The Astronaut Wives Club Part 6

The next day, some of the wives flew down with Betty for the post-flight press conference at Patrick Air Force Base, located just south of Cape Canaveral. Someone snapped Betty's picture standing next to Gus's other true love, his Corvette, which was waiting for him on the runway. With her skinny little legs crossed at the ankle, she clutched her new raffia purse and held her boys' hands. She was wearing a carnation corsage with a red, white, and blue patriotic ribbon pinned to her lapel and a gold pin designed especially for the Mercury wives in the shape of a seven inside the circle of , the astronomical symbol for Mercury. She felt good, dolled up in one of her snazzy new outfits. She waved excitedly when she saw Gus emerge from the NASA Gulfstream. Taken to a little waiting area, where Gus was being fussed over, she stole one peck on the cheek before Gus was ushered back to a receiving line to greet the bra.s.s.

During the ceremony, under a tent set up on the steaming tarmac at Patrick, Betty felt her anger rising. She didn't know whether it was because the reporters wanted to blame Gus for his hatch blowing, or because NASA seemed to be only halfheartedly defending her husband, their least media-savvy astronaut, but she could see through their pomp.

Afterward, NASA honored the Grissoms by giving them a VIP beach house at Patrick for the weekend. There, Betty opened the refrigerator to find it stocked with bacon, eggs, and milk. Did she have to play perfect housewife today of all days? "What do these people think I am going to do?" she asked Gus. "I am not going to cook!"

"Well, you won't have to cook much," said Gus with a sheepish half grimace. "I'll be going back to work at eight tomorrow. It's a regular workday."

The worst was yet to come when Gus broke it to her that there would be no White House visit. He tried to shrug it off, saying that the president was probably busy. He had a lot on his plate. He was still dealing with the fallout from the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Betty was not buying it. She knew it was because of that lost, very expensive s.p.a.ce capsule. Not getting a ceremony in the Rose Garden was terrible for Gus's reputation. All it would have taken was a smile from the president, a flash of that Kennedy wit with a line about getting wet, and all would've been forgiven in the eyes of America. But silence was d.a.m.ning. Betty had wanted so much to have her own moment alone with Jackie, and she felt humiliated having to tell the other wives that she and Gus were not to be given the special honors Louise and Alan had. She was heartbroken.

Soon she was fuming. That stocked fridge really pushed her over the edge. She looked around this rat-shack that was supposedly for Very Important Persons and pointed out to Gus that there wasn't even a TV for the kids, and the beach was across the highway. "I'd have been ready to commit suicide if I'd have stayed in that place all day waiting for him to come back home," Betty later reflected. She could call one of the girls from over at the Holiday Inn, where the rest of the astronauts and their wives were staying and probably having a ball, and say, "Somebody come get me!" But how would that look? She was supposed to be Mrs. Queen Astronaut for the weekend.

"I'm not staying here," she told Gus. "You call the Holiday and see if we can get a room." Gus got right on the phone and got Betty and the boys a room.

A couple of hours later, Betty was sitting by the side of the pool, still seething. "Hey," Gus called to Betty. He had just finished revolving-door interviews with the press. "Get dressed. You're coming with me." Betty didn't smile, but she got dressed. Someone volunteered to watch the kids at the pool, and Gus ushered her into his Corvette.

He drove her out toward the Cape. They got to the checkpoint, and Gus didn't even crack a smile at the guard. He said, "You know who I am and we're going through." The guard didn't argue. Gus took Betty up to see the giant t.i.tan rocket, which was being prepared for the two-man Gemini flights that would follow Project Mercury. Betty got to go up the gantry elevator and touch the t.i.tan's smooth metallic body.

Gus also screened for her the raw footage of his rescue mission, and it was terrible. Betty felt worse than ever, hearing Gus narrate the drama of flailing around in the choppy water in his silver s.p.a.ce suit, about to drown. "h.e.l.l, I'm waving and they're waving back, and I'm saying, 'I want you to pick me up!'" he narrated for Betty. The helicopter over him had been blowing the water hard, and his head went under the waves a few times. He worried that the sharks would get him.

Betty knew Gus had carried a couple of dime rolls in the leg pocket of his s.p.a.ce suit, which he and Betty had planned for him to hand out as souvenirs to their family and friends back in Mitch.e.l.l, Indiana, and the boys' cla.s.smates. Gus had regretted the added weight with each swell from the helicopter. Betty knew he was a swimmer, but not a very strong one.

Finally a second helicopter had come to Gus's rescue and let down a harness. Gus hadn't even managed to get in it frontward, just let himself be lifted up and away. In the helicopter he had enough strength left to grab a Mae West life vest, so called because it made the wearer look big-chested.

Back at the Holiday Inn, the nightmare replayed through Betty's mind at the pool as she stared into the water. Betty realized her husband had actually thought he was going to die out there. She herself had never learned to swim.

Primly Stable

The United States was still behind Russia in the s.p.a.ce race. It had been a year now since cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had orbited the Earth. "I didn't see G.o.d," the Russian told the world upon his landing. When he posed for pictures in a veritable love embrace with the bearded revolutionary Fidel Castro in his army fatigues, Gagarin's bright smile was said to have accelerated the Cold War.

