuki, and he was actually. The story I got was that he was riding his bicycle around the world and he had stopped in Fiji. Probably met Paula the same way I did, spent a few days with him. And then he took off again. And Clarkie. Clarkie was the part European guy. Again, he, Clarkie was in and out of the group for a while. He didn't actually live there in the community. He was a friend of these people from the village. But interestingly enough, it turns out that he is the first cousin of my wife.

[Assistant] OK. So he's distantly related.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Right.

[Assistant] All right, so before I end this brief conversation, let me ask you one more question. Early in your interview, you talked about the three men that you that you met on the public bus going home one evening, and those three men invited you to spend some time with them. And that became quite a moving turning point in your Peace Corps experience. Tell us the name again, please, of those three men and what distinguished each of them.

[User] OK. All right. So first there was Paula. He's the Fijian guy. And although he's responsible for introducing me to the rest of these guys in the community, he really wasn't around much after that. He was from the same village as the folks that were renting the flat, Navolau. The Japanese guy, his name was Suzuki, and he was actually. The story I got was that he was riding his bicycle around the world and he had stopped in Fiji. Probably met Paula the same way I did, spent a few days with him. And then he took off again. And Clarkie. Clarkie was the part European guy. Again, he, Clarkie was in and out of the group for a while. He didn't actually live there in the community. He was a friend of these people from the village. But interestingly enough, it turns out that he is the first cousin of my wife.

[Assistant] OK. So he's distantly related.

[User] He's distantly related. Well, not that distantly. And he probably doesn't remember that story. But when I was back in June, I was relating that to his sister. So I'm sure she's told him about it. I'm not sure if he remembers or not.

[Assistant] Does he still live in Fiji?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] OK. All right. So first there was Paula. He's the Fijian guy. And although he's responsible for introducing me to the rest of these guys in the community, he really wasn't around much after that. He was from the same village as the folks that were renting the flat, Navolau. The Japanese guy, his name was Suzuki, and he was actually. The story I got was that he was riding his bicycle around the world and he had stopped in Fiji. Probably met Paula the same way I did, spent a few days with him. And then he took off again. And Clarkie. Clarkie was the part European guy. Again, he, Clarkie was in and out of the group for a while. He didn't actually live there in the community. He was a friend of these people from the village. But interestingly enough, it turns out that he is the first cousin of my wife.

[Assistant] OK. So he's distantly related.

[User] He's distantly related. Well, not that distantly. And he probably doesn't remember that story. But when I was back in June, I was relating that to his sister. So I'm sure she's told him about it. I'm not sure if he remembers or not.

[Assistant] Does he still live in Fiji?

[User] Yeah, he still lives there. I didn't get a chance to see him, but I did see his sister and I told her that Clarkie was one of the guys responsible for me meeting up with his cousin and.

[Assistant] And you having such a rich experience in Fiji as a Peace Corps volunteer.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] He's distantly related. Well, not that distantly. And he probably doesn't remember that story. But when I was back in June, I was relating that to his sister. So I'm sure she's told him about it. I'm not sure if he remembers or not.

[Assistant] Does he still live in Fiji?

[User] Yeah, he still lives there. I didn't get a chance to see him, but I did see his sister and I told her that Clarkie was one of the guys responsible for me meeting up with his cousin and.

[Assistant] And you having such a rich experience in Fiji as a Peace Corps volunteer.

[User] That started there.

[Assistant] OK, Jay. Thank you so much for this additional information.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, it was a little of both. For the, for the four years prior to me getting there, there had been two separate Peace Corps couples who had been in Mahallat. Both of those couples had stayed with the same family. And they had, I think they had asked for another Peace Corps couple, but I was a single guy, so they weren't accustomed to that. I got to town. I guess this would have been late August. Just got the bus, got into town, showed up at the school. The school was called Mahmoud Emajd Madrasah or high school. And so I got to the school and it was summertime. So the school wasn't in session. There was a custodian there. And somehow within a few hours, a lot of the teachers and the principal had gathered and I was drinking tea with them and they were trying to figure out, well, what are we going to do with this single guy? We didn't expect a single guy. They weren't saying this to me but.

[Assistant] Was that culturally a complicated thing?

[User] Well, it was complicated because if there's a couple, there's no issue of, is this guy going to be getting to know my daughters, for example.

[Assistant] Yeah, right.

[User] And that would have been inappropriate.

[Assistant] They would trust him more.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] There was, there was an experience I thought, that I do tell friends about, because we had a boys high school and all men teachers. There was also a girls high school with women teachers. And I had no interaction with any of them until one day, some, I don't even remember what month it was, but probably three or four months into my tenure. I was walking home and a woman crossed the street in her chador, stopped, and started speaking to me in English. She was an English teacher in the girls high school and she just wanted to know. I think she wanted to start, strike up a relationship in order to, to start improving her English, because the, the male teachers had this opportunity regularly. And probably or possibly she had some connection with the women teachers who had been those couples for the four years prior to my getting there.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] And she may have wanted to try to extend that, but that was the only time I spoke to, uh, well, really to anyone in public. The next day, all of my students came in and said, oh Mr. Auld, when are you getting married? We heard, we heard about you.

[Assistant] It was big news.

[User] Yeah, it was big news and it was like a huge deal. And I don't know what happened with this female teacher.

[Assistant] So even back in those days, the customs were very restrictive as far as men and women mixing on the streets or whatever. Socializing.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And they're like, no, you like it, so it's yours. And you just have to then back yourself out of it. Just by the same token, walking down the street every day, I had probably a dozen people a day saying, please, Mr. Auld, come and have dinner, come in and have dinner with me. And I would sometimes say yes after they had said it. I think that if they repeated this over and over, day after day, they were indicating genuinely they wanted to invite you in. So that happened. It happened with the, uh, the mail carrier, the post office person who delivered mail all the time. And I went to his home. I went to, I probably went to dinner at 20 or 30 different homes. So that's the one time I would meet the women of the household.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] Not, sometimes the kids, and sometimes the kids would be looking from behind a door in the other room or something like that, just out of curiosity. But the women would. I'd be there having dinner with the man and we'd be sitting on the floor. There's always a table that's a low table. And you would sit. In the cold winter months, you had a blanket over the table and you'd pull that over your knees just to stay warm. They usually had a coal burnt, being burned in a brazier type thing underneath the table.

[Assistant] Right.

[User] And but anyway, the woman would bring out the meal and it was always just tremendous, great, great food. At this point in time, for the last three years or so, I've been vegan, so I don't know that that would have worked as well these days.

[Assistant] Now would you converse with the women or would they just come and serve and then disappear?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And but anyway, the woman would bring out the meal and it was always just tremendous, great, great food. At this point in time, for the last three years or so, I've been vegan, so I don't know that that would have worked as well these days.

[Assistant] Now would you converse with the women or would they just come and serve and then disappear?

[User]
I would talk to them, I would just basically say hello. And I did talk more with Mrs. Rezvani, who I got to know a lot better over time. And they would, they would share pictures when they would go to Shiraz or other cities in Iran. They would visit places like, uh, the tomb of Hafez or Saadi. I forget which one is in Shiraz, but they would go to, and these are great poets of Iran. Rumi is from Iran and Omar Khayyam and different poets that, um, they would show me pictures, they would take a lot of photos. And I would see that when they were away from their town, they would not have the chador on. The chador is a full-length black kind of a cape that allows the women to cover everything but their face.

Afghanistan, you would see, uh, I forget what they call it in Afghanistan, but essentially you could see the eyes or actually it'd be sort of a mesh that you couldn't really even see the eyes. But in Iran, you could see the face of women and that was kind of it. But when they went to Shiraz, the chador would be, they sometimes would not have it at all. They would just have their regular clothes that are sort of Westernized clothes or they might have it draped down so it's not over their head and that kind of thing.

[Assistant] Hmm.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] Now, um, describe, um, describe life in the town. You said it was a town of about 10,000 people.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User]
I would talk to them, I would just basically say hello. And I did talk more with Mrs. Rezvani, who I got to know a lot better over time. And they would, they would share pictures when they would go to Shiraz or other cities in Iran. They would visit places like, uh, the tomb of Hafez or Saadi. I forget which one is in Shiraz, but they would go to, and these are great poets of Iran. Rumi is from Iran and Omar Khayyam and different poets that, um, they would show me pictures, they would take a lot of photos. And I would see that when they were away from their town, they would not have the chador on. The chador is a full-length black kind of a cape that allows the women to cover everything but their face.

