"

 JFK ""invited"" Glenn to explain delays? 

This dubious footnote was just added:
""...a frustrated politician compared the spacecraft-Atlas combination to ""a Rube Goldberg device on top of a plumber's nightmare"" and John Glenn was invited to the White House to explain the delays.""

This New Ocean verifies the senator's remark, but makes it clear that JFK, while disappointed like everyone else, believed NASA knew best what was required to make the flight with reasonable safety, and describes Glenn's February visit (incidental to his visiting family in Virginia) as ""a brief visit with President Kennedy, who asked him many semitechnical questions about plans and systems for the orbital flight"" (citing several newspaper reports), but says nothing at all about Kennedy demanding Glenn ""explain delays"". This would seem totally out of character for JFK; I removed it. I have no idea who this Brit John Catchpole is, but I would suggest being cautious about regarding his Project Mercury - NASA's First Manned Space Programme as a reliable source about certain things.   "