After two manned suborbital flights, both deemed a success despite Gus's blown hatch, NASA was confident that it was time to send a man to orbit the Earth. It would take more thrusting power than the Redstone rockets that had sent up Alan and Gus. They would have to use the dreaded Atlas rocket, the one that had blown up before the wives' eyes as they watched the test firing at Cocoa Beach. John Glenn was ready to saddle the beast and ride it to the stars.

America couldn't have hoped for a better choice. His sunny, freckled face was sure to eclipse the smiles of those communists. As for seeing G.o.d in s.p.a.ce? NASA was confident that with John Glenn that would not be a problem. The man taught Sunday school in his spare time, a rare counterpoint to the hard-living, hard-playing astronaut life. He saw the grace of G.o.d in everything, especially in Annie. Annie was simply lovely-dark-haired with her wide, toothy Girl Scout grin. (One couldn't help but picture her in the sage green uniform, badge sash, and matching socks.)

Scott Carpenter, John's backup for his upcoming Friendship 7 mission, was less tightly wound than John, and took it upon himself to help his friend let loose a little. They enjoyed eating out at a Polynesian-themed restaurant in Cocoa Beach. They cruised the Strip in Scott's Shelby Cobra with its s.e.xy metalflake blue paint job. John was also putting his church choir tenor to good use, sweetly singing while Scott strummed his guitar.

Meanwhile, the wives got busy on Annie, offering to help in whatever way they could. The post-flight press conference on the lawn, by now a necessary ritual, was something all of the wives dreaded. None more than Annie. She could get through short, practiced phrases such as "Fine," "Thank you," "Please do," but she couldn't improvise without stumbling over her words. Annie really couldn't even get through a complete sentence except when she was singing, and she could hardly sing to the press. She was incredibly independent and self-sufficient in most aspects of her life, but she often had to rely on others when called upon to speak. She dubbed her daughter Lyn her "telephone surrogate." Lyn had been making her mother's doctor and beauty parlor appointments since she was a little girl.

To keep spirits high and light, all the wives had their ways of dealing with the press. A favorite was the comic skit Rene came up with: a one-woman show that she called "Primly Stable," starring the perfect astronaut wife Primly Stable, married to her astronaut, Squarely, with their little d.i.c.kie and Mary and dog Smiley. The Stables were suspiciously like the Glenns-who had two perfect children, Dave and Lyn, and a dog named Chipper.

Rene usually played all the parts, changing her voice accordingly. Holding her fist up to her lips as a microphone, she launched into her routine playing reporter Nancy the Newscaster, who bore a wicked resemblance to Nancy d.i.c.kerson (the one who had accosted Betty).

"We're here outside the trim, modest suburban home of Squarely Stable, the famous astronaut who has just completed his historic mission, and we have with us his attractive wife, Primly Stable," began Rene, playing Nancy to the hilt. "Primly Stable, you must be happy, proud, and thankful at this moment."

"Yes, Nancy, that's true," Rene's ever-so-proper Primly said tentatively (or sometimes another wife would play this role). "I'm happy and proud and thankful at this moment."

"Tell us, Primly Stable-may I call you Primly?"

"Certainly, Nancy."

"Tell us, Primly, tell us what you felt during the blastoff, at the very moment when your husband's rocket began to rise from the Earth and take him on his historic journey."

"To tell you the truth, Nancy, I missed that part of it. I'd sort of dozed off, because I got up so early this morning and I'd been rushing around a lot taping the shades shut, so the TV people wouldn't come in the windows."

"Well, would you say you had a lump in your throat as big as a tennis ball?"

"That's about the size of it, Nancy; I had a lump in my throat as big as a tennis ball."

Nancy was about out of time, but she suddenly lit up with an idea. "And finally, Primly, I know that the most important prayer of your life has already been answered: Squarely has returned safely from outer s.p.a.ce. But if you could have one other wish at this moment and have it come true, what would that one wish be?"

"Well, Nancy, I'd wish for an Electrolux vacuum cleaner with all of the attachments."

Annie liked a good laugh as well as the others, but nothing could calm her anxiety about her husband being the first American to orbit Earth, not to mention having to face the press. Annie had become so worried during the month leading up to Friendship 7's blastoff that she lost twelve pounds. The wives urged her to eat, but Annie just looked at them. "Just you wait until your launch."

On January 27, 1962, live on the Glenns' lawn, news reporters narrated the scene into network television cameras, affecting great concern for the poor wife while regretting that they were barred from entering the Glenns' redbrick home. And, as Annie had learned from Louise Shepard, her curtains were drawn so no reporter could get a sneak peek through the windows.

Along with her kids and some close family friends, Loudon Wainwright from Life magazine was with her to watch the launch. Annie's brown eyes remained glued to the unfolding drama playing on her three television sets. One was tuned to ABC, another to NBC, the third to CBS. As newscasters outside speculated about what the courageous wife could possibly be going through, Annie sat nervously in her living room. Save for a tension headache that had kept her up for several nights, she seemed perfectly composed.

