Light This Candle: The Life & Times of Alan Shepard--America's First Spaceman (71 page)

Above left: Shepard reading his fan mail, on the cover of
Life
magazine.
(Courtesy
of Ralph Morse/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images) Above right: One of the largest crowds in Washington history clogged Pennsylvania Avenue for a glimpse of the new astronaut-hero and his wife. “Look at these people,” Vice President Johnson yelled in Shepard’s ear. “They love you.” Johnson later advised Shepard, “If you’re going to be famous, never pass up the opportunity for a free lunch, or to go to the men’s room.” Louise, meanwhile, would never become comfortable with the glow of fame that shone
upon her husband and his family.
(Courtesy of NASA)

Shepard’s famed love of golf would later inspire him to bring a golf club and two balls to the moon—and earn him many subsequent invitations to golf tournaments. (Courtesy of Ralph Morse/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)

After surgery cured his disease, Shepard fought his way back into the flight rotation and was assigned— along with two men who’d never flown into space before—to a mission to the moon. Some of the other astronauts dubbed the Apollo 14 crew “The Rookies.” Others were amazed at Shepard’s politicking, which he used to leapfrog ahead of other veteran astronauts who were waiting for a lunar mission.
(Courtesy of NASA)

Firing up a celebratory cigar after Gemini VI. At the time, Shepard was grounded by a debilitating inner ear disease.
(Courtesy of NASA)

At forty-seven, he was the oldest of NASA’s sixty astronauts, but he trained hard for Apollo 14— that training would come in handy when Apollo 14 experienced problems.
(Courtesy of
NASA)

(Courtesy of NASA)

The Saturn V booster rocket beneath Apollo 14 was one hundred times more powerful than the Redstone rocket that had launched Shepard’s Freedom 7 capsule ten years earlier.
(Courtesy
of NASA)

Shepard and Ed Mitchell practicing inside their lunar module.
(Courtesy
of NASA)

Just before leaving the moon’s surface, Shepard—the fifth man on the moon— whacked two golf balls with a makeshift six-iron (a golf club head attached to a rock-collecting tool handle).
(Courtesy of NASA)

Playing golf at Pebble Beach in 1995, a year before he was diagnosed with leukemia.
(Courtesy of J. D. Cuban/
Allsport/Getty Images)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Alan Shepard was a diligently private man. His many loyal friends knew and respected that, which makes me all the more grateful to those who nonetheless spoke with me at length, who invited me into their homes, opened up photo albums and scrapbooks, offered a meal, a scotch, a bed—and a story. I hope this book honors their faith in my attempts to tell a great story about a good man.

I’m honored to have had the privilege of spending time with three of the four surviving Mercury 7 astronauts: John Glenn, Wally Schirra, and Gordon Cooper—thank you. Thanks also to the dozens of astronauts, journalists, NASA officials, Navy and Naval Academy men, and family friends who invited me into their homes or offices, particularly these kind people: Walter Cronkite; Chris Kraft; Al Neuharth; Ed Mitchell; Henri Landwirth; Bobbie Slayton; Ralph Morse; Gene Cernan; Mickey Kapp; Lola Morrow; Jack King; Howard Benedict; Jay Barbree; George and Betty Whisler; Jig Dog Ramage; Bob Elder; Dor
el Abbot, Sam Beddingfield; Bill Hines; Charles Spangler; Lorraine Meyer; Hattie Durgin; Peter Vanderhoef; Francis Gallien; my good friends Bill and Diane Lawrence; and my new friend Robert
Beresford Williams, and his wife, Carol. Thanks also to the Class of ’45, especially Al Blackburn; to my e-mail-and-phone friends, Dee O’Hara, Bill Dana, and Paul Haney; and to USS Cogswell crewmen Andrew Atwell, John Huber, Tom Spargo, and, especially, Howard Johnson.

I’m awed by the treasures I found in dusty books and boxes of the libraries, archives, and oral history collections I visited across the country, and am thankful to those working to preserve those bits of our history, the people who kindly showed me where to dig, especially: the inestimable Paul Stillwell and Ann Hassinger at the U.S. Naval Institute; “Cousin” Dave Thompson and Colvin Randall at Longwood Gardens; Steve Garber and Jane Odom at the NASA History Office; Kent, Cindy, and Barbara at the National Archives repository in Fort Worth and the staff of the National Archives in Coll
ege Park; Shelly Kelly and Anna Keebler at the NASA archives at the University of Houston, Clear Lake; Norman Delaney at Delmar College in Corpus Christi; Glen Swanson at the Johnson Space Center; Gary Lavalley at the Naval Academy library; Kerry Johnson and Robin Perrin at Pinkerton Academy; Hill Goodspeed at the National Museum of Naval Aviation in Pensacola; Nancy Montgomery with the Chief of Naval Air Training in Corpus Christi; and Linda Colton at the FBI’s FOIA office.

This book improved with each bit of advice from friends who slogged through sloppy first drafts. Thank you Brian and Cheryl Klam, Katherine and David Reed, Lou King, Mike Hudson, Pauline Trimarco, Victor Yung, Juliette Tower, and, most especially, my Jersey goomba, Jim Haner. Thanks to Buzz Bissinger, Robert Ruby, Bob Timberg, and Richard Ben Cramer for early advice; to Rob Montone and family for loaning me Chez Montone at the lake to write; to Eric Schenck for hiring me when the cash ran low; and to my mom, Pat, and sister, Maura, for inspiration.

I would not have leaped into the abyss without the initial nudge and support from John Seigenthaler at th
e First Amendment Cen
ter and the Freedom F
orum. And I’d l
ike to acknowledge a
few of the many who p
rovided technical gui
dance for the paperba
ck: Robert Pearlman a
nd his dedicated crew
at
CollectSpace.com
, Francis French at t
he Reuben H. Fleet Sc
ience Center, Peter K
ing at CBS News, Ted
Spitzmiller, and Joel
Turpin.

Finally, special than
ks to my dad, Phil, t
he flyer, for attempt
ing to teach me about
flight and about lif
e; to my agent, Micha
el Carlisle, and my f
riend, Larry Chilnick
; to Emily Loose and
Caroline Sincerbeaux,
for their shrewd, sh
arp editing; and to t
he copy editors and d
esigners at Crown Boo
ks.

Words can’t exp
ress how lucky I feel
to have worked passi
onately on this book
atop a foundation of
undeterred support fr
om my wife, Mary, and
sons, Sean and Leo.