Men on the moon: a view from Moscow: in July 1969, the United States was poised to make history in space. But the Soviet Union had one last Cold War trick up its sleeve.

I arrived in Moscow as a correspondent for The New York Times in February 1969, and was named bureau chief in July. This was Cold War Moscow, where the KGB kept tabs on all Western correspondents, and news--except for that provided by Tass, the official Soviet news agency, and the various Communist Party-controlled newspapers and journals--was hard to come by.

So, needless to say, I was curious to see how the Soviets would report what was sure to be one of humankind's greatest achievements: the landing of men on the moon planned for later that month by the United States, the Soviet Union's superpower nemesis.

TENSION IN MOSCOW

The mood in the Soviet capital in 1969 was tense. Two years earlier Israel had defeated Egypt and Syria (both Soviet client states) in the Six-Day War; for much of 1969, there had been military skirmishes along the long Soviet-Chinese border; and at home the government of Premier Leonid Brezhnev had been cracking down on intellectuals protesting the invasion of Czechoslovakia. (In August 1968, Soviet forces led a Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, which had been trying to gain at least some freedom from Moscow's grip.)

Nevertheless, Americans were regarded positively by most Russians, many of whom remembered the U.S.'s role in defeating the Germans in World War II, and who generally liked the few Americans they met. It also helped that there were no crises involving Washington and Moscow at the time.

But it became clear that the planned July launch of Apollo 11 for the moon was going to be a problem for the Soviet Union. Like the U.S., it had turned the exploration of space into a kind of Cold War Olympics.

The Soviets had startled the world in October 1957 with the launch of Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, and again in April 1961 when cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space. They had always assumed they were going to dominate what became known as the space race.

PLAYING CATCH-UP

But Sputnik's launch shocked the United States into action. Fearing that the Soviets were well ahead in technology, including military rockets, the U.S. undertook a crash program to "catch up" to the Soviets. On May 15, 1961, Alan Shephard's 15 minute flight beyond Earth's atmosphere in tiny Freedom 7 launched America's manned space program. And 10 days later, President John F. Kennedy, in a speech to a joint session of Congress, challenged the nation to send a man to the moon by the end of the 1960s.

A decade of steady American accomplishment followed. On Feb. 20, 1962, John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth in the Mercury program's Friendship 7. The Gemini program of 1965 and 1966 sent 10 manned spacecraft into the Earth's orbit. By the time I arrived in Moscow, the Apollo program had already sent astronauts around the moon.

With the launch of Apollo 11 (and Neil Armstrong, Col. Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin Jr., and Lt. Col. Michael Collins) set for 9:32 a.m on July 16 from Cape Kennedy (now Cape Canaveral) in Florida, the Soviets faced the prospect of a tremendous loss of prestige, even though Moscow remained polite and continued to talk about cooperation in space.

DESPERATE TO WIN

American journalists in Moscow at the time, myself included, had no idea how desperate the Soviet Union was to salvage some prestige from its faltering space program. (In fact, it was only after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 that we learned that the Soviets had tried to send a cosmonaut to the moon, but the rockets repeatedly failed in preliminary tests.)

Correspondents from European Communist Party publications based in Moscow had been telling their American colleagues for some time that the Soviets were planning a "surprise," and on July 13, out of the blue, Tass announced that an unmanned Soviet craft named Luna 15 was on its way to the moon. This prompted speculation both in Moscow and at Cape Kennedy that the Soviets were trying to steal Apollo 11's thunder by having Luna 15 land on the moon, scoop up some moon rock or soil, and return to Earth. (After the Soviet Union's demise, Russian scientists confirmed that this, indeed, had been the goal.)

In my front page story on July 14, I reported that the launch was seen by "observers here as a deliberate effort by the Soviet Union to steal some of the moon publicity away from the U.S. and demonstrate that it is still very much in the space business."

The initial announcement was followed by a deafening silence from Tass and Baikonur, the Soviet space base in Kazakhstan: For three days there were no updates about Luna 15.

On July 16, I listened on shortwave radio, along with other Americans in Moscow, to the Voice of America, the broadcast news service from the U.S., as it described the launch of Apollo 11. Moscow TV remained silent about its own moon mission, but it did run five minutes of tape from Cape Kennedy a couple of hours after Apollo 11's launch. And while that five minutes of tape seems very grudging, at the time it was highly unusual for Soviet TV to show any footage from the U.S. that was positive in tone.

On July 18, Tass reported that both Luna 15 and Apollo 11 were orbiting the moon. And while there was still no official announcement about the purpose of Luna 15's flight, Izvestia, the official government newspaper; gave a big hint when it said: "It is evident that in scientific terms the landing of a man on the moon provides less than unmanned automatic stations can provide."

SPACE RACE'S LAST LAP

On July 19, Luna 13 was just 10 miles from the moon's surface. There was clearly a sense of competition in the Soviet Union, because the Tass announcement came only minutes before Apollo 11's lunar lander detached from the lunar orbiter and headed for the surface of the moon.

