JUAN TRIPPE, JFK & THE SUPERSONIC TRANSPORT

As Bob Gandt so neatly characterized the atmosphere at Pan American World Airways during the heady days of the early space race in his book SkyGods, newly hired pilots at Pan Am would be told:

“Congratulations gentlemen – you are going to be SST pilots.”

It made sense. A joint British-French consortium was hard at work designing a supersonic transport, or SST. America had taken note of course, and things were moving forward, although it was still below the public’s radar. But in June 1963, the Kennedy Administration was ready to unveil America’s answer to European competition - the government was going to work with the private sector to develop an American SST.

On June 5th 1963, President John Kennedy stood before the graduating class at the US Air Force Academy and said,

"it is my judgment that this Government should immediately commence a new program in partnership with private industry to develop at the earliest practical date the prototype of a commercially successful supersonic transport superior to that being built in any other country of the world. An open, preliminary design competition will be initiated immediately among American airframe and powerplant manufacturers with a more detailed design phase to follow."

Credit: Photograph by Robert Knudsen, from the JFK Presidential Library and Museum.

 But less than 24 hours earlier, with his prepared remarks sitting on his desk in the White House, JFK had been handed an AP wire service news release saying Juan Trippe had just announced that Pan Am was placing orders for six European-built SSTs – the plane that would eventually fly as the Concorde.

Credit: Photograph by Abbie Rowe, National Park Service, from the JFK Presidential Library and Museum.

The president was stunned - and angry. You can hear it on the following audio recordings, provided through the archive at the JFK Presidential Library in Boston. (One historical note: according to the JFK Library, President Kennedy himself controlled when his phone conversations were recorded, and there are only 12 hours of recorded conversations in total for his entire tenure in office.)

 LISTEN:

First, with Vice-president Johnson

Credit: Photograph LBJ Library Photo by Yoichi Okamoto.

A second phone conversation with FAA Administrator Najeeb Halaby (who one day would head Pan Am himself).

JFK & Najeeb Halaby. Credit: Photograph by Abbie Rowe, National Park Service, from the JFK Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.

  LISTEN:

And finally, a third conversation with Treasury Secretary C. Douglas Dillon.

JFK & Treasury Secretary C. Douglas Dillon. Credit: Photograph by Robert L. Knudsen, from the JFK Presidential Library and Museum.