The word came down in the spring of 1972: the NASA office of special investigations was going to look into it. I was also informed that Chris Kraft was involved. The original flight director, Kraft was a person of immense power who was taking a step up the ladder that year to head NASA’s entire operation in Houston. If he liked you, Kraft could guide you through a stellar career. If he didn’t, you might as well leave. A number of astronauts had incurred his displeasure in the past, and none of them had ever flown again. They had not been fired. NASA didn’t do that since it might create bad press. Instead, these unlucky guys sat around in their office for a couple of years until they realized they would never be offered another space mission.
I didn’t want to become one of them. So when Kraft asked me to voluntarily turn over all flown covers to him while the investigation took place, I jumped into action. I blasted Herrick again and insisted he return my covers to me. I received only sixty, along with a list of excuses. Some had been chewed up in the mail, he told me, and had to be destroyed. The others had somehow been “lost.” I couldn’t believe he would destroy something that had flown in space, and I told him so. But there was nothing else I could do.
I took the sixty covers, added them to the one hundred covers that Dave had unexpectedly given me after the flight, and placed them in a large envelope. Then, to be on the safe side, I gathered up every other flown item I had in my possession and added them to the package along with an itemized list. If they were going to investigate what we took on the flight, they might want it all. Of course, the little personal items I had flown for friends had long been given back to them. But I still had many flags and other little items from my PPK. I put them all in the package and sent it through the internal mail to Kraft’s office. To my mind, it all had intrinsic value.
About three days later, I received everything back except the covers. That was all the investigators were interested in, I was told, and they’d be returned to me too once the investigation ended. I was surprised that they only wanted to look at the covers.
I was nervous that an official investigation was taking place. On the other hand, crazier things had happened in the astronaut office in the past—the Time-Life deal came to mind—and I had been told that every crew before ours had signed a similar stamp deal. Surely we wouldn’t be singled out? It was time to concentrate on Apollo 17. There was a lot to do.
I was in a desert in the southwest a couple of weeks later—May 16, 1972—on a geology training trip. At seven in the morning, Deke called me in my hotel room. It was a Tuesday, and I looked forward to an intense week of geology training.
“Al, here’s the deal,” Deke began. “I have good news and bad news. The good news is that the air force will take you back.”
Oh, shit. I knew what Deke wanted me to ask. “What’s the bad news, Deke?”
“You have got to be out of your office by next Monday. You’ve got to be gone. Get yourself back to Houston today. I have already turned your name in to the air force for reassignment.”
There was no opportunity to discuss, to argue, to plead. The conversation was over. I was in shock. Astronauts didn’t get fired. Well, guess what? I’d just been fired.
I had plenty of time to think it over as I flew back to Houston, still numb. I could guess what Deke was trying to do; by sliding me back into the air force, he could divert the flak away from NASA and report that the issue was resolved. He was probably also trying to protect me, by getting me away from the investigators. But I didn’t want to go back to the air force. I’d been to college, to England, and then on loan to NASA; I had been out of the military mainstream for a long time. All of my peers had built up impressive combat records in Vietnam. And I’d noticed that Deke had said the air force “would take” me back—not that they
When I returned to Houston, I followed Deke’s orders and called the air force personnel office to find out my options. On such short notice there weren’t many, they told me. They could assign me to the Air War College in Alabama for a while, then possibly move me into a public relations role at the Pentagon. Neither of those options sounded too appealing.
I figured I had nothing to lose by talking to Chris Kraft, so I headed to his office on Wednesday. I didn’t expect to be welcomed with open arms, but neither did I expect what happened next. The decision to release me was a management decision in the best interests of NASA and Houston, he told me. All of NASA management concurred. He would not move me into a desk job, and I should go back to the air force. Then he really let rip. Now that I had made my flight, he growled, I was “just another dime-a-dozen engineer. I want you out of here as soon as possible. And don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.”
I returned to my office and, not knowing what else to do, wrote down everything Kraft had said to me. I was still in disbelief. My God, I thought, it really is all over.
I tried to puzzle out why Kraft felt so determined to humiliate me. He was inheriting command of the most well-known NASA center, and the first thing on his work pile was to sort out the mess of the covers. That would annoy anyone. We’d let NASA down. But to what extent? Had we disgraced the whole program? Had we killed anyone? There was more to it, I felt sure. But no one would tell me.
Deke had fired me and told me to be out of the office by Monday. Screw it, I thought, I am not leaving. What could he do? Fire me again? Have security escort me off the premises? I stayed and continued to talk to people further and further up the chain of command. I didn’t see it as embarrassing myself or them. I’d risked my life for NASA. I’d lost my marriage. I’d busted my butt flying on what people had told me was the pinnacle of NASA’s science and exploration efforts, and done it well. I figured that earned me at least a couple of weeks to work out what to do next before I was thrown in the trash.
I took a deep breath and headed to the office of George Low, the NASA deputy administrator. I had always seen George as a friend. I began to explain to him what had happened. But he didn’t care. “We are a clean organization,” he told me icily, “and you did something bad. We are going to show the world that we’re getting rid of you. You need to go back to the air force.”
I was ready to leave his office when George stopped me. “One other thing,” he added. “I made sure to add enough bad remarks in your air force file that you will never be promoted again.”
That parting shot almost broke me. I was devastated. I sure as hell wasn’t going back to the air force now. If NASA had helped me make the move, I probably would have gone quietly. But George had just deliberately killed my career stone dead. So why do what he wanted me to do? I grew more stubborn.
After making more careful notes about my meeting with George, I headed for a meeting with Jim Fletcher, the NASA administrator. Like Kraft, he was relatively new to his position. Jim, at least, was polite with me. But he sidestepped my questions. “What’s wrong with returning to the air force?” he asked me. “You’ll be fine. Go on back.”
There was nowhere else to turn, I thought. I was in a most ironic of circumstances. I loved NASA. And despite the humiliation poured on me by its leaders, I was fighting to stay.
Jim Irwin received the same treatment, but he didn’t need anything more than a word from Deke and he was gone. Jim already planned to retire when Apollo 17 was over. So when Deke asked him to move his retirement date up, Jim had no problem doing it. With Jim leaving, we were all pulled from Apollo 17 duties and three other astronauts were assigned to replace us.
It was quite clear I needed to get the hell out of Houston. But NASA was where I felt at home. If I had to work my way through a lot of antagonism and mean-spirited comments to stay, I was prepared for that. However, I was running out of people to talk to.
I considered Dale Myers, the associate administrator for Manned Space Flight, to be a friend. But then I had thought that about George Low, too. I requested a meeting with Dale and steeled myself for another humiliating lecture.
To my immense relief, when we met on May 31, Dale was friendly and sympathetic. “You need to get out of Houston,” he agreed. “I’ll see if I can find you a job at another NASA center and hide you there. Where would you like to go? Huntsville? The Cape? Langley?”
I could have wept, I felt so grateful for this act of kindness. We talked about the different centers and settled on the Ames Research Center in California. They did a lot of flying there, and it was far enough from Houston and NASA Headquarters that I could evade the witch hunters. “Go and talk to the director out there, and I’ll arrange the rest,” Dale told me.
