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This is a NASA Johnson Space Center Oral History Project transcript of astronaut James A. McDivitt, interviewed by Doug Ward at Elk Lake, Michigan, on 29 June 1999. McDivitt talks about flying F-86s in Korea, test pilot work at Edwards, and his first class at the Aerospace Research Pilot School. He also covers turning down Dyna-soar, joining NASA in 1962 and learning to be an Apollo Program Manager. He describes the Change Board and says decisions were not second-guessed.
“The Pentagon”3 pages
Johnson Space Center Oral History Project James A. McDivitt 29 June 1999 12-105 discuss it, and everybody would get their chance to say what they thought, and usually it was a divided opinion. And then I had the opportunity to make the decision, “Yes, we would do it,” or “We wouldn’t,” “Yes, we would,” or “No, we wouldn’t.” And one of the innovations that I finally had to put in was that we had a long table with all the members of the Board there, and we had a—sort of a gallery in the back. A lot of people in the gallery were very emotionally involved in these decisions, and they would get involved in the discussion. And finally I had them paint a white line across the room. And if you were on that side of the line, you couldn’t talk. If you were on this side of the line, you could talk. And the other innovative thing that I finally had to do was that whenever these Changes came up, we always said who was recommending it but they never said who was opposed to it. So, we had them add that to it; and then we just argued through these things until we got support. And when we got to a conclusion, we got the support that we always needed. Just an aside: I think a fellow whose name was Wes Hjornevik went to HUD [Housing and Urban Development] when the President decided he ought to have some of our great NASA managers there. He went there and he found that he had something similar to that. When they’d make the decision, he couldn’t find anybody to implement it. Even the guy who wanted to make the change wouldn’t do it! And the next day, everybody was arguing about what the decision was! I think Wes had a heart attack and left the HUD very quickly. But that was the key to the thing. We had—everybody got the chance to speak their piece. And when the decision was made, everybody got behind it. And I think that’s what separated NASA, at least the Apollo Program, from all the other stuff. That it was unique in that everybody supported it. And we had some tough, knockdown, drag-out fights in there.
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