“Earth Satellites and Foreign Policy”

From the vantage point of 2100 A.D., the year 1957 will most certainly stand in history as the year of man’s progression from a two-dimensional to a three-dimensional geography.

It may well stand, also, as the point in time at which intellectual achievement forged ahead of weapons and national wealth as instruments of national policy. . . .

We should not make the mistake of seeing in the satellite merely the symbol of a foreign Power’s military progress. It does, of course, represent important advances in military capability.

But quite irrespective of the usual interaction of scientific and military strength, the satellite symbolizes an intellectual attainment that may dominate the period immediately ahead as the most powerful single instrument of national policy.

The vital point is not so much that the Soviet satellite preceded that of the United States, heretofore credited as the leader of world technology; it is that the United States, for the first time, finds a challenging competitor in the most advanced scientific fields.

The achievement of the Soviet satellite has demonstrated to Americans what they refused to believe before, that they are in a race for intellectual leadership when they hadn’t realized that there was a race, or even that another nation had the capability to challenge their technology.

In the complacency of our assumed technological lead, we have confused our high standards of living and material prosperity with intellectual stature. It is an extravagant and dangerous mistake.