Afghanistan, you would see, uh, I forget what they call it in Afghanistan, but essentially you could see the eyes or actually it'd be sort of a mesh that you couldn't really even see the eyes. But in Iran, you could see the face of women and that was kind of it. But when they went to Shiraz, the chador would be, they sometimes would not have it at all. They would just have their regular clothes that are sort of Westernized clothes or they might have it draped down so it's not over their head and that kind of thing.

[Assistant] Hmm.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] Now, um, describe, um, describe life in the town. You said it was a town of about 10,000 people.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] So was it modern or were their homes modern? Were they primitive? Did you have electricity and running water and things like that?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] So was it modern or were their homes modern? Were they primitive? Did you have electricity and running water and things like that?

[User]
It had electricity and water. Because of the spring that fed the town, there was, everybody had water and I think everybody had fairly modern plumbing. The, the, um. So from that standpoint it was modern, yeah. And we did have the electricity. I learned recently that Mahallat has grown to a city of about 80,000 people or so. And of course this, the country of Iran has grown tremendously by millions and millions more people now than there were in the early seventies when I was there.

Of course, they've been living under really difficult circumstances with the sanctions that, that our country has placed on them and that we've reimposed during the Trump administration, when Trump just decided he wanted to back away from the, uh, the joint, the JCPOA, which is known as the Iran Nuclear Deal, and reimposing sanctions has created tremendous hardship. Medical supplies can't get through, it's just extremely disruptive and really murderous to the, to the people of Iran now. But, but in those days, the town. So I said it was 10,000 people. So there were probably in that town, there probably 100 bakeries and 100 mosques in a town that size.

[Assistant] Really?

[User] Yeah, it was, um. So the bakeries were great. I would stop every day and get fresh bread and I really put on weight in that year. And it was just great.

[Assistant] Did you do your own cooking?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And this was, this was in '74 that I met this person. I only met him the one day. But when, when President Carter was welcoming the Shah and trying to maintain relationships with the Shah in, during his presidency, which went from '77 to '81, it was. I was always amazed at how little our intelligence apparatus seemed to understand the depth of, uh, kind of misery that the Shah was inflicting. I think it was just, well, we've got this puppet government in place and we need to keep working with them. And I don't know how that all worked from a diplomatic and foreign service level, but I was, I was just amazed at some of the blunders that President Carter made in trying to accommodate the Shah and be loyal to the Shah when the Shah didn't really have the, the backing of the people. And that became evident during the revolution. Yeah.

[Assistant] You talked a little bit about teaching and the class structure at the school. Um. Did you spend all your time at that school? Did you have any kind of, uh, did you work with any groups outside of the school? Do any tutoring or anything like that?

[User] I was strictly at the school. That was, that was my job. And yeah, that was it. I. A typical day. Let's see. Friday was the holy day and the day off. We had school Saturday, Sunday, you would have full days. And then Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, we would have half days I think, if I'm remembering this right. And then Thursday and Friday we would have days off, or I might have worked half a day on Thursday. But the, um, but yeah. So all of the teaching was done, was done there.

[Assistant] How did you find the students?

[User] Well, they were great. I mean, I loved working with the kids.

[Assistant] So these were ninth graders?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] They were ninth graders.

[Assistant] Teenagers.

[User] So, you know, you had these really young 12 year olds and then you'd have these really mature 18 or 19 year olds. And, and you just very different backgrounds in terms of where they had come from and their abilities. Just like in an American classroom, I suppose. I've never taught in the U.S. My career went into librarianship when I got back pretty quickly. So I've had a lifetime career in public libraries mainly, but um. So yeah, so I taught all the way through May. We went really October to May. I think that we were built around an agricultural school year.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] So I think that when it was planting season, less students came in. And we didn't really start until after the harvest. So we didn't start until October. I was actually in Mahallat getting accustomed to things for maybe a month before we really got the classes going. So a lot of break time. Yeah.

[Assistant] Was English a required course or an elective?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] It was required.

[Assistant] Required.

[User] Yeah. Yeah. So, so I would teach in the morning from, seems like it would be about 8:00 or 8:30 or 9:00 up until noon. We'd have a two hour break. So I would walk home, get lunch and walk back, and then we'd have from 2:00 until 4:00 or 4:30 each day. That was the normal day.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] And if it was a half day, it might have been just go home at the end of, at lunch time. So there was a lot of free time. I ended up taking a vacation, expecting to come back in the fall. I traveled by bus through Turkey, Greece, and Italy in the summer. And then I mentioned earlier that I had had difficulty at home with both my mom and my brother having nervous breakdowns. Well, I ended up in the same boat. While I was in Italy, I had a pretty severe, um, I'll just call it a psychiatric breakdown, nervous breakdown. I was completely psychotic. I attribute it partly to genetics, knowing that I've had, out of four siblings, three of us have had some of these issues. But, but also the stresses of the year, the sort of the sensory deprivation. I had spent a year.

[Assistant] In isolation, being the only person.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] From other volunteers from our English teaching program. And so I met them in Greece. And then we went, we went up to Rome and then, and then to Florence. And while I was in Florence is when I had this breakdown. So I was evacuated up to a German air, an American Air Force base in Germany, and then back to the U.S. and was sent to a hospital in Savannah, Georgia. And I was there for probably two months. I had shock treatments, a whole series of shock treatments. And that eventually sort of broke my, my psychotic cycle of thoughts and delusions and paranoia and schizophrenia.

[Assistant] So you were with your, you were with friends when this happened and they contacted Peace Corps?

[User] They, they. I'm not sure if they contacted, I don't know how it happened.

[Assistant] But somehow Peace Corps got you out of there.

[User] I don't, I'm. Somehow. I'm not even quite sure how I got out. I know that at some point one of the Senators in South Carolina helped to get me back to the U.S. I think that I was flown into Charleston and then driven down to this hospital in Savannah. After two months, I got back to sort of my senses and I was on some sort of psychotropic drugs for a month or two, and then I got off of those by November and haven't ever had any issue since then. But it was, uh, it was, it was quite the trauma because I had expected to be to be there, to go back. And so I had a really abrupt ending without having had a chance to say goodbye.

[Assistant] Without going back.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User]
None of the students, none of the. Now, some of the people from Peace Corps Iran Association have done that. Jackie Spurlock is the founder of it. She was, she was there in the years after. She got there '74 to '76. And then, and she, she was married at the time. She wasn't in Mahallat, but she then stayed on and worked for private company right up until the revolution. Actually, a couple, Charlie and Marie Mitchell, moved to Mahallat. They were assigned to Mahallat after I left. I left abruptly and I think they still wanted someone, but they got a couple this time to come in. And I've met Charlie and Marie and they're awesome. I met them at the Annapolis conference. They actually lived in the apartment where I lived and they got to know Mr. Resvani. And so, so I have a pretty strong connection with the two of them. They live in Arizona.

But, um, I'd like to just for the record state the Web address for the Peace Corps Iran Association. That's Peace Corps Iran dot org. Because I think anybody who's listening to this who wants to dig in a little bit more will find a tremendous wealth of resources on Iran, on all the volunteers, on the conferences that have been held. There have been just, that website is a treasure trove of data and resources, so I highly recommend anybody go to that. So it's www dot Peace Corps Iran dot org.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] Thanks.

[User] Trying to think of anything else to, um.

[Assistant] Yeah, well, your. So your story is a little unique in how your service ended but you did complete about a year of service. Do you think that experience of volunteering and living in another country serving in Peace Corps, has it influenced your life post Peace Corps in any way?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] [Interposing] My goal was, I told John a couple of things right at the beginning. I told him that we were never going to see an increase in visitation, that the number of visitors was restricted by the number of people who pass by the Charters and that we were already at capacity, so that was a delusion that there has been an increase in visitors. What I said we could accomplish with the exhibit was not getting more people in but getting more people to have a greater depth of understanding. We went out on the mall that first year and asked people who had just seen the Charters of Freedom, where they had seen it and what that place was, and we had 25 percent correct answers. After the opening of the exhibit, we interviewed people in the new building in a similar manner. We had 75 percent correct answers, so we're about preserving the records of the Federal Government. Our goal, which was not a very dramatic one when you think about it, but very important, was that people actually visited not just the Charters but the National Archives and that we accomplished.

[Assistant] So you mentioned, just a few minutes ago, about bringing in, I think it was Gallagher. Can you talk a little bit about that?

