ORLANDO, Fla. — Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins were the most important people to NASA on launch day in 1969, but they did have competition.
There were thousands of Very Important People, aka VIPs, at Kennedy Space Center on July 16. They formed an eclectic congregation of politicians, diplomats, celebrities, businessmen, scientists and relatives who received special NASA access to watch the moon launch.
Where else could you find political polar opposites like former President Lyndon Johnson and current VP Spiro Agnew rubbing elbows? Or comedian Jack Benny mingling with diplomats while aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh was secretly milling about?
“The VIP list includes 69 ambassadors of foreign governments; 100 foreign science ministers, attaches and military aviation officials; 19 governors, 40 mayors and 275 leaders of commerce and industry in the United States,” the Orlando Sentinel reported on launch day, with a partial list of all several hundred people invited to the launch.
How many VIPs were there? A spokesman for NASA’s History Division said the agency still doesn’t have a final number 50 years later.
“In the excerpt from ‘First Man,’ Jim Hansen estimates that of the 20,000 on NASA’s special guest list, only one-third actually attended. We are not sure where he came up with this. There is no footnote or endnote,” archivist Colin Fries said in an email to the Orlando Sentinel.
But it was a big crowd of big shots. Even Shakespeare was invited — Frank Shakespeare, the head of the U.S. Information Agency.
While the VIP list was grandiose, accommodations were sparse. Budget-conscious NASA constructed wooden bleachers for the assembled guests. There was no shade for the VIPs, who sweltered in 85-degree heat and Florida’s famous humidity.
“I knew it was going to be hot, but this?” questioned late-night host Johnny Carson, who came with his TV sidekick, Ed McMahon.
As the Sentinel reported, “the major complaint was the heat and the fact that the snack bar couldn’t keep up with the demand for cold drinks.” Which was ironic considering the presidents of Carrier Air Conditioning as well as Pepsi-Cola and Canada Dry were on one guest list.
Not all the VIPs were at NASA’s special viewing area near the Vehicle Assembly Building.
Over on the Banana River, one of the guys with a lot of camera equipment wasn’t just another journalist but Barry Goldwater, the former Republican presidential nominee and current U.S. senator from Arizona.
With so many VIPs, it was hard to keep track of who was who. Even the Secret Service agents guarding LBJ didn’t recognize familiar faces.
“I’m the Ambassador to France, Sargent Shriver. I’d like to pay my respects to the former president,” said the man who was brother-in-law to Johnson’s predecessor, John F. Kennedy.
Other VIPs with family ties to the launch included the Apollo 11 commander’s wife, Jan Armstrong, and sons Rick and Mark. Also watching was Gen. J. Lawton Collins, uncle of the mission’s command module pilot, as well as Sigismund von Braun, Germany’s ambassador to France and brother of Dr. Wernher von Braun, head of NASA’s space flight center in Huntsville, Ala.
Getting extra special access was Lindbergh, the first man to fly solo across the Atlantic.
