As he flew westward to San Francisco to address the International Industrial Development Conference, Vice President Richard Nixon did some heavy thinking. Nixon had never quite agreed, in National Security Council or Cabinet meetings, with the budget-first thinking that had put a $38-billion ceiling on defense spending. Now, in the second week of Sputnik, he drafted a speech that was considerably stronger than the President's own let's-keep-our-shirts-on position. Said Nixon, in effect, "Let's roll up our sleeves," and thereby he set the Administration on a realistic course between the hand-wringers and the shoulder-shruggers.
"Militarily," said...
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