[User] Yeah, Gallagher and Associates.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] Patrick Gallagher was the lead designer. And we worked on a team basis. In other words, we all sat at the table. The Foundation, including their marketing folks, Gallagher and his team, and our team all met together from the beginning to the end in creating the project.

[Assistant] Okay. So from the, was it from the onset, in terms of the design of the exhibit, was it always intended to be based on the Preamble of the Constitution the way the different aspects were broken down or was that something that was later on decided?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yeah, Gallagher and Associates.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] Patrick Gallagher was the lead designer. And we worked on a team basis. In other words, we all sat at the table. The Foundation, including their marketing folks, Gallagher and his team, and our team all met together from the beginning to the end in creating the project.

[Assistant] Okay. So from the, was it from the onset, in terms of the design of the exhibit, was it always intended to be based on the Preamble of the Constitution the way the different aspects were broken down or was that something that was later on decided?

[User] Okay. It would be fair to say the division of the exhibit into sections of the Constitution was an inspiration of the Archivist of the United States, John Carlin.

[Assistant] So, what was your day-to-day job in this project from the start? Was it, did it focus on a bunch of different things and it just depended on the day, or was it geared towards the Vaults itself? My understanding is you were overseeing not just the Vaults, but also the creation of the McGowan Theater and the galleries and pretty much that entire renovation project. You were an integral part of that process.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Patrick Gallagher was the lead designer. And we worked on a team basis. In other words, we all sat at the table. The Foundation, including their marketing folks, Gallagher and his team, and our team all met together from the beginning to the end in creating the project.

[Assistant] Okay. So from the, was it from the onset, in terms of the design of the exhibit, was it always intended to be based on the Preamble of the Constitution the way the different aspects were broken down or was that something that was later on decided?

[User] Okay. It would be fair to say the division of the exhibit into sections of the Constitution was an inspiration of the Archivist of the United States, John Carlin.

[Assistant] So, what was your day-to-day job in this project from the start? Was it, did it focus on a bunch of different things and it just depended on the day, or was it geared towards the Vaults itself? My understanding is you were overseeing not just the Vaults, but also the creation of the McGowan Theater and the galleries and pretty much that entire renovation project. You were an integral part of that process.

[User] My job was to make it happen.

[Assistant] Right, so that--


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Okay. It would be fair to say the division of the exhibit into sections of the Constitution was an inspiration of the Archivist of the United States, John Carlin.

[Assistant] So, what was your day-to-day job in this project from the start? Was it, did it focus on a bunch of different things and it just depended on the day, or was it geared towards the Vaults itself? My understanding is you were overseeing not just the Vaults, but also the creation of the McGowan Theater and the galleries and pretty much that entire renovation project. You were an integral part of that process.

[User] My job was to make it happen.

[Assistant] Right, so that--

[User] [Interposing] So that means doing whatever it takes. Sometimes I was a fundraiser. I had authority to go with the Foundation board to make the pitch for funds for the project. There were times that I was an exhibit project manager, making sure things came in on time and on budget. There were times when I even had some creative input, though compared to the talents that were on the team, that was a fairly meager contribution, but it was for me to lay out the vision and see that we had the resources necessary to complete that vision.

[Assistant] What were, for you personally either during the project or from your perspective as the manager at large, what were the biggest obstacles that you guys faced throughout your work on the project?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] [Interposing] Right.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] In other words, this was the inspired moment that instead of when the objection was made that there's nothing about education in the strategic plan of the National Archives, I said, great. Well, that's where we should be a part of the process because there are a lot of people who think that the records of the National Archives should be used for educational purposes. Let them fund the educational side of the Archives and you can keep the strategic plan right where it is and you can fulfill the goals of the Archives. Let those who want to, in the same way that you let researchers make use of the records, let people who want to use the records to educate on the process of using them in that way.

[Assistant] And that seemed to be the way that you thought would be the most efficient way to convince them that?

[User] I think it was one of the factors that worked in both directions during the years we were working on the Public Vaults. At the time, he was thinking that he didn't want to get the Archives involved in some educational program and the Foundation was thinking that they wanted to be an educational institution, so that combination, the clarity that existed for a brief window of time is what allowed the Public Vaults to move forward at such speed. And it was easy. Every donor we went to, we would say the Archives is there to preserve and to provide access to records, but the intellectual, the ability to use these records to create a better-educated public requires private sector support, and that was very clear. Subsequent Archivists, the situation became much less clear.

[Assistant] Okay. I think that makes sense from the standpoint today. Sorry. I'm just reading over my questions, making sure I'm not missing anything here. So you came on, how long did you work at the Archives? You came on in 2000, correct?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] In other words, this was the inspired moment that instead of when the objection was made that there's nothing about education in the strategic plan of the National Archives, I said, great. Well, that's where we should be a part of the process because there are a lot of people who think that the records of the National Archives should be used for educational purposes. Let them fund the educational side of the Archives and you can keep the strategic plan right where it is and you can fulfill the goals of the Archives. Let those who want to, in the same way that you let researchers make use of the records, let people who want to use the records to educate on the process of using them in that way.

[Assistant] And that seemed to be the way that you thought would be the most efficient way to convince them that?

[User] I think it was one of the factors that worked in both directions during the years we were working on the Public Vaults. At the time, he was thinking that he didn't want to get the Archives involved in some educational program and the Foundation was thinking that they wanted to be an educational institution, so that combination, the clarity that existed for a brief window of time is what allowed the Public Vaults to move forward at such speed. And it was easy. Every donor we went to, we would say the Archives is there to preserve and to provide access to records, but the intellectual, the ability to use these records to create a better-educated public requires private sector support, and that was very clear. Subsequent Archivists, the situation became much less clear.

[Assistant] Okay. I think that makes sense from the standpoint today. Sorry. I'm just reading over my questions, making sure I'm not missing anything here. So you came on, how long did you work at the Archives? You came on in 2000, correct?

[User] Yes, I came on in December 2000 and I left in April 2012.

[Assistant] Okay. So what was your, what was the majority of your work after the Vaults and the majority of that restoration was completed. Was it still overseeing the continuation of that?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Everything that went into the Lawrence F. O'Brien Gallery was something that was done by the Foundation, the Archives, and me.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] And then, some of my proudest accomplishments are the Digital Vaults and Docs Teach online educational tools. After we worked on those, we got permission to change the entry and create Records of Rights, and I was there up to the final design of Records of Rights. I was not there when it actually opened. For all but the last six months of my tenure, I ran both education and exhibits of the National Archives Experience.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] One of the other things that was very important to me was that exhibits and education be considered as one and not separate from another. We had joint team meetings, there was always an educator involved to plan. I've never been able to see why education in a museum was not intrinsic to what the intended process was, and vice versa.

[Assistant] Okay. So, the Public Vaults opened more than a decade ago?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And then, some of my proudest accomplishments are the Digital Vaults and Docs Teach online educational tools. After we worked on those, we got permission to change the entry and create Records of Rights, and I was there up to the final design of Records of Rights. I was not there when it actually opened. For all but the last six months of my tenure, I ran both education and exhibits of the National Archives Experience.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] One of the other things that was very important to me was that exhibits and education be considered as one and not separate from another. We had joint team meetings, there was always an educator involved to plan. I've never been able to see why education in a museum was not intrinsic to what the intended process was, and vice versa.

[Assistant] Okay. So, the Public Vaults opened more than a decade ago?

[User] Yes, 2004.

[Assistant] Yeah. In my discussion with Ray, he touched a little bit on things he thinks could, hypothetically if the Archives was deciding today to do an overhaul to the Vaults and change it up, he touched on something that he thought would be good to consider. To begin this approach, he said that if they were doing it now, he would go back to square one and the thing he focused on was the emphasis on digital tools for education in the exhibit space, because at the time it was cutting edge, but now, at least in his opinion, it seems somewhat antiquated. Would you agree with that assessment?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes, 2004.

[Assistant] Yeah. In my discussion with Ray, he touched a little bit on things he thinks could, hypothetically if the Archives was deciding today to do an overhaul to the Vaults and change it up, he touched on something that he thought would be good to consider. To begin this approach, he said that if they were doing it now, he would go back to square one and the thing he focused on was the emphasis on digital tools for education in the exhibit space, because at the time it was cutting edge, but now, at least in his opinion, it seems somewhat antiquated. Would you agree with that assessment?

