Apollo 1 - Political Fallout

Political Fallout

Committees in both houses of the United States Congress with oversight of the space program soon launched their own investigations, including the Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences, chaired by Senator Clinton P. Anderson. Seamans, Webb, Manned Space Flight Administrator Dr. George Mueller, and Apollo Program Director Maj Gen Samuel C. Phillips were called to testify before Sen. Anderson's committee.

In the February 27 hearing, Senator Walter F. Mondale asked Webb if he knew of a "report" of extraordinary problems with the performance of North American Aviation on the Apollo contract. Webb replied he did not, and deferred to his subordinates on the witness panel. Mueller and Phillips responded they too were unaware of any such "report".

However, in late 1965, just over one year before the accident, Phillips had headed a "tiger team" investigating the causes of inadequate quality, schedule delays, and cost overruns in both the Apollo CSM and the Saturn V second stage (for which North American was also prime contractor.) He gave an oral presentation (with transparencies) of his team's findings to Mueller and Seamans, and also presented them in a memo to North American president Lee Atwood, to which Mueller appended his own strongly worded memo to Atwood. Mondale said he had been told of the existence of the "Phillips report", and Seamans was afraid that Mondale might be in possession of a hard copy of the presentation, so he said tentatively that contractors have occasionally been given negative reviews, but that he knew of no such extraordinary report. Mondale raised controversy over "the Phillips Report", despite Phillips' refusal to characterize it as such before Congress, and was angered by what he perceived as Webb's deception and concealment of important program problems from Congress, and questioned NASA's selection of North American as prime contractor. Webb eventually provided a controlled copy of Phillips' memo to Congress. Seamans later wrote that Webb roundly chastised him in the cab ride leaving the hearing, for volunteering information which led to the disclosure of Phillips' memo.

The committee noted in its final report NASA's testimony that "the findings of the task force had no effect on the accident, did not lead to the accident, and were not related to the accident," but stated in its recommendations:

"Notwithstanding that in NASA's judgment the contractor later made significant progress in overcoming the problems, the committee believes it should have been informed of the situation. The committee does not object to the position of the Administrator of NASA, that all details of Government/contractor relationships should not be put in the public domain. However, that position in no way can be used as an argument for not bringing this or other serious situations to the attention of the committee."

Freshman Senators Edward Brooke and Charles H. Percy jointly wrote an "Additional Views" section appended to the committee report, expressing a bit more strongly that the Phillips review should have been disclosed to Congress. Mondale wrote his own Additional View, voicing his complaints in the most strongly worded terms.

The potential political threat to Apollo blew over, due in large part to the support of President Lyndon Johnson, who at the time still wielded a measure of influence with the Congress from his own Senatorial experience. He was a staunch supporter of NASA since its inception, had even recommended the Moon program to President John F. Kennedy in 1961, and was skilled at portraying it as part of Kennedy's legacy.

Internal acrimony developed between NASA and North American over assignment of blame. North American argued unsuccessfully it was not responsible for the fatal error in spacecraft atmosphere design. Finally, Webb contacted Atwood, and demanded either he or Chief Engineer Harrison "Stormy" Storms resign. Atwood elected to fire Storms.

On the NASA side, Joseph Shea became unfit for duty in the aftermath and was removed from his position, although not fired.