A Statement Never Read

Perhaps you've suspected, on hearing of Elizabeth Taylor's passing yesterday, that the media has always prepared copy to cover events of such a nature - never to be caught short when a moment comes.

So it was in 1969, when the first landing on the moon was about to take place. Speechwriter William Safire imagined the worse case scenario as he wrote the sombre memo above to President Nixon's Chief of Staff, H. R. Haldeman - to be read by the President if astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became stranded on the Moon, never to return.

That didn't happen, of course, and five more successful trips were made to the Moon and back over the next three years.

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Brownbird - "To Infinity and Beyond!" - some other "Buzz" - March 24th