Chapter 80: From Pearl Harbor to Freedom 7: A Reenactment of the Crisis Script?

At the Times headquarters in London, Frank, the young reporter assigned to receive faxes, stared in disbelief after receiving a fax from America.

He burst out of the main office and ran into the deputy editor’s room in charge of international affairs, shouting:

“Sir Haley, disaster—America’s manned spaceflight has failed again.”

Sir Haley, full name John Haley, was a senior editor at the Times and also served as director-general of the BBC; in 1946 he was awarded the Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George, hence the title “Sir.”

To Frank, a junior editor who had just joined this year, Sir Haley was the model he aspired to emulate.

“Calm down,” Sir Haley said calmly. “For NASA, isn’t failure the norm? What’s so surprising?”

Even though England and America were allies, as the former world power, the English held an inexplicable attitude toward America—they took pleasure in seeing America stumble.

For Sir Haley, a veteran aristocrat educated at Victoria College, watching America fail was even more satisfying than watching Russia fail.

“Professor Randolph Lin predicted the launch beforehand; NASA hastily replaced the astronaut with a gorilla; the original astronaut was seriously ill, and the illness was deliberately concealed; Kennedy’s speech claimed someone inside NASA intentionally caused the failure and announced plans to land a man on the Moon by the 1960s.”

After babbling through the transatlantic telegram’s contents, Frank handed the full document to Sir Haley.

Sir Haley took it, nodded, and said: “Good, I understand. Write a news story based on this.”

He left the telegram on his desk, picked up a Parker 51, and began writing immediately.

Frank was astonished: “Sir Haley, aren’t you shocked at all?”

Sir Haley shook his head: “Why should I be shocked?

What matters to me isn’t whether this news shocks me, but whether it can be made interesting enough.

This is an excellent topic—I’ll write one report, you write one, and we’ll see whose is more compelling.

If yours is better, I’ll give you the front-page headline and byline.

And after you read mine, you’ll naturally understand why I don’t find this worth being surprised about.”

Since joining, Frank had been called an editor, but in reality he’d only handled incoming and outgoing telegrams.

Now, for the first time, he had a chance to write a report—on the front page.

Yet he had no confidence he could write anything better than Sir Haley.

“Randolph’s Earth-Shattering Prediction Thwarts NASA Nazi German Scientists’ Conspiracy”

After agonizing over it, Frank decided this angle might just pull off a surprise victory.

After all, Randolph was a rising star in mathematics; since the White House personnel change, he’d become Special Assistant for Space Affairs. His covert rivalry with Nazi German scientists would surely grab readers’ attention, Frank thought.

When Frank proudly brought his finished draft to Sir Haley, Sir Haley asked him one question that left him stunned:

“Who said this was a Nazi German scientists’ conspiracy?

Operation Paperclip was launched under the Democrats; the German scientists were brought over by them. Even if the Germans were truly behind this, the White House would never admit it publicly.

Isn’t this just speculation?

And what’s earth-shattering about Randolph’s prediction? You didn’t even state what he predicted—just that the launch failed? Is that earth-shattering?

If I predict NASA will fail next time, my accuracy rate will be over eighty percent—does that make me an earth-shattering predictor too?

Can’t you think before you write?”

Sir Haley handed Frank a draft already dry, its headline clearly printed:

“From Pearl Harbor to Freedom 7: A Reenactment of the Crisis Script?”

Frank internally scoffed—could this possibly be linked to Pearl Harbor? But he had to admit, the headline instantly hooked him as a reader.

He picked up the manuscript and began reading slowly:

“Washington D.C., May 5

When the Freedom 7 capsule became a burning wreck in the sky, Kennedy publicly declared it a NASA-staged spectacle. Yet I can’t help wondering: Was this space disaster, like the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack, deliberately allowed—or even orchestrated—by the White House to find leverage to overhaul NASA and awaken Congress’s purse strings?

A fringe faction in historiography has long accused President Franklin Roosevelt of having deciphered the Japanese attack plan in advance but concealing the intelligence, to end domestic isolationism and force America into war.

On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Gagarin completed humanity’s first spaceflight. On April 20: White House staff meeting minutes show Kennedy demanded advisors instill nationwide shame. On May 5: NASA’s originally scheduled first manned suborbital flight was postponed to Freedom 7’s failed launch on May 15.

This resembles Pearl Harbor 2.0: a president from the same Democratic party, Kennedy inspired by Roosevelt’s Pearl Harbor script, seeking to stage a similar drama on the stage of the space race.

Retired Navy Admiral Chester Hall, who served in the Pacific Fleet (his father a survivor of the sunken USS Arizona during Pearl Harbor), once stated in a public interview: The radar warning intelligence received by Admiral Kimmel was deliberately delayed.

Today, the White House has not denied knowing in advance that both Freedom 7 and the original astronaut were flawed. Had they not seized the chance to completely overhaul NASA, had they not replaced the astronaut with a gorilla, would the truth of the accident have been buried forever in history’s dust, just like Pearl Harbor?

In other words, without Freedom 7’s wreckage, where would the national consensus come from? In his on-site speech, President Kennedy said: ‘We choose to go to the Moon, not because it is easy, but because it is hard.’ Perhaps he forgot to add the subtext: make the difficulty appear deadly enough...’

Sir Haley’s manuscript linking Pearl Harbor to Freedom 7 was a stroke of genius.

For decades, Pearl Harbor—as the turning point of WWII that brought America into the war—has been regarded by some historians as a result of Roosevelt’s deliberate provocation.

“Sir, you’re incredible. How did I never think of that?” Frank set down the manuscript, still captivated.

Sir Haley smiled faintly: “When you’ve lived long enough, you’ll naturally learn how to connect the dots.”

Frank asked seriously: “Sir, do you truly believe this was a White House conspiracy?”

Sir Haley shook his head: “What I believe doesn’t matter—what the audience wants to see does.

As for the truth, I suspect we’ll find out when Professor Lin comes to London to receive the Queen’s honor—we can interview him then.”