[User] Yes. The original lifespan of an exhibit like that was 10 to 12 years, and now, this is clearly going to be up for at least 14 years, maybe 15, and, if I had stayed, one of my tasks would have been to go back to scratch and to keep the same purpose but think through a completely different exhibit. The exhibit went through one update in about, what was that? 2009? Even that update is now too old and we just keep thinking about doing things incrementally. We won't really produce an innovation that matches today's audience, so I'm in complete agreement with Ray. I think the whole thing needs to be scrapped and we need to go back to the beginning. It's not because I don't like the exhibit. There's lots of things I liked, but everything has its time.

[Assistant] Right.

[User] And its time has now passed.

[Assistant] Do you think that also part of it is that people 10 to 15 years ago used the Archives, in terms of the general public, used it pretty differently than people would use it today? And so the--


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And its time has now passed.

[Assistant] Do you think that also part of it is that people 10 to 15 years ago used the Archives, in terms of the general public, used it pretty differently than people would use it today? And so the--

[User] [Interposing] On the research side of the house, it's changed so dramatically. I have to laugh, because before when everything got digitized, the research side of the operation used to have a line every April for the census or similar records but we had no lines anymore. The exhibit side, the lines were around the building, and there's something about that. It was a message about what makes the records powerful on the exhibit side, and there really is no, it’s not that the Declaration hasn't been digitized. It's digitized wonderfully. You can get to detail that you'll never see in person, but it is not a substitute for being in person, one on one, with the Declaration in the Rotunda. The fact is when people question whether museums have had their day, I always point out the difference between records that are there for information and records that are part of an experience. In records that are part of an experience, there is still room for innovation on the exhibit side of the house.

[Assistant] Seems to be sort of a reversal in that sense that it seems like people, in regard to museums, maybe just in general people 10-20 years ago, were all about putting everything online and having it be accessible to everybody, and now people are so used to that, we want to see the real thing.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] I personally find that pretty fascinating. And yes--


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] [Interposing] On the research side of the house, it's changed so dramatically. I have to laugh, because before when everything got digitized, the research side of the operation used to have a line every April for the census or similar records but we had no lines anymore. The exhibit side, the lines were around the building, and there's something about that. It was a message about what makes the records powerful on the exhibit side, and there really is no, it’s not that the Declaration hasn't been digitized. It's digitized wonderfully. You can get to detail that you'll never see in person, but it is not a substitute for being in person, one on one, with the Declaration in the Rotunda. The fact is when people question whether museums have had their day, I always point out the difference between records that are there for information and records that are part of an experience. In records that are part of an experience, there is still room for innovation on the exhibit side of the house.

[Assistant] Seems to be sort of a reversal in that sense that it seems like people, in regard to museums, maybe just in general people 10-20 years ago, were all about putting everything online and having it be accessible to everybody, and now people are so used to that, we want to see the real thing.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] I personally find that pretty fascinating. And yes--

[User] [Interposing] I think we have never lost the need for the authentic. If we were to re-write Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, authentic would be somewhere near the top of those things that people want, and it helps explain a lot of human behavior and authentic can be authentic goods. It can be authentic stories, but there is a real desire to be in proximity to that which is real, and the more artificial our society gets, the more that has value.

[Assistant] Interesting. Was there anything that I didn't cover or I didn't ask or you didn't say that you wanted to be able to say?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] [Interposing] I think we have never lost the need for the authentic. If we were to re-write Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, authentic would be somewhere near the top of those things that people want, and it helps explain a lot of human behavior and authentic can be authentic goods. It can be authentic stories, but there is a real desire to be in proximity to that which is real, and the more artificial our society gets, the more that has value.

[Assistant] Interesting. Was there anything that I didn't cover or I didn't ask or you didn't say that you wanted to be able to say?

[User] Talking about 11 years of my life, there are a few things you have not covered, but it's probably more than enough to get you started. If there are other things that you're interested in, I have all sorts of things down in the basement that I don't know what there is a copy of in the Archives. But if there is a specific period or issue that you want more detail on, you know, I know the history. The other people were basically half the Foundation.

[Assistant] Absolutely.

[User] And now works for Gallagher and Associates.

[Assistant] Say that again? I'm sorry.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Talking about 11 years of my life, there are a few things you have not covered, but it's probably more than enough to get you started. If there are other things that you're interested in, I have all sorts of things down in the basement that I don't know what there is a copy of in the Archives. But if there is a specific period or issue that you want more detail on, you know, I know the history. The other people were basically half the Foundation.

[Assistant] Absolutely.

[User] And now works for Gallagher and Associates.

[Assistant] Say that again? I'm sorry.

[User] Thora Colot now works for Gallagher and Associates, so if you visit with Thora, you get a two-for.

[Assistant] Thank you again for your time. I really do appreciate it.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] My first mission was STS-4.

[Assistant] Four, what a way to start!

[User] I thought I was jinxed, because STS-4—the solid rocket boosters performed flawlessly, and they separated flawlessly. Everything worked until it got time for the parachutes to deploy, and there was a fault there. My first mission, which I thought would be a few days, ended up lasting a few months. We deployed ROVs [remotely operated vehicles], remotely piloted submarines, to document the condition of the flight hardware and help NASA determine the cause of the parachute failure for their investigation. That launch happened in June, and we weren’t done until September. That was a long one.

[Assistant] Tell us about working on the Liberty Star and what that was like on that first mission and how you became familiar with your vessel. As its first officer what were your duties?

[User] I was second officer on the Liberty, then I moved to the Freedom Star on October 6th of 1982. I was there for 25 years until I moved up here. The first officer is second in command to the captain, so if the captain for any reason has to get off or becomes ill then I would fill in as captain of the ship. In addition to that, my role on the ship was overseeing vessel maintenance—that’s both the interior and exterior of the vessel—supervising the deck crew and the ship’s cook, keeping track of the finances and costs and expenditures, and standing watch on the vessel when it was underway as a watch-standing officer.\n\n In addition, I trained to be a deck supervisor and supervised SRB recovery operations on deck. This included recovering parachutes, recovering the frustums, and supporting the divers as far as the dive operations. I’m working for the captain, and I’m working for the retrieval supervisor in that capacity. I’m the guy who’s down on deck directing the flow of the operations. Aside from that, just special projects and things like that along the way.

[Assistant] The Liberty Star and the Freedom Star were very uniquely crafted vessels for this operation. What were your thoughts of those vessels when you first arrived here?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Surely.

[Assistant] Why don't you tell us about your college studies and how you chose your career direction.

[User] I started in really with chemistry. I have a triple major in undergrad school in chemistry, math, and physics, but I was primarily interested in doing research of some type, and that's one reason why took such broad major field. But I finished that up and went to work for the government in a petroleum experiment station, doing just that, research.

[Assistant] What types of research did you do there?

[User] We were working at various kinds of uses of petroleum and its derivatives. We did a lot of fluorocarbon work that wound up in the refrigeration units, so we were the first ones to do that, which now, of course, has been abandoned, but it worked for a while.

[Assistant] Definitely. How did you come to work for NASA?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] When I went to Houston, it was what it was for, because they called me primarily about Chamber A, which was the big environmental chamber. Then when my resumé got down there and they found out that my background was physics and chemistry and whatnot, and at Arnold Engineering and Development Center I was in charge of the Radiation and Physics Section, so then they wanted to develop that with the "looney lab." Lunar lab. Got to be careful. So they transferred me immediately to that.

[Assistant] So how did you feel about that transfer when you got there?

[User] Oh, I thought it was a lot more exciting. I was a little bored with the big-chamber stuff because it took so long to do something, and the results, we questioned them, because you're inside a closed environment. You're not in outer space. So there was an awful lot of corrections that had to be made that weren't necessarily, I think, legitimate. But it was fun.

[Assistant] So what was the task given to you when you moved over to the Lunar Receiving Laboratory?

[User] I had been interfacing with the engineers at Arnold Development Center, and I was kind of an interface between some of the scientists and the engineers. The scientists always wanted to do everything pure, pure science, which was totally impractical. The engineers didn't want to monkey with a lot of that sort of thing. So I did a lot of that interface work.\n\n When I went down to the Lunar Receiving Lab, my main job was to put together the vacuum system and to set up the facility to handle—I think there were 141 different scientific disciplines that were going to come in. So I was on the committee that was setting up how do we interface with the scientists not just at NASA, but the outside scientists also. And we had a number of contracts with the outside that we had to handle. So it turned into more a paper job than an experimental job.

[Assistant] When you first came into work at the LRL, what was the game plan as far as the development of that? Had it already been established into what it became, or were you still working out those issues?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Wasn't that all kind of confidential? I don't know if anybody ever talks about it.

