Bridge of Spies by Giles Whittell

Author:Giles Whittell [Whittell, Giles]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Motion Picture, Nonfiction, Retail
ISBN: 9780767931083
Google: JUImAAAAQBAJ
Amazon: B00AK3AW6Y
Publisher: Broadway Books
Published: 2010-11-09T05:00:00+00:00

What were the wives doing there? Why double the number of people who had seen the “giant black crow” close up? Why treble (at least) the amount of gossip about the Adana party set that wasn’t even part of the air force? The answer went back to Cape Canaveral and a chilly December morning in 1957.

This time Willie Fisher could not be present. He was detained at the West Street federal prison in New York pending his appeal. But the next stage in America’s journey to the stars would not go unwitnessed. Several hundred reporters and photographers were crammed onto a dune on Cocoa Beach. The networks had cleared time for live broadcasts. The object of their attention was a tall, thin Vanguard rocket on launchpad 18A that contained the free world’s first satellite. It was meant to have blasted off two days earlier. The weather had been dreadful. A liquid oxygen valve had frozen shut and the countdown had been scrubbed. But the sixth was calm. The hour had come. Sputnik would be avenged.

The Associated Press put out an advance story for use by subscribers in the event of a successful launch. It began:

THE RADIO-SIGNALING BABY MOON CIRCLING THE EARTH IS THE U.S.’s REPLY TO RUSSIA THAT IT TOO CAN STAKE A CLAIM TO THE SPACE FRONTIER.

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