NRO-MOL_2015

78 The Dorian Files Revealed: a Compendium of the NRO’s Manned Orbiting Laboratory Documents
Sometime after this meeting ‡‡ , Major Hermman met
with members of the Space Council staff and discussed
possible approaches to countering criticism of the
program. Other officials also apparently contacted Dr.
Welsh, who proved quite agreeable to restating U.S.
national policy on MOL. On 28 October 1965—in an
address to the American Ordnance Association—he cited
the MOL as an example “of a highly valuable exchange
of technology and experience by two operating agencies
of the government.” And he said further:
Since I have mentioned the Manned
Orbiting Laboratory, it is worth
pausing right now to challenge
forthrightly those who have asserted
or intimated that it has something
to do with a weapons race. We expect
misrepresentations of that sort to
came from unfriendly countries and
sometimes from ignorant domestic
critics. However, I was disappointed
to find that a few otherwise well
informed publications and individuals
have asserted that MOL is a weapons
carrier and a project contrary to
our peaceful progress in space.
I assert as positively as I can that MOL is not a weapons
system, is not a means by which aggressive actions
can be perpetrated, and is in no way in conflict with
the established policies, objectives, or methods of the
United States. Rather, it is a program that will increase
our knowledge of man’s usefulness in space and will
relate that ability to our national defense. 25
‡‡ The State Department later advised OSD that world press reaction to the
MOL announcement, “while not laudatory, has not been as bad as it might
have been.”