[Assistant] I'm not sure how that was classified at the time.

[User] Kraft, ask him when you have him. See what the other guys got out of all that, because we spent a lot of time thinking about that.

[Assistant] I also wanted to ask you what you thought about some your contemporaries like Glynn Lunney and these guys moving up into the flight director's chair for Apollo.

[User] Glynn, yes, he did a good job. Glynn was probably one of the finest guys they ever turned out here. No doubt about that. Interestingly enough, I didn't see him at the funeral. He must have been out of town.

[Assistant] That can very well be. I didn't see him last night.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Kraft, ask him when you have him. See what the other guys got out of all that, because we spent a lot of time thinking about that.

[Assistant] I also wanted to ask you what you thought about some your contemporaries like Glynn Lunney and these guys moving up into the flight director's chair for Apollo.

[User] Glynn, yes, he did a good job. Glynn was probably one of the finest guys they ever turned out here. No doubt about that. Interestingly enough, I didn't see him at the funeral. He must have been out of town.

[Assistant] That can very well be. I didn't see him last night.

[User] Guys like that. All of them. And Gene and all those guys, they all were good.

[Assistant] Ever had any thoughts of moving into a flight director position yourself?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Glynn, yes, he did a good job. Glynn was probably one of the finest guys they ever turned out here. No doubt about that. Interestingly enough, I didn't see him at the funeral. He must have been out of town.

[Assistant] That can very well be. I didn't see him last night.

[User] Guys like that. All of them. And Gene and all those guys, they all were good.

[Assistant] Ever had any thoughts of moving into a flight director position yourself?

[User] No, we went through it a couple of times. For some reason I don't really know why, but it really wasn't that important to me. I probably could have gone in, but by that time, you know, once you do what I've done, that all kind of doesn't fit. [Laughter] How could you have a better job than me?

[Assistant] That's a good perspective on it.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Guys like that. All of them. And Gene and all those guys, they all were good.

[Assistant] Ever had any thoughts of moving into a flight director position yourself?

[User] No, we went through it a couple of times. For some reason I don't really know why, but it really wasn't that important to me. I probably could have gone in, but by that time, you know, once you do what I've done, that all kind of doesn't fit. [Laughter] How could you have a better job than me?

[Assistant] That's a good perspective on it.

[User] That's the way I look at it, man, because I was the best. In fact, I used to joke around and tell PAO [Public Affairs Office] and all those guys, and guys like that, I told them that I wanted the Russian retrofire officer and have a match who could hit the target areas better. I'd beat him every day. I used to tell those guys that. I said, "You guys are nowhere when you come up against me." It's like being the best shot.

[Assistant] That's true, with a really big bullet.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Sure did.

[Assistant] Did you think that was a necessary step to do?

[User] Sure did. I probably would have done another one, because we made mistakes.

[Assistant] Which ones are you thinking of?

[User] The simulated approach, that was kind of scary.

[Assistant] So then we moved on to Apollo 11 and finally get the landing accomplished. Do you recall where you were when they landed and then did the first EVA?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Sure did. I probably would have done another one, because we made mistakes.

[Assistant] Which ones are you thinking of?

[User] The simulated approach, that was kind of scary.

[Assistant] So then we moved on to Apollo 11 and finally get the landing accomplished. Do you recall where you were when they landed and then did the first EVA?

[User] Yes. I was on the landing team because of the abort stuff.

[Assistant] As they were going down, they had the couple computer alarms.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] He was. He's another guy that somehow slipped through the crack and got into the new way of doing things and got caught at it. You remember all that stuff, coming back from the—he was supposed to be put in quarantine. Conrad never stayed in quarantine, as far as I ever knew. I don't think he ever stayed anywhere.

[Assistant] I guess we hadn't heard that story about him avoiding quarantine.

[User] Well, that's what he was. All those guys did that for a while.

[Assistant] Fortunately you proved that the quarantine wasn't all that necessary.

[User] No, in fact, a good friend of mine, Dr. Shells [phonetic], is a guy you ought to get in here. He's up building stuff with Smithville, Texas now. He's the young man that took over that after the guy—remember the guy, I forget his name, the guy that did it and had a nervous breakdown. Whatever his name was. Really a smart guy. I'll ask Bill what his name was next time we come here and listen to all that story. That whole quarantine thing about, you know—that's another one, right, that we were going to bring stuff back. Did you ever hear the story about, maybe this is—we ought to get off this thing. What time is it?

[Assistant] It's almost 10:30.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] No, in fact, a good friend of mine, Dr. Shells [phonetic], is a guy you ought to get in here. He's up building stuff with Smithville, Texas now. He's the young man that took over that after the guy—remember the guy, I forget his name, the guy that did it and had a nervous breakdown. Whatever his name was. Really a smart guy. I'll ask Bill what his name was next time we come here and listen to all that story. That whole quarantine thing about, you know—that's another one, right, that we were going to bring stuff back. Did you ever hear the story about, maybe this is—we ought to get off this thing. What time is it?

[Assistant] It's almost 10:30.

[User] I got to go.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] I can't sit still more than that. I'm too old.

[Assistant] All right. Well, we'll make arrangements for another meeting.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I can't sit still more than that. I'm too old.

[Assistant] All right. Well, we'll make arrangements for another meeting.

[User] Let me tell you what I was going to tell you. Did you know there was a girl who jumped into the quarantine with him and he couldn't get her out, because once she got in there it was all over? The whole place went crazy over that. You all never heard that?

[Assistant] No.

[User] Nobody ever said—tells that?

[Assistant] No. What mission was that?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Nobody ever said—tells that?

[Assistant] No. What mission was that?

[User] That was after Apollo 11.

[Assistant] Oh.

[User] Oh, yes. Somebody ought to—you'll never heard that?

[Assistant] Not at all.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] That was after Apollo 11.

[Assistant] Oh.

[User] Oh, yes. Somebody ought to—you'll never heard that?

[Assistant] Not at all.

[User] Ask Kraft. [Laughter]

[Assistant] I'll add it to the list. [Laughter]


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Oh, yes. Somebody ought to—you'll never heard that?

[Assistant] Not at all.

[User] Ask Kraft. [Laughter]

[Assistant] I'll add it to the list. [Laughter]

[User] See what he says. Serious. You guys ought to look into that. It's part of this history thing here. Whole bunch of that stuff.\n\n Did Gene put in there about me and the submarine? I haven't read the thing yet.

[Assistant] In his book?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Ask Kraft. [Laughter]

[Assistant] I'll add it to the list. [Laughter]

[User] See what he says. Serious. You guys ought to look into that. It's part of this history thing here. Whole bunch of that stuff.\n\n Did Gene put in there about me and the submarine? I haven't read the thing yet.

[Assistant] In his book?

[User] Me putting a submarine underneath the [unclear]. Is that in there?

[Assistant] You mentioned it to us last time, I think.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] See what he says. Serious. You guys ought to look into that. It's part of this history thing here. Whole bunch of that stuff.\n\n Did Gene put in there about me and the submarine? I haven't read the thing yet.

[Assistant] In his book?

[User] Me putting a submarine underneath the [unclear]. Is that in there?

[Assistant] You mentioned it to us last time, I think.

[User] I don't know if he put that in there.

[Assistant] I don't know if he mentioned it in his book or not.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Me putting a submarine underneath the [unclear]. Is that in there?

[Assistant] You mentioned it to us last time, I think.

[User] I don't know if he put that in there.

[Assistant] I don't know if he mentioned it in his book or not.

[User] He said he would, but I haven't read it that much. I just read the first part of it.

[Assistant] I think he does talk about going to requisition money for that for you, I think, but I don't remember the specifics.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I don't know if he put that in there.

[Assistant] I don't know if he mentioned it in his book or not.

[User] He said he would, but I haven't read it that much. I just read the first part of it.

[Assistant] I think he does talk about going to requisition money for that for you, I think, but I don't remember the specifics.

[User] No, that's a good story. We had a lot of those good stories like that. But that's all for today, gentleman.

[Assistant] Okay. Well, thanks again.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Oh yes. Which later put me in good stead for a lot of things. I’ve written hundreds of documents. Now, I don’t write them totally, but responsible for them, integrating them, arguing about them, getting hit over the head about them. A lot of emotion goes into these things. A lot of screaming and hollering.

[Assistant] At what point did you become the ultimate say on the documentation? Or did that always pass to someone else?

