"Could you give them the story and trust them, when it's this important, and the consequences of leakage this apparent?"
"I'd thought of that. You can convince some newsmen—but there's always a Joe somewhere who figures the American people have a right to know their destiny before it's decided, no matter what the effect—and no matter if their most highly elected officials feel it would not be good for them."
"Keep it top security as long as possible. Let me know before it breaks."
"If I can. I'm not a witch. I might not know when it was breaking." The CIA chief grinned sourly at his own allusion.
The next night, the big news was the countdown in process at Canaveral to put a functioning "dome" on the moon. If the dome could be landed successfully, complete with live animals, a man would follow shortly. That was foregone. The question was landing the dome, just a small spaceship body, but completely equipped to keep a man alive for two years, in case anything went wrong with plans to bring him back pronto.
Bill Howard's voice was excited, and he ran his fingers through his hair, pushing it back as he leaned across the desk, the map of Florida behind him.
"To the statesmen, this is a question of who is first and who is second, and perhaps who will control the spaceways," he said after describing the countdown in process.
"But to the peoples of the world, this is mankind, reaching for the stars.
"It is not known," he said solemnly, "whether the failure of many of our shots has been human error or sabotage. Human error is a frailty of the race. Sabotage is a frailty of statesmanship, that the world is still divided as it reaches for the stars. Yet each is possible.
"Is there a mechanical error built in by human frailty in tonight's shot? Is there a saboteur at work?