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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.
“Nevers”36 pages
Johnson Space Center Oral History Project James A. McDivitt 29 June 1999 12-59 them when I was a NASA employee. Of course we had to, by edict from the Federal Government, deal with them in some way. But, you know—and I recall one incident where Ted Freeman got killed in an airplane accident. The first guy that went over to see his wife was a newsman from one of the Houston newspapers. I’ll not say which one, because I can’t remember and I don’t want to accuse one of them of the wrong thing. But he was the first guy over there; and he figured out that there were so many NASA people flying; and he could—he went around and he knew who they were. And he identified just about everybody; and he didn’t see Ted. So, he came over—so, he went over to his wife’s house, or to his house, and asked his wife if she knew if Ted had been killed in an airplane accident. And some time later, Deke and a minister and I think Dr. [Robert R.] Gilruth showed up; and Faith already knew that Ted had been killed. Or was suspicious of it. Well, I dealt with that guy by, at my Gemini IV press conference, refusing to talk while he was in the room. And—which created a gigantic stink, as you probably would guess, Doug! And Dr. Gilruth came over to see me and said, “Jim, we’ve got to talk with the press.” I said, “I’ll be more than happy to talk with the press. But I’m not going to talk with that son of a bitch there,” and you can leave that one in there! And I wouldn’t! So, finally we started getting calls from the—Mrs. Hobby, whoever—whatever paper she owns. Is it The Post? Anyway, she was calling out there, “You know you’re keeping us out of the press conference?” and stuff. I said, “Well, if you want to send somebody else out here, we’ll have another press conference with just them.” But I wouldn’t deal with him. I— maybe we were at an impasse for three or four hours, and finally he left. And then I never dealt with him again; and finally he got fired. So, I don’t go with that kind of stuff. But there are a lot of newsmen, I think, that do a good job. There was a little Irish
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