[User] Well, my name would be on them—well, Gene’s would be on them first. Then he would hand that off to me later. Then I would put them all together, sign off on them after they were all coordinated with everybody, and then the three big guys, Walt [Walter C.] Williams, Chris Kraft, and Gene Kranz, would sign off on them. Walt Williams being the old X-15 guy who sat in back of me. He wasn’t that much interested in the details of that, so much as the total mission and how it was proceeding and who was doing what and where the problems were.

[Assistant] How did you get the updated materials to the places around the world?

[User] Teletype.

[Assistant] Goodness, that’s a lot of teletype.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, my name would be on them—well, Gene’s would be on them first. Then he would hand that off to me later. Then I would put them all together, sign off on them after they were all coordinated with everybody, and then the three big guys, Walt [Walter C.] Williams, Chris Kraft, and Gene Kranz, would sign off on them. Walt Williams being the old X-15 guy who sat in back of me. He wasn’t that much interested in the details of that, so much as the total mission and how it was proceeding and who was doing what and where the problems were.

[Assistant] How did you get the updated materials to the places around the world?

[User] Teletype.

[Assistant] Goodness, that’s a lot of teletype.

[User] Well, I sat next to Gene many days 16 hours straight taking direction from all of those people, coming through Gene, who was coordinating the effort from an ops [operations] and procedures standpoint, and actually implementing, getting it done so to speak. Many times I was ready to fall over, wishing he would fall over first. I’ve actually seen guys fall over. I’ve seen one guy who sat in the chair next to me through a long simulation of days fall asleep. The chair and him went down the steps. Luckily I think it was only two steps. But that’s how exhausted people got. So it was amazing when you look back on it.

[Assistant] Those were long days, weren’t they?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Teletype.

[Assistant] Goodness, that’s a lot of teletype.

[User] Well, I sat next to Gene many days 16 hours straight taking direction from all of those people, coming through Gene, who was coordinating the effort from an ops [operations] and procedures standpoint, and actually implementing, getting it done so to speak. Many times I was ready to fall over, wishing he would fall over first. I’ve actually seen guys fall over. I’ve seen one guy who sat in the chair next to me through a long simulation of days fall asleep. The chair and him went down the steps. Luckily I think it was only two steps. But that’s how exhausted people got. So it was amazing when you look back on it.

[Assistant] Those were long days, weren’t they?

[User] Oh yes. Then sometimes we’d be interrupted by the press, which would really tick some people off. Jules Bergman, do you remember him? He would come in insisting that he be interviewing these people, and wanting to get pictures of the Control Center and the layouts and this and that. He was really obnoxious about it. He would bring in these camera crews who you’d know they were up drinking all night. They would come in in their T-shirts and beards, and we’d be there still with white shirts and skinny ties and crew cuts. We just didn’t get together at all. I’ve seen Gene literally turn totally red just in anger and frustration with these guys.

[Assistant] The cameras in the early ’60s weren’t portable units either.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, I sat next to Gene many days 16 hours straight taking direction from all of those people, coming through Gene, who was coordinating the effort from an ops [operations] and procedures standpoint, and actually implementing, getting it done so to speak. Many times I was ready to fall over, wishing he would fall over first. I’ve actually seen guys fall over. I’ve seen one guy who sat in the chair next to me through a long simulation of days fall asleep. The chair and him went down the steps. Luckily I think it was only two steps. But that’s how exhausted people got. So it was amazing when you look back on it.

[Assistant] Those were long days, weren’t they?

[User] Oh yes. Then sometimes we’d be interrupted by the press, which would really tick some people off. Jules Bergman, do you remember him? He would come in insisting that he be interviewing these people, and wanting to get pictures of the Control Center and the layouts and this and that. He was really obnoxious about it. He would bring in these camera crews who you’d know they were up drinking all night. They would come in in their T-shirts and beards, and we’d be there still with white shirts and skinny ties and crew cuts. We just didn’t get together at all. I’ve seen Gene literally turn totally red just in anger and frustration with these guys.

[Assistant] The cameras in the early ’60s weren’t portable units either.

[User] And everything’s loud, and the lights are loud.

[Assistant] It’s very invasive, isn’t it?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Oh yes. Then sometimes we’d be interrupted by the press, which would really tick some people off. Jules Bergman, do you remember him? He would come in insisting that he be interviewing these people, and wanting to get pictures of the Control Center and the layouts and this and that. He was really obnoxious about it. He would bring in these camera crews who you’d know they were up drinking all night. They would come in in their T-shirts and beards, and we’d be there still with white shirts and skinny ties and crew cuts. We just didn’t get together at all. I’ve seen Gene literally turn totally red just in anger and frustration with these guys.

[Assistant] The cameras in the early ’60s weren’t portable units either.

[User] And everything’s loud, and the lights are loud.

[Assistant] It’s very invasive, isn’t it?

[User] One time we’re trying to work. This is after a simulation. Not too many people left in the Control Center. Gene and I are still writing and doing this and that. Somebody gets up out of the console, and Bergman says, “Cut. Who cast a shadow on such-and-such?” Like it was his stage, and he was the director. That’s when Gene just almost—he could have punched him out.

[Assistant] Did the grueling hours or the long hours and the schedules have a lot of impact on the people and did you have turnover? Or did people that started out with you stay with you and work through?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes. He was a hell of a nice guy too. He was the guy who really got the astronaut gym going. He was really a fitness kind of a guy. I liked him. He was pretty nice.

[Assistant] Talk a little more about Gemini and what all that you were involved in in the missions, because that was such a stepping-stone for the next part of the program.

[User] In fact, this thing [referring to an old document] with all the 50 years of mold on this, here’s a whole bunch. These are all Gemini mission rules. Not all of them, but quite a lot of them. You can see how primitive hand-typed mimeographed, and look at that. That’s a ditto machine. I remember Gene and I and a few others in Langley in a giant vault trying to run off some mission rules, and us all starting to get woozy with the smell, and we had to keep the vault door open. We would collate these things in a daisy chain. We’d all go around a big table, everybody’d pick up a page and collate it. That’s 1961 and ‘62.

[Assistant] Technology.

[User] Right. Then these things would get coordinated, and the three big guys would sign off on them. So they’re almost falling apart now. But this is how primitive it was, and they’re hand-typed, and sometimes somebody would come in with a chart, and we’d throw that in too.

[Assistant] You mentioned some of the discussions that you had trying to get things integrated. Do you remember any discussion more than others of people wanting to have things done their way that stands out in your memory that made an impact on a mission?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] That was a big lesson that you just cannot think of all the possible horrible things that can go wrong in your wildest dreams and in the wildest dreams of some of these simulation guys who were very creative. They did a marvelous job of making the whole flight control teams and the crews become a little bit more humble.

[Assistant] Did you have an opportunity to input sometimes for what simulations should include?

[User] No, those were snuck in on all of us. I think there was some vindictiveness going on there. “We’ll show so-and-so.”

[Assistant] Any practical jokes as well with simulations, or were they pretty serious?

[User] No, they’re deadly serious as I recall. There might have been some jokes afterwards or in between, but there are many many times that the crews would be very very vocal about, “We just wasted an hour with that stupid simulation,” which wasn’t all that stupid after all. Apollo 13 is a good example, of course. Well, look at all of them. Who would have thought that Wally Schirra’s shutdown on the pad—the mission rule was if you get a pad shutdown, you abort. Well, nobody wanted to pull the abort button, ejection seat of whatever vehicle you were on in the tower, if it really wasn’t a shutdown. Well, he sensed the shutdown, but he did not sense a liftoff.\n\n So that’s seat-of-the-pants stuff. How do you, sitting on a rocket, verify that it hadn’t moved two inches off the ground, which is when the umbilical starts to pull out the bottom or whatever? So he saved the launch vehicle, and he got a lot of razz for that. But there were so many times where unforeseen, unthought-of, unsimulated events would happen that you just became more and more humble as well as more and more cautious as to you don’t know it all. You just can’t conceive of all the things that could happen. There’s millions of parts on these things.

[Assistant] The Gemini missions progressively added more and more objectives with the flights. For instance, on the rendezvous there was so much.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I had a great time. I got a lot done. Because we worked harder than they did. One day I was calling to get everybody together for a test, and started calling in the back for the M&Os, the maintenance and operations people in the back that support the little control center in the front. I’m calling on a loop saying, “M&O, CapCom.” We’re simulating different positions, doing all kinds of—writing down things. Well, there was nobody there. “M&O CapCom, ready for the test.” Nothing. Take my headset off and go in the back room. They broke for tea. I said, “Well, hey, you guys, we’re up for the tests.” They said, “Well, it’s teatime. Sit down, bloke, have a tea.” The double-A types up front and the Australians in the back. You’ve got to learn to give a little bit.

