Sputnik: The shock of the century by Paul Dickson, Walker, $28, ISBN
0802713653
AFTER that day nothing can be the same again. With the US鈥檚 self-confidence
shaken after years of prosperity, and the President under fire for initial
inactivity, it feels like a new Pearl Harbor. The dormant special relationship
between the US and Britain is reawakened. An inward-looking nation becomes
painfully aware of a hostile outside world. Some call for an immediate military
response. Others seek scapegoats. But this isn鈥檛 11 September 2001; it鈥檚 4
October 1957.
Unlike the recent attack on America, no one died when Sputnik was launched.
But this superb book on the repercussions of the first artificial satellite
makes uncanny reading in the light of recent events. The veteran journalist Paul
Dickson shows that the US complacently ignored more than 20 announcements that a
Soviet launch was imminent as part of the International Geophysical Year (IGY).
This 18-month programme of scientific experiments throughout the world was meant
to be a model of scientific cooperation, but proved to be the stage for the most
spectacular propaganda coup of the cold war. Curiously enough, on the day of the
launch, Sputnik was not even headline news in the Soviet Union. Only after
witnessing the West鈥檚 panic did the Soviet newspaper Pravda proclaim
the invincible superiority of communism).
Advertisement
Historians have had a bonanza since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Top-secret
papers, once restricted to a handful of cold warriors in the Kremlin or
Pentagon, have been released and read with astonishment. One such document,
declassified only in March 2000, reveals that Russia offered to cooperate with
America in the Sputnik programme. Such an invitation was, Dickson decides, 鈥渋n
the best spirit of the IGY and belied many of the later claims that a bellicose
Russia had turned the IGY into a display of military strength鈥�. But he also
concedes that Sputnik was not purely scientific in its intention. Sergei
Korolev, the great chief designer of Soviet space projects, chose a radio
frequency for the satellite鈥檚 distinctive 鈥渂eep-beep鈥� transmissions that would
be easily accessible to radio hams, rather than using agreed IGY standards. The
result was that while America鈥檚 tracking stations searched fruitlessly for
Sputnik, amateurs spread news of the launch around the world like wildfire.
Much of the remainder of Sputnik is a familiar, absorbing read.
Dickson lays bare the inter-service rivalry that is well known to have hampered
American attempts to launch a satellite. In 1946, the think-tank RAND presented
plans for communications, weather and spy satellites. But rocket teams from both
the US army and navy jostled for the politicians鈥� favour, dividing resources and
wasting time. The army鈥檚 Jupiter C rocket could have reached space in June 1956,
but an order arrived to fill the final, fourth stage with sand rather than solid
fuel.
President Eisenhower showed little interest in space, until the threat of
Soviet nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles forced a rethink. His aides could not
tell him where the missiles were based, nor even how many there were, and in the
absence of knowledge, fear took root. Eisenhower therefore pursued a covert
agenda: if the principle of the 鈥渇reedom of space鈥� could be established by the
launch of a scientific鈥攏on-military鈥攕atellite, then orbits would be
clear for spies too. Satellites, after all, cannot zig-zag around national
borders. While Eisenhower was disturbed by the evidence of Soviet technological
prowess with the launch of Sputnik in 1957, he could take comfort that this
crucial strategy of 鈥淥pen Skies鈥� was in place. The President is Dickson鈥檚
unlikely unsung hero of the story, the 鈥渃alm at the centre of the
飞丑颈谤濒飞颈苍诲鈥�.
After a series of failures鈥攄erided as Dudnik, Kaputnik, Ike鈥檚
Phutnik鈥攖he US finally succeeded with Orbiter and Vanguard in 1958.
Dickson鈥檚 attention thereafter is almost exclusively American, which is a pity,
but this is still the best book on the political shockwaves following Sputnik.