Scrapbook 3: Era in World Citizenship, Telstar Call

ERA IN WORLD CITIZENSHIP

By Frank Taylor in New York and John Bulloch in London

WE bounced our voices 2,500 miles up into space to cover the 3,000 miles between London and New York last night. In the first public demonstration of the satellite Telstar, we girdled the earth in a five-minute conversation which could mark the beginning of a new era of world citizenship.

In New York, Taylor took a taxi six miles to an office on 6th Avenue in the middle of the American afternoon. In London, Bulloch walked round the corner from Fleet Street to the new Post Office building in Farringdon Street.

The conversation went like this:

FROM NEW YORK: “This is New York via Telstar . . . John, hello.”

FROM LONDON: “Frank, I’ve had worse lines to Kensington.”

On both sides of the Atlantic tension mounted as the engineers in New York and London spoke by direct line to their satellite tracking stations. The link had been announced two days earlier. But with a satellite 2,500 miles up in space, travelling at 16,000 miles an hour, many things could go wrong.

FIRST MESSAGE

A call for London“

At 9.24 p.m. an engineer at Goonhilly reported that the giant aerial there was starting to move to track the satellite in its expected course over Britain. By 9.27 p.m. the satellite was five degrees above the horizon, some 5,500 miles away.

At 9.30 p.m. the first call from New York came through. The stereotyped tones of an operator there said: “I have a call for London.” And history was made.

The first words of the first public call across the Atlantic via

TELSTAR CALL

By FRANK TAYLOR and JOHN BULLOCH

(Continued from P.1, Col. 4)

a satellite were the same as the first words of any threepenny call between neighbours—“How are you?”

TAPE-RECORDED

Effect on psychology

In New York, Taylor sat in a bare auditorium with a tape recorder keeping a record of this moment.

“In the hall here is Dr. Joyce Brothers, a psychologist. She believes that Telstar will have the greatest psychological effect of any modern invention.

“Two minutes ago Dr. Brothers asked me to consider what the effect would be if we could export to Britain direct the soap operas which take up so much of television time here. She believes this will have a big effect on the people of Britain.”

In London, we were able to send to America this morning’s headlines. Thanks to Telstar, American evening paper readers will know that the Prime Minister “won over” many of the Tory backbench 1922 Committee.

From New York and from London, across 3,000 miles and up 2,500 miles, we said good night. Just as in any telephone-box, there was another caller impatiently waiting to go on.