Remembering the lunar landing

Janet Flanner, the New Yorker's Paris correspondent, writes to her friend Natalia Danesi Murray about the flight to the moon of Apollo X in May 1969:
"I know your heart is in your throat during this flight to the moon, and I read with fear and trembling what those eagle men plan to do. Naming everything after the cartoon characters of Peanuts [The lunar module was named Snoopy and the command module Charlie Brown] seems a little more Amurrican than necessary, but it, of course, pleases the USA public."

Richard Nixon writes in his memoirs:
"For me the most exciting event of the first year of my presidency came in July 1969 when an American became the first man to walk on the moon… On Sunday night, July 20, Apollo VIII astronaut Frank Borman, Bob Haldeman and I stood around the TV set in the private office and watched Neil Armstrong step onto the moon. Then I went into the Oval Office where TV cameras had been set up for my split-screen phone call to the moon. Armstrong's voice came through loud and clear. I said, 'Because of what you have done the heavens have become a part of man's world. And as you talk to us from the Sea of Tranquillity, it inspires us to redouble our efforts to bring peace and tranquillity to earth.'

"After a journey of almost half a million miles to the moon and back Apollo XI landed less than two miles from the prearranged target about a thousand miles south-west of Hawaii. I was there to welcome the astronauts home. When I talked with them through the window of their quarantine chamber it was hard to contain my enthusiasm or my awe at the thought that the three men on the other side of the glass had just returned from the moon. I said impulsively, 'This is the greatest week in the history of the world since the Creation.' When I talked to Billy Graham a few days later he said, ' Mr President, I know exactly how you felt, and I understand exactly what you meant, but even so I think it may have been a little excessive.'"

Cecil King writes in his diary on 22nd July 1969:
"The big news for weeks and months past has been the landing on the moon. It is an immense technological achievement. The foresight involved has been miraculous. The men's courage has been admirable. They have been in an unknown world and in great danger for a week, and have never faltered. But having said all that, it is hard to see what of real value has been achieved. The Americans are beset by problems: their big cities, the Negroes, Vietnam, inflation, the armament race etc. The moon is not urgent and not a purely American problem, and in any case the biggest problem facing all of us is a spiritual and moral one, not a political or technological one. I regard the moon as an escape."