Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8 (23 page)

Read Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8 Online

Authors: Robert Zimmerman

Tags: #History, #United States, #20th Century, #test

 

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also a war of independence from colonial rule. And unlike Berlin and Europe, it appears now in retrospect that the faction that wanted a communist Vietnam was probably in the majority.
In the twenty-four months following passage of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution the U.S. contingent in Vietnam increased from 23,000 men to 170,000. The fighting had escalated, and the casualties had mounted, with little sign of progress or settlement.
During the build-up, Fred Gregory was an Air Force helicopter rescue pilot stationed at Vance Air Force Base in Oklahoma. Though his job in Oklahoma was to perform rescues, little ever happened. And because Gregory had to always he on call in case of emergency, he could never fly his helicopter more than three minutes from base. His situation reminded him of Henry Fonda's in the movie "Mr. Roberts." Just like the character in the movie, Fred could see the action in Vietnam passing him by, and this frustrated him.
Gregory was born to a middle class black family in Washington, D.C. which for generations had fought, and beaten, the bigotry of their time. His great-grandfather had been a member of Howard University's first graduating class. His grandfather had been a successful carpet layer and union organizer.
His father had graduated from both Case Institute (now Case Western Reserve University) and M.I.T. as an electrical engineer, but could not get work in his profession because of his skin color. Instead, he became a teacher, rising quickly through the Washington, D.C. school system to become its assistant school superintendent for vocational education.
When Fred was thirteen and about to enter the senior year of junior high school in Washington, the Supreme Court made its ruling against segregation in
Brown vs. Board of Education
. Though the nearest junior high school was only a short walk from his home, Fred had been attending a segregated black school halfway across the District.
The Washington school administration decided that they would desegregate all classes except for the seniors in junior high and high school. They assumed that it made less sense for kids about to graduate to change schools.
Fred's father thought it absurd for his son to have to travel so far each day, especially with a school so close to his home. Many of Fred's friends were white children who lived in the same neighborhood and attended the nearby

 

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school. Francis Gregory made the proper arrangements, and when school opened in the fall of 1954, Fred Gregory became the only black student in the ninth grade of John Philip Sousa Jr. High School.
For the first few hours, Fred was also the
only
student in the ninth grade of John Philip Sousa Jr. High School. He and his home room teacher sat together in class and stared out the window at the rest of the school's students, gathered on the grass of adjacent Fort Dupont Park to protest segregation's end.
It was a silly protest. Fred was simply doing what all the kids there did attend his local neighborhood school. Since he was friends with many of those young demonstators, the protest carried little steam. By lunchtime the kids were back in class, and without much additional fanfare the school quickly accepted integration.
To Fred and his family, such events were merely small hurdles on the way to success. They had always taken the attitude that the only obstacles you faced in life were obstacles you put there yourself. They had faith in American concepts of freedom and peaceful dissent, and despite facing the worst forms of racism, had seen their hard work pay off through four generations.
In many ways, Fred Gregory was very similar to the Apollo astronauts. Like Borman and Lovell, Fred Gregory had been interested in airplanes and flying since childhood. Like Lovell, Gregory had to attend a military academy (in his case the Air Force Academy in Colorado) in order to learn how to fly. And like Borman and Anders, he had a strong desire to serve his country.
Unlike the astronauts, however, the space program did not appeal to him. "I really didn't have a whole lot of interest in getting in a blunt body capsule," Gregory remembers. He wanted to fly planes, and "the thing didn't look like an airplane."
In 1965, however, he was stuck in Oklahoma, hardly doing any flying and watching the war in Vietnam unfold without him. He badly wanted to go overseas, and after making repeated requests for transfer, Fred finally got his wish in the spring of 1966.
Six months later he was holding that helicopter steady while his knees shook like crazy. In the back of the helicopter the two parachute jumpers (or

 

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P.J.s) had lowered what they called a "forest penetrator" down to the stranded scout.
The penetrator was an elaborate harness which a soldier unfolded, assembled, and climbed into so that he could be safely hauled into the helicopter. Carefully-worded English instructions were attached so that anyone could figure out how to use it.
Unfortunately, the scout was not an American, and couldn't read English. Unaware that he was supposed to unfold the device, he just grabbed it and held on, expecting the rescue crew to haul him up.
This wouldn't work. They signaled for the scout to let go of the penetrator and pulled it back into the helicopter. One of the P.J.s opened it up and climbed on. The second slowly lowered his partner through the dense undergrowth and, acting as Fred's eyes, commanded, "A foot to the right . . . a little more . . . hold it . . . hold it . . ." as he yelled over the roar of the rotor blades and gunfire. The Vietcong were closing in.
The cable reached the ground. The scout, with directions from the R.J., climbed onto the harness seat, and both he and the P.J. hung on as they were raised back up to the safety of the helicopter. As the soldiers were hauled to safety, Fred's co-pilot tapped him on the shoulder and pointed at Fred's twitching knees.
They both started laughing. "It was really funny," Fred remembers. "I had absolutely no control over them." Though he was holding the helicopter rock steady, his knees were jumping about like popcorn in a popper.
Without waiting a second, and with his knees still shaking, Fred calmly pulled the chopper up and out of fire, heading north to the safety of the American airbase at Danang.
Berlin
On December 19th, 1965, one day after Frank Borman and Jim Lovell returned to earth, West Berliners began lining up at the Berlin Wall. For the third year in a row, the East German government had agreed to allow limited visitation rights to any West Berliner with relatives in East Berlin. Beginning

 