All of a sudden, it was announced on the TV that John's launch had been scrubbed due to bad weather and would be rescheduled for a later date. The phone rang. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was blocks away in a limousine and wanted to come and comfort poor Annie in her disappointment. Oh, and he would be bringing with him the three major network news crews.

Annie wasn't feeling too well, but she didn't need to be comforted. Delays were the norm rather than the exception for launches. She needed only for the press to clear off her lawn that John always took such pains to tend. Right now, she didn't want anything to do with the swaggering Texan who would fawn over her for his own political gain. Besides, the Life contract forbade the wives from giving anything to the general press except for a news conference and a few measly photos. The deal was that Annie only had to come out for the post-flight press conference, and that was once John had landed!

The thought of suddenly having her home and life opened up to the general press-and her stutter revealed on national television? Well, it was enough to send any wife into a dither and give her a migraine. On top of that, Johnson wanted Loudon Wainwright to leave so that the networks would have a free hand. This didn't sit well with Annie. She trusted Loudon and felt as comfortable with him as she'd ever feel with any reporter. He protected her. "You sit right there," she told him. "You're not leaving this house!"

Annie and John truly understood the power of the press and the importance of good relations with the politicians. Being the good Boy Scout and Girl Scout came naturally to the Glenns; it was who they were. But this was too much for Annie. She simply would not admit Johnson and his crews into her home.

NASA couldn't believe it. As the head of the new s.p.a.ce Council, LBJ was spearheading Kennedy's Moon effort. He was also the prime mover behind NASA's big plans to relocate from Langley Air Force Base to Houston, Texas, his home state. It was important that NASA keep him happy. Why wasn't Annie playing ball? This was their perfect Astrowife, their patron saint? Couldn't she just let the man come in and say h.e.l.lo? Didn't she want to win the G.o.dd.a.m.n s.p.a.ce race?

NASA pressed Annie. Just let him come sit with you. Come on, Annie, do it for America! Do it for Johnny!

Within a few minutes NASA was buzzing in John's ear about how they needed the support of Washington if they wanted to get to the Moon. James Webb, NASA's administrator, threatened to switch the flight order. If John couldn't get his little lady to play ball and let the vice president come in and sit with her, maybe he wouldn't get to be the first American to orbit the Earth.

From a phone near the launch pad, John, biosensor wires still dangling from his chest to monitor his heart in orbit, called Annie and said, "Look, if you don't want the vice president or the TV networks or anybody else to come into the house, then that's it as far as I'm concerned, they are not coming in-and I will back you up all the way, one hundred percent."

The six other astronauts backed up John, and John Glenn was still going to be the first American to orbit the Earth. When Johnson was told no, he hit the roof, but there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.

There were delays and delays on the road to John's flight, which was finally rescheduled for the following month. Just before his launch on February 20, 1962, he called Annie. Suited up in his silver s.p.a.ce suit, lying in the tiny c.o.c.kpit of his Friendship 7 capsule, perilously perched atop a steam-hissing ninety-four-foot Atlas rocket packed with 367,000 pounds of explosive liquid oxygen, he told her, "I'm going down to the corner store to buy some chewing gum."

"Don't take too long," replied Annie, as she always did. They'd been having this same exchange ever since John was a fighter pilot, and after all the missions they'd lived through together, it had become a comforting ritual for them.

Living with danger had never been easy for Annie, but it was nothing new. That's why John called her "the Rock." She had endured John's years as a fighter pilot during World War II, left to simmer on the back burner while her husband flew fifty-nine death-defying missions in the South Pacific against the j.a.panese. And then there was John's service in Korea, where he attracted so many enemy MiG-15s that his squadron called him "Magnet a.s.s." The nickname made Annie cringe; nevertheless, John looked handsome in the photo of him in his brown leather bomber jacket and white silk pilot's scarf patterned with red hearts. And he did manage to shoot down three of the b.u.g.g.e.rs from his plane with LYN ANNIE DAVE painted on the fuselage. In Korea, Johnny and his plane had survived over 250 enemy "flak holes." His F9F Panther jet interceptor looked like it was made of Swiss cheese. The Glenns' wood-paneled walls were so cluttered with pictures and certificates celebrating John's fighter pilot career, he called it a danged museum.

Squeezed into a flying tin can the size of a bathtub, John was to spin around the globe three times at 17,544 mph and return home in a brilliant ball of fire screaming through the atmosphere. The slightest wrong tilt of his s.p.a.cecraft would fry him in an instant.

Annie waited the excruciating five hours while John orbited the Earth three times and saw four beautiful sunsets and sunrises. And he did indeed see in them the handiwork of G.o.d. s.p.a.ce sunsets came and went in a flash. He radioed excitedly, "The sunset was beautiful. I still have a brilliant blue band clear across the horizon. The sky is absolutely black, completely black. I can see the stars up above." He tried to pick out familiar constellations he'd known since he was a boy.