Presidential speech writer William Safire had prepared an In Event of Moon Disaster announcement for Nixon to read in the event the Apollo 11 astronauts were stranded on the Moon. Scanned copy of the "In Event of Moon Disaster" memo. The remarks were in a memo from Safire to Nixon's White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman, in which Safire suggested a protocol the administration might follow in reaction to such a disaster. According to the plan, Mission Control would "close down communications" with the LM, and a clergyman would "commend their souls to the deepest of the deep" in a public ritual likened to burial at sea. The last line of the prepared text contained an allusion to Rupert Brooke's World War I poem "The Soldier". The script for the speech does not make reference to Collins; as he remained onboard Columbia in orbit around the Moon, it was expected that he would be able to return the module to Earth in the event of a mission failure.
Presidential speech writer William Safire had prepared an In Event of Moon Disaster announcement for Nixon to read in the event the Apollo 11 astronauts were stranded on the Moon. Scanned copy of the "In Event of Moon Disaster" memo. The remarks were in a memo from Safire to Nixon's White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman, in which Safire suggested a protocol the administration mig:ht follow in reaction to such a disaster. According to the plan, Mission Control would "close down communications" with the LM, and a clergyman would "commend their souls to the d!eepest of the deep" in a public ritual likened to burial at sea. The last line of the prepared text contain,ed an allusion to Rupert Brooke's World War I poem "The Soldier". The script for the speech does not make reference to Collins; as he remained onboard Columbia in orbit a,round the Moon, it was expected that he would be able to return the module to Earth in the event of a mission failure.