[Assistant] You learned to work with all types of people, didn’t you?

[User] You got to back off a little bit.

[Assistant] Was that the only remote site that you went to, or did you have other adventures?

[User] I went to the Coastal Sentry Quebec when it was in port, where we did the same kind of thing. We just verified that they were up and ready to support. I don’t know if that ship was—yes, it was a new modification for Gemini. Those were the only two.

[Assistant] Quite a different change from that then moving into Apollo. At what point when you were in working with the Gemini program, were you involved at all with the stuff that was coming up for Apollo?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Oh yes, yes, yes, yes, I just knew just about everything there was about what was going to go on with that one. Because I worked so hard with Walt Cunningham, who was a tough guy to work for. He was a Marine pilot, a go-getter, a double-type-A. But he knew what needed to be done, and he was really the action guy for that crew as far as down at that level, the working level, goes. And Eisele and I worked [together] with primarily from just the guidance standpoint; what his experience would be as far as testing the checkout of the navigation systems, the inertial guidance system. But when you go down and look at all the test objectives, there were quite a lot. I worked very closely with George [M.] Low at the time, and General [Samuel C.] Phillips, who I later worked with on Space Station much later at Headquarters.\n\n So yes, there were some great people. It’s just hard to believe how great those people were. Just how did they all get together? At the right time and the right place.

[Assistant] When we look back at what all was going on, and as you mentioned the different personalities, different talents, different—they’re all maybe on the same goals, but at the same time approaching them different ways. The fact that you were all able to come together.

[User] Yes, well, there was some screaming and hollering for sure.

[Assistant] I’m sure simulations, as you mentioned earlier for Apollo, also must have been—

[User] Oh yes, oh, worse than that.

[Assistant] Any you’d like to share with us?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes, well, there was some screaming and hollering for sure.

[Assistant] I’m sure simulations, as you mentioned earlier for Apollo, also must have been—

[User] Oh yes, oh, worse than that.

[Assistant] Any you’d like to share with us?

[User] I would, but I don’t know.

[Assistant] We’ll have to see if you can think about them later.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Oh yes, oh, worse than that.

[Assistant] Any you’d like to share with us?

[User] I would, but I don’t know.

[Assistant] We’ll have to see if you can think about them later.

[User] Well, I’ll tell you one on me. I’ll tell you one of my mistakes, which never sat well. This had to be in Mercury. Worldwide simulation. I forgot what flight it was. It probably was Mercury 7 or 8. Worldwide simulation. Everybody’s tired. Going around the world. Comes back to the Control Center. Hours go by. Everybody’s talking, arguing, whatever. I’m saying something. It was my turn to talk, and Kraft says, “Well, that was a stupid answer.” I said on Goddard conference worldwide, “Well, that was a stupid question.” Suddenly the entire world was silent. Very quiet. Kranz is standing next to me. Kraft is on my right. Kranz is on my left. Kranz’s ears turn red. I could just see it today. Kraft got his look. Have you ever seen his look?

[Assistant] Not in person, no.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I would, but I don’t know.

[Assistant] We’ll have to see if you can think about them later.

[User] Well, I’ll tell you one on me. I’ll tell you one of my mistakes, which never sat well. This had to be in Mercury. Worldwide simulation. I forgot what flight it was. It probably was Mercury 7 or 8. Worldwide simulation. Everybody’s tired. Going around the world. Comes back to the Control Center. Hours go by. Everybody’s talking, arguing, whatever. I’m saying something. It was my turn to talk, and Kraft says, “Well, that was a stupid answer.” I said on Goddard conference worldwide, “Well, that was a stupid question.” Suddenly the entire world was silent. Very quiet. Kranz is standing next to me. Kraft is on my right. Kranz is on my left. Kranz’s ears turn red. I could just see it today. Kraft got his look. Have you ever seen his look?

[Assistant] Not in person, no.

[User] Well, you remember the movie The Day the Earth Stood Still? The robot is standing there and the eyes, the shield of his eyes rises up and then the lasers come out. Well, that’s what I got, right in the middle of the forehead. I got the laser, the Kraft lasers. Well, it goes on. It finally ends. I know I’m in deep kimchi. See, I’m now 27 years old. I’m really smart now. So I’m standing at the end of the Control Center, right at the end of the steps, and I’m waiting for it. I said, “I’m sorry, Chris, I just got excited there.” Still he says, “That’s okay, just don’t ever let it happen again.” Then we go back to the dungeon underneath the VIP room and start work. But I’m sure he never forgot it. I never forgot it. That’s for sure. I’ve seen the lasers many times, is my problem. But I thought he was very gracious to me in his book.

[Assistant] Maybe he’s forgiven you.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, you remember the movie The Day the Earth Stood Still? The robot is standing there and the eyes, the shield of his eyes rises up and then the lasers come out. Well, that’s what I got, right in the middle of the forehead. I got the laser, the Kraft lasers. Well, it goes on. It finally ends. I know I’m in deep kimchi. See, I’m now 27 years old. I’m really smart now. So I’m standing at the end of the Control Center, right at the end of the steps, and I’m waiting for it. I said, “I’m sorry, Chris, I just got excited there.” Still he says, “That’s okay, just don’t ever let it happen again.” Then we go back to the dungeon underneath the VIP room and start work. But I’m sure he never forgot it. I never forgot it. That’s for sure. I’ve seen the lasers many times, is my problem. But I thought he was very gracious to me in his book.

[Assistant] Maybe he’s forgiven you.

[User] Maybe.

[Assistant] Maybe. You mentioned Gemini 4, when you were starting to work on that, that was the first time you were involved in a secret meeting. How about Apollo 8? When did you learn that they had made the decision to go around the Moon?

[User] That was in a big meeting in the program—that was a meeting from all over. I was just a shadow on that mission. I just helped Zarcaro a little bit with the test objectives. So I wasn’t prime on that flight. But I sat in on all those meetings. I flew down to see the crew with him and sat and went over test objectives and so forth. But that was Frank Borman, I think, was instrumental, as well as a few higher than him, to make the decision to really go for it.

[Assistant] You had been involved in so many of the firsts that had happened in the space program, and now this was a really big first. What were your thoughts when you heard that they were going to take that step?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Maybe.

[Assistant] Maybe. You mentioned Gemini 4, when you were starting to work on that, that was the first time you were involved in a secret meeting. How about Apollo 8? When did you learn that they had made the decision to go around the Moon?

[User] That was in a big meeting in the program—that was a meeting from all over. I was just a shadow on that mission. I just helped Zarcaro a little bit with the test objectives. So I wasn’t prime on that flight. But I sat in on all those meetings. I flew down to see the crew with him and sat and went over test objectives and so forth. But that was Frank Borman, I think, was instrumental, as well as a few higher than him, to make the decision to really go for it.

[Assistant] You had been involved in so many of the firsts that had happened in the space program, and now this was a really big first. What were your thoughts when you heard that they were going to take that step?

[User] Well, you know when Kennedy said, before we’d ever gone into orbit, he said, “We’re going to go to the Moon,” everybody thought this guy is crazy, we’ve never even launched anything that flew yet? It was that same feeling like I don’t know if we’re ready for this yet, what’s wrong with Apollo 11 or somewhere out there. So it was pretty gutsy. I forgot now the impetus behind it, because the year was what, ’68. No, see, now there’s a year that I totally lost societalwise. I’m in the Control Center day and night or working on something day and night. People would say, “Hey, you hear about the riots?” Or “You hear about Martin Luther King?” Or “You hear about this?” Or “You hear about that?” I said, “No, what’s going on?” So the world is spasming out there. Vietnam and all the other stuff and pickets and lines. Everybody’s working so hard, we just don’t know what’s going on.

[Assistant] Didn’t have time.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] That was in a big meeting in the program—that was a meeting from all over. I was just a shadow on that mission. I just helped Zarcaro a little bit with the test objectives. So I wasn’t prime on that flight. But I sat in on all those meetings. I flew down to see the crew with him and sat and went over test objectives and so forth. But that was Frank Borman, I think, was instrumental, as well as a few higher than him, to make the decision to really go for it.

[Assistant] You had been involved in so many of the firsts that had happened in the space program, and now this was a really big first. What were your thoughts when you heard that they were going to take that step?

