Page:The Air Force Role In Developing International Outer Space Law (Terrill, 1999).djvu/35

This page needs to be proofread.

just discussion of the general issue but that a convention might be placed on the agenda at the upcoming ICAO world assembly.[1]

The Air Force representative at the ACC, Assistant Secretary for Materiel Dudley C. Sharp,[2] responded to Cooper’s proposal by writing ACC Chairman Rothschild. Noting that the proposal entered an “uncharted area of thinking [and] cut across certain high-level policies…such as the President’s mutual inspection proposal, the recent Air Force weather balloon problem, earth satellite projects, and guided missile testing projects,” Sharp recommended that the ACC postpone consideration of the proposal. He argued that until higher-level policies had been developed, the Air Coordinating Committee consider only “appropriate means whereby such higher-level policy considerations can be isolated and promptly considered.” Finally, Sharp proposed that the United States adopt a position at the ICAO seeking to have the matter postponed as being premature. Sharp argued that Cooper’s proposition posed a “number of problems which should properly be disposed of at the National Security Council or Presidential level” before being considered by the ACC. Once such national security issues were resolved, Sharp indicated he felt comfortable with the ACC dealing with the issue and allowing legal experts to “attack the problem of drafting a United States position on any proposed international convention.”[3] At the same time, Secretary Sharp asked Air Force chief of staff Gen Nathan F. Twining for Air Staff “views on the military implications of an international convention regarding the use of outer air space.” Sharp encouraged the other services to also review the issue.[4]

  1. Joseph M. Goldsen and Leon S. Lipson, “Some Implications for US National Security of Activities in Outer Space-An Interim Report,” RM 2004 (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 28 October 1957), 1.
  2. Sharp later became secretary of the Air Force, serving from 11 December 1959 to 20 January 1961.
  3. Dudley C. Sharp, assistant secretary of the Air Force, to Louis S. Rothschild, ACC chairman, memorandum, subject: Growing Interest in Possible International Convention on Use of “Outer Space” by Nations, 4 April 1956.
  4. Ibid., 2.