The competition ended on the morning of July 21, Moscow time (the evening of July 20 in the eastern U.S.), when the Americans' first moonwalk occurred and the world heard Neil Armstrong say as he stepped onto the moon's surface: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

That evening the Soviets cryptically announced that Luna 15 had reached the surface of the moon and its work had "ended." In other words, it had crashed. To the Soviets' credit, Russian TV did show coverage of the moon walks by Armstrong and Aldrin at least three times on July 21.

James F. Clarity, my Times colleague in Moscow, reported that a young woman on the street gave a thumbs up when asked about the moon landing, and many other ordinary Russians shared the world's sense of accomplishment. The Soviet Union offered official praise. Pravda, the Communist Party paper, put it on the front page, and for a day or two, there was a pleasant truce in the Cold War.

I have a personal footnote to this story. Page One of The New York Times of July 21, 1969--with a big banner headline, "Men Walk on Moon"--is one of the most "historic" front pages, reprinted in countless books and commemorative editions.

IMMORTALITY DENIED

In the first edition of that day's paper, which I have never seen, my story about Luna 15's being just 10 miles from the moon was in the lower right corner of the front page, which would have ensured me some kind of journalistic immortality,

But by the time the later edition (the one that is always reproduced, including in this article) came out, my story was moved inside the paper, and a poem by Archibald MacLeish, "Voyage to the Moon," had taken its place on Page One. My little version of poetic injustice.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

* President Bush wants the U.S. to return to the moon and use it as a base for Mars missions. Many people say the money would be better spent on earthly problems. What do you think?

* Does a country's space program demonstrate its superiority?

TEACHING OBJECTIVES

To help students understand that there was a Cold War political context to America's decade-long space-exploration effort, culminating in the moon landing in 1969.

CLASSROOM STRATEGIES

BEFORE READING: Write "Cold War" on the hoard. If students are unfamiliar with the term, explain that it was a period of often high tensions between the Communist Soviet Union and its allies and the United States and its allies. In this international War of ideas, achievements in space took on critical importance.

CRITICAL THINKING: Note that both the United States and the Soviet Union had made the space race into a kind of "Cold War Olympics." Ask students why they think the two superpowers became locked in competition for achievement in space rather than cooperating, as they do now. (Each side tried to use its achievements in space as an advertisement for its alleged superiority. Technical achievements in space were touted as evidence of the superiority of their societies and their military power. In the competition to win allies, the space race played a key role.)

ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION: Remind students that this July marks the 35th anniversary of the 1969 Apollo moon landing. Ask them to suppose that they are working on a commemoration of the landing. What events would they plan for the day?

INTERVIEWS: Assign students to interview relatives or other adults who watched the first moon landing on television. Some sample questions: What were their feelings at the time? Did they pray for the safety of the astronauts? Was the landing of major interest to their friends and families? Has anyone saved a newspaper from the time? Does anyone remember hearing stories or jokes to the effect that the landing was staged? (A few Web sites claim that it was all a fake.)

WEB WATCH: www.hq.nasa.gov/office/ pao/History/ap11ann/introduction.htm is a NASA Web site that provides background on the historic landing, astronauts' biographies, a time line, and links to related sites.

Upfront QUIZ 4

MEN ON THE MOON > MULTIPLE CHOICE > PAGES 16-19 DIRECTIONS: Circle the fetter next to the best answer.

1. Moscow was a tense capital when reporter Bernard Gwertzman arrived in February 1969. Just months earlier, the Soviets had led an invasion of

a East Germany.

b Czechoslovakia.

c Poland.

d Yugoslavia.

2. In addition, there had been military skirmishes along the Soviet border with

a China.

b Finland.

c Iran.

d Turkey.

3. In spite of these tensions, most Russians were fond of Americans, remembering the

a earlier cooperation in space research.

b U.S.-Soviet student exchange programs.

c U.S. role in defeating Germany during World War II.

d U.S.-Soviet cooperation in fighting terrorism.

4. The U.S. moon mission was part of a space program called

a Mercury.

b Poseidon.

c Zeus.

d Apollo.

5. The Soviets startled the world when they launched a satellite called Sputnik in 1957. Then, in 1961, they

a sent a robotic device to Mars.

b put the first human in space.

c launched a rocket bigger than any the U.S. possessed.

d orbited the moon.

6. In July 1969, just days before the Successful American landing on the moon, the Soviets launched a spacecraft called Luna 15 that

a set up an observation platform on the moon.

b was supposed to retrieve rocks and soil from the moon.

c was designed to identify, environmental problems on Earth.

d was designed to carry humans into deep space.

Upfront Quiz 4, page TE6

1. (b) Czechoslovakia.

2. (a) China.

3. (c) U.S. role in defeating Germany during World War II..

4. (d) Apollo.

5. (b) put the first human in space.

6. (b) was supposed to retrieve rocks and soil from the moon.

After his assignment in Moscow, Bernard Gwertzman was the foreign editor of The New York Times and editor of its Web site.