[User] Well, you know when Kennedy said, before we’d ever gone into orbit, he said, “We’re going to go to the Moon,” everybody thought this guy is crazy, we’ve never even launched anything that flew yet? It was that same feeling like I don’t know if we’re ready for this yet, what’s wrong with Apollo 11 or somewhere out there. So it was pretty gutsy. I forgot now the impetus behind it, because the year was what, ’68. No, see, now there’s a year that I totally lost societalwise. I’m in the Control Center day and night or working on something day and night. People would say, “Hey, you hear about the riots?” Or “You hear about Martin Luther King?” Or “You hear about this?” Or “You hear about that?” I said, “No, what’s going on?” So the world is spasming out there. Vietnam and all the other stuff and pickets and lines. Everybody’s working so hard, we just don’t know what’s going on.

[Assistant] Didn’t have time.

[User] Didn’t have time for that. Yes, but so those meetings with the big guys, we would just be sitting. We wouldn’t even be at the big table. We’d be sitting on the wall.

[Assistant] You were busy during that time period, but yet you found time to serve as Apollo pressure suit test subject.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, I’d already had the pressure suit experience. I had to go down to Tyndall Air Force Base [Panama City, Florida] and get seat ejection training. I was already a pilot, but I wasn’t an Air Force pilot, and I had to get their chamber certification, which is just really rapid decompression stuff. So those are pretty simple tests. But there’s nothing to them. You sit in an ejection seat and they just want to be sure you’re going to pull the handle. So they say, “Eject.” Then you pull the handle. Then it fires you up a sled. But they want to be sure that you got the cojones to do it.

[Assistant] Did you have any close calls while you were working those missions?

[User] There was only one, and I didn’t realize the full extent of it. When you’re at that altitude on that particular plane, they have what they call a “Mach Tuck” problem. You can’t get the nose down too far because you don’t recover. So the thing will go over on its back, then the wings come off. So we did get an indication that the elevator trim was either stuck or not operating right. So the pilot said, “Well, we can’t continue because we’re pushing the envelope now as far as this Mach Tuck problem goes.” So we landed I think it was at [Washington] Dulles [International Airport, Chantilly,Virginia]. So there I am at Dulles Airport with my flight suit on, and all these passengers walking by saying, “What’s he doing here?” Forced landing.

[Assistant] Guess you stood out in the crowd.

[User] Oh, I was in an orange jumpsuit at the time. That does stand out.

[Assistant] It does. Did you leave that program and then become the chief of the science requirements?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Oh, I was in an orange jumpsuit at the time. That does stand out.

[Assistant] It does. Did you leave that program and then become the chief of the science requirements?

[User] I think they were close to—I think there might have been some overlap there, or was the overlap on—let’s see. It was only a year that I did the science requirements for ALSEP. That would be ’70, ’71. So I think I might have flown a mission or two in parallel there. I’ve forgotten now. I’d have to look at the dates. So that job was really pulling together all the procedures and test objectives and documentation for the lunar experiments and some for the Command Module. You had that bay where you had some other experiments in it for what the gravity variation is around the Moon. That was a lot of people involved with that. There was about five contractors providing all that equipment. They would all have input as to what that was. All that would go then to the crews for training. How to deploy the ALSEP experiments, and how to turn them on and turn them off and get data. There were a lot of them. They worked for a long time. Matter of fact, I think some of them still work, like this laser reflector. But I think most of them worked for four or five years, and I think they were designed for a year or six months or something. A lot of science there. All kinds.

[Assistant] I think you wrote yet one more handbook when you were there.

[User] Yes, there was another document or two for sure.

[Assistant] Resources Application User’s Handbook.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I think they were close to—I think there might have been some overlap there, or was the overlap on—let’s see. It was only a year that I did the science requirements for ALSEP. That would be ’70, ’71. So I think I might have flown a mission or two in parallel there. I’ve forgotten now. I’d have to look at the dates. So that job was really pulling together all the procedures and test objectives and documentation for the lunar experiments and some for the Command Module. You had that bay where you had some other experiments in it for what the gravity variation is around the Moon. That was a lot of people involved with that. There was about five contractors providing all that equipment. They would all have input as to what that was. All that would go then to the crews for training. How to deploy the ALSEP experiments, and how to turn them on and turn them off and get data. There were a lot of them. They worked for a long time. Matter of fact, I think some of them still work, like this laser reflector. But I think most of them worked for four or five years, and I think they were designed for a year or six months or something. A lot of science there. All kinds.

[Assistant] I think you wrote yet one more handbook when you were there.

[User] Yes, there was another document or two for sure.

[Assistant] Resources Application User’s Handbook.

[User] Oh yes, I forgot about that one, yes, that was for Skylab. That was taking all the aircraft stuff, and anything that applied to Skylab from a sensor standpoint, coordinating that with those who were scientists. That was an international, too, thing at Goddard. They had people from all over the country coming. What they wanted to do, and what payloads they wanted access to, what data they wanted access to. So I worked with scientists and engineers on those.

[Assistant] So you found yourself in yet a wider array of personalities and skills and talents to pull information from.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes, there was another document or two for sure.

[Assistant] Resources Application User’s Handbook.

[User] Oh yes, I forgot about that one, yes, that was for Skylab. That was taking all the aircraft stuff, and anything that applied to Skylab from a sensor standpoint, coordinating that with those who were scientists. That was an international, too, thing at Goddard. They had people from all over the country coming. What they wanted to do, and what payloads they wanted access to, what data they wanted access to. So I worked with scientists and engineers on those.

[Assistant] So you found yourself in yet a wider array of personalities and skills and talents to pull information from.

[User] Yes. Even when I left, I worked with scientists and engineers.

[Assistant] You left in 1971.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Oh yes, I forgot about that one, yes, that was for Skylab. That was taking all the aircraft stuff, and anything that applied to Skylab from a sensor standpoint, coordinating that with those who were scientists. That was an international, too, thing at Goddard. They had people from all over the country coming. What they wanted to do, and what payloads they wanted access to, what data they wanted access to. So I worked with scientists and engineers on those.

[Assistant] So you found yourself in yet a wider array of personalities and skills and talents to pull information from.

[User] Yes. Even when I left, I worked with scientists and engineers.

[Assistant] You left in 1971.

[User] Yes. There again I got an offer and couldn’t refuse it. I knew the end was near here. So I went to work for a contractor at Goddard on ERTS [Earth Resources Technology Satellite], which became Landsat. Same thing. It was all that payload stuff for Landsat, which was all imagery and the data processing laboratory that processed it all. So ERTS, Earth Resources Technology Satellite, became Landsat. That contractor was having problems at Goddard, and I don’t think they got any follow-on. So I left there. Another NASA flight controller was there. Dick [Richard L.] Holt, who was a network controller in Mercury and Gemini.

[Assistant] Then you went to work later to help support Space Station Program Office.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes. Even when I left, I worked with scientists and engineers.

[Assistant] You left in 1971.

[User] Yes. There again I got an offer and couldn’t refuse it. I knew the end was near here. So I went to work for a contractor at Goddard on ERTS [Earth Resources Technology Satellite], which became Landsat. Same thing. It was all that payload stuff for Landsat, which was all imagery and the data processing laboratory that processed it all. So ERTS, Earth Resources Technology Satellite, became Landsat. That contractor was having problems at Goddard, and I don’t think they got any follow-on. So I left there. Another NASA flight controller was there. Dick [Richard L.] Holt, who was a network controller in Mercury and Gemini.

[Assistant] Then you went to work later to help support Space Station Program Office.

[User] Yes. My wife and I started a company called TADCORPS in Washington in ’82. We worked with the first Space Station task force they called it. John [D.] Hodge headed that up. I haven’t heard from him in years. I hope he’s okay. He’s getting up there. He’s probably 80 by now. A real gentleman. A few other guys that were flight controllers too, or flight support people, or mission support people, were there. Then that grew very fast. By ’83 or ‘84 it got to be a full office type of thing. We just did the administrative support for them. Although later through our company, we hired some experts, like General Phillips for example, and people who would support their big—big—meetings that would just go on for days it seemed.\n\n That was a tough period to get Space Station started. There were a lot of documents coming out of that. Some neat ones too. Tom [Thomas P.] Stafford had a lot to do with those, and George [W. S.] Abbey did too. There was some beautiful documents on Mars that came out of that. We even hired—oh, who’s the guy, the great artist that did all that stuff in the Space Center?

[Assistant] Bob [Robert T.] McCall?