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on this day and continuing for the next two weeks, West Berliners were allowed to make one or two visits to the Soviet Zone. Over 350,000 permits had been approved, and almost a million passes issued.
Hours before dawn and the opening of the gates, hundreds had arrived with their passes, carrying suitcases, shopping bags and boxes filled with gifts for their relatives in the East. One man brought a six-foot aluminum bathtub to give to his parents. On the East Berlin side anxious crowds formed as well. In 211, over 60,000 West Berliners visited East Berlin on this first day, with 70,000 going on the next.
Dean Heinrich Grüber and his wife and daughter found themselves barred by the guards, however. Though the Grübers had passes, and merely wished to visit their son in East Germany, the guards denied them entry. Grüber was a prominent Evangelical church leader, and it was decided that his presence in East Berlin "was undesirable in view of the present political situation."
27
On that same day, as the tens of thousands of West Berliners lined up to enter East Berlin, three East Germans arranged their own pass for
leaving
the Soviet zone. Since Peter Fechter had died trying to leap the wall in 1962, the methods of escape had become more creative. The East Germans had fortified the barrier significantly in the ensuing three years, adding a second inner wall, as well as trenches, watchtowers, and dog runs. To escape, refugees now built elaborate tunnels, some hundreds of feet long with lighting and tracks. Others designed secret compartments in their cars to conceal refugees. One East German stood on top of a building and threw a zipline across the wall and down to some West Berliners. Then he and his wife and nine-year-old son put on harnesses, hooked themselves to the cable, and slid down to freedom.
28
In the four years since the wall's construction, a thriving cottage industry of professional escape-organizers had developed. Some did it for idealistic reasons, accepting just enough money to pay their costs. Others turned this work into an exciting but lucrative livelihood, earning significant sums of money.
29
Horst Schramm was one of the professionals. A West German seaman who spoke English with an American accent, he had made about $400,000

 

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smuggling refugees out of East Berlin. In the strange diplomatic universe of Cold War Germany, West Germans were permitted to enter East Berlin, but West Berliners were forbidden access. As a West German, Schramm took advantage of these rules to enter the Soviet Zone and arrange a variety of escapes.
On December 19th he drove into East Germany in a German-made Ford. This car closely resembled the vehicles used by the American Army in Berlin.
Once in East Berlin he picked up his three customers. Two were a couple in their twenties who had paid him about $800 for planning their escape. The third was the wife of a doctor, who had paid him an additional $1,000.
The doctor's wife climbed into the trunk of the car. The other woman was hidden in a secret compartment built into the car's dashboard. The two men, however, did not hide. Instead, they put on American Army uniforms that Schramm had "purchased" illegally. Schramm then replaced the car's license plates with a set of stolen American Army registration plates, and as a final touch, attached a tiny American flag to the front hood ornament.
The plan was simple. According to the original Four Power agreement signed by the U.S., Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union at the end of World War II, officials from any of the four occupying nations had the freedom to travel anywhere within Berlin, and could not be questioned by any German police officer as they crossed Checkpoint Charlie. Disguised as Americans, Schramm expected that they would nonchalantly drive right through, unquestioned and more importantly, unsearched.
They reached the checkpoint. There the barricades were arranged to force a car to zigzag back and forth at less than ten miles an hour. As Schramm eased the car through, both men held up their forged identity cards and smiled at the East German guards. The guards in turn waved them through, having too much else to do that day. Thousands upon thousands of West Berliners were lined up for blocks, all waiting to get into East Berlin for a few hours.
The escape was easy. Unfortunately, the repercussions were not. When the story hit the newspapers, the U.S. Army, while "expressing sympathy" with the desire of the refugees to flee East Germany, condemned the unauthorized use of its uniforms and license plates. Within a week Schramm and the two U.S. soldiers who had sold him the uniforms were arrested.
30
The two G.I.'s were court-martialed and sentenced to three and four months

 

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of hard labor.
31
Schramm was fined $250 and sentenced to a six week suspended sentence.
32
Three years earlier, Schramm and his cohorts would probably have been seen as heroes. Now, the response in the U.S. to their arrest and sentencing was a collective yawn, with this and other Berlin Wall escape stories hardly noted in the American press. On Christmas Day a man was shot to death when he tried to crash his car through the wall. That same week, two American soldiers were sentenced to eight years' hard labor by the East German government for their failed attempt to help an East German girl escape in September.
33
Neither story received more than passing mention in the West.
Things had changed since Peter Fechter's death in 1962. Then, even if the U.S. could do little to help, the national will had been strong and undiluted. "We stand for freedom," Kennedy had proclaimed, and Congress had unequivocally backed that proclamation by agreeing to a bold space race. If the U.S. couldn't tear down the Berlin Wall, or protect individual freedom in the Soviet Union, it could at least keep the Soviets from controlling outer space.
By 1965, that national will had changed, moving to other, more difficult conflicts. The problem of Berlin was no longer front page news. The space race had begun to lose its sheen and glamour. Fred Gregory, who loved flying and was so similar in mind and spirit to the astronauts, cared very little about their space program. Instead, he wanted to get to Vietnam.
The day that Frank Borman and Jim Lovell began their two week orbital mission, the
New York Times
reported that the Johnson Administration was planning in the next year to increase its troop strength in Vietnam from 170,000 to 400,000 men. In the last two months alone, U.S. and South Vietnamese forces had suffered more than 8,500 casualties.
34
Only six days earlier approximately 25,000 people had gathered in Washington to protest that war. For two hours they demonstrated in front of the White House, then marched to the Washington Monument where they listened to speeches from, among others, former Socialist Party Presidential candidate Norman Thomas and baby care specialist Dr. Benjamin Spock. "We should turn Vietnam over to the Vietnamese people for them to decide their government as they see fit," said Spock.
35

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