The Last Man on the Moon by Eugene Cernan

Author:Eugene Cernan [Cernan, Eugene]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780312263515
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 1999-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

17

The Magnificent Beast

DON RRICKLES, WHO MADE his living needling the high and mighty, did me no favor one evening during his freewheeling comedy act in Las Vegas. Alan Shepard was in the audience, laughing as Rickles skewered everyone in sight, and when the comedian spotted the first American astronaut to ride a rocket, he couldn’t resist a wisecrack. “Alan!” he called. “My pal Gene Cernan is going to fly around the Moon. What you did, in my business, would be called an opening act!” The broad smile slid from Shepard’s face like snow from a hot rock. Thanks for insulting my boss, Don.

Knowing celebrities, I was to discover, had its ups and downs. This was definitely a down, but Rickles had become a good friend and Alan would get over the jab.

Barbara and I were being drawn into a world vastly different from the ones in which we grew up. Soon, we were receiving backstage passes in Vegas, attending Hollywood parties, going to trendy dinners in New York, and swapping stories with politicians, movie stars and social lions. We fell into the swing of things pretty easily and discovered that behind the hype, some celebrities were pretty nice folks. Singer Wayne Newton, when he heard that Tracy was learning to ride, presented her with a beautiful Arabian colt, just as a gift between buddies. I played golf with Bob Hope, cooked pasta with Frank Sinatra, and found real friendship with Ronald Reagan, Phil Harris, Connie Stevens, Baron Hilton and even my personal hero, John Wayne.

Barbara and I spent New Year’s Day of 1969 in Acapulco, then flew to Washington for the inauguration of President Nixon. We were back at the White House for the second time in two months, this time as guests of Congressman, later President, Gerald Ford. During the glittering affair of pomp and parties, we found ourselves frequently in the company of a personable couple with whom we struck an immediate chord of friendship—the new vice president, Spiro Agnew, and his charming wife, Judy. Nixon would soon put Agnew in charge of the Space Task Group, and he became deeply involved with our flying to the Moon business. It wasn’t long before neighbors in Nassau Bay would learn that the sudden appearance of security around our house might be because the vice president and his wife had dropped by to play a game of pool on the back porch while I grilled hamburgers. Many things would overtake Ted Agnew during his ill-starred political career, but our personal friendship overshadowed all else.

AT THE BEGINNING OF 1969, we discovered that the flight of Apollo 8 had disrupted the schedule for landing a man on the Moon. The monumental task President Kennedy laid before us so long ago was still not complete. We might no longer be racing the Soviets, but we were certainly racing the clock. Three hundred sixty-five days until the end of the decade and counting down.

The Borman-Lovell-Anders mission proved we had a rocket booster capable of

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