Then I contacted Cooper. He had always been a phantom to me. I had managed, by one means or another, to meet the other six and probe their characters. Gus Grissom I knew very well; John Glenn was aloof at first, Scott Carpenter came easily but was hard to hold and the same with Wally Schirra. Deke Slayton was very comfortable with me and I liked him best of all the astronauts. But Cooper I had never met, never talked with. Now I had to try to contact him. My desire was to meet the whole family at once and discuss the problem thoroughly. It was a fond wish that never happened.
By the time I had moved for arrangements on my duties, Gordo was at the Cape to stay. I had met him at the Cape on a tour in early April but at the time I was not firm enough in the job to be able to tell him I would be with his wife. The time and circumstances were not right. They never were right for this, the most mysterious of the astronauts.
So I called him. But aside from the dictum that his wife would make no statements or allow no press, even Life magazine reporters, inside the house until after he was on the deck of the carrier, he gave me very little to go on. Actually, since I had never been faced with problems I would encounter, I had no basis for questions and the phone interview fell rather flat.
My next step was to see Trudy Cooper and her daughters and try to establish, in the short time left, a personal basis on which I could work with them. I was surprised at the ease with which I got Mrs. Coopers number from Nancy L. (one of the astronaut secretaries). I called her and arranged for an appointment to come down to the house. She seemed very vague over the phone but I would not realize how really distant she was until later. I advised Joe P. of time and place.
I distinctly recall the day of the week as a Tuesday when I first met Trudy Cooper. It was already extremely hot in Houston, as summer had taken over from winter with very little spring in between. My appointment was for two-thirty but I told Joe P. we were leaving at one-thirty as I wanted plenty of time to find the place. As we drove down the Gulf Freeway I started feeling Joe P. out on his attitude toward the flight. He was concerned about having a doctor standing by in case anything went wrong. His morbid attitude started me off and I contemplated talking with Mrs. Cooper about an Atlantic landing. I did not directly bring up the point of the no-talking role I had planned for security yet. Joe was so agreeable, he almost lulled me into springing it.
We went past the ever-growing Clear Lake site (the new home of the Manned Spacecraft Center that was being built at the time) which I had seen for the first time not more than a week or so earlier. The Cooper house faced on Cedar Lane Circle, a little loop or court, as I would term it, on Cedar Lane Road in Taylor Lake Village. It was a sprawling, expensive-looking ranch house done in rough stone and a dark stained wood. The name was on the mailbox, Maj. L.G. Cooper, 101. (L.G. stood for Leroy Gordon, his official name, but he seldom used it). A station wagon was in the driveway, but otherwise the place looked deserted. There was a high board fence around a back yard. We went to the front door a little walk from the drive. I rang the bell and after a few moments Trudy Cooper opened the door.
My first impression of the woman was that she was not as beautiful and somewhat older than her pictures. She was very small and frail-looking, coming only up to my shoulder. Her hair was a decided brown and worn short and straight with little evidence of the teasing so popular then. Her eyes were perhaps her best asset, deep and with a trace of moisture in them that made her look constantly on the verge of tears.
The second thing that I learned was that she was very ill at ease. She invited us in and we walked through a passageway to the family room. The house was clean and cool, with soft carpets on the floor. The family room had a large fireplace at one end, with glass sliding doors shaded by curtains (this is somewhat unclear but I assume I was not talking about the fireplace having sliding doors and curtains, rather that the family room had them.) There was no division between it and a kitchen area at the back, which gave it a very informal atmosphere.
She did not invite us to sit down but we finally did so. Then she stated that she didnt know quite what we wanted. It was a distinct bind since it was exactly why I had come down. I wanted to know how she wanted to handle the press. But I found myself taking the lead and trying to explain my role when I really didnt know what it was.
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