Jules Bergman
Encyclopedia
Jules Bergman a broadcast writer and journalist, served as Science Editor for ABC News
from 1961 until his death in 1987. He is most remembered for his coverage of the American space program.
A native of New York City
, Bergman was educated at the City College of New York
and Indiana University
. While doing postgraduate work at Columbia University
, Bergman held a Sloan-Rockefeller Advanced Science Writing Fellowship, which he completed in 1960.
, then joined the news staff of WFDR-FM
in New York, eventually becoming the station's assistant news director.
Bergman joined ABC News as a writer in 1953, specializing in science issues. In the late 1950s he began covering the activities of the Space Task Group
. Bergman was named Science Editor in 1961, the same year that the first manned Vostok
and Mercury
flights took place.
Though he became most famous for his work on covering space missions, Bergman covered stories in a range of areas, including aviation, defense matters, medicine, health, astronomy and public safety. He was also pressed into service as a general assignment reporter on some special occasions. For example, after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy
on November 22, 1963, Bergman was sent to New York's Times Square
to report on citizens' reactions to the President's death.
, Gemini, Apollo
, Skylab
and Apollo-Soyuz programs for ABC.
Bergman's reporting for ABC was noted for its direct style. In contrast to the more avuncular style of CBS anchor Walter Cronkite
, Bergman's reporting took a very serious tone, and was very direct (to the point of seeming pessimistic at times) about the possible consequences of any mishaps or accidents that took place during a spaceflight, such as the Apollo 13 accident
. In order to more fully understand the astronauts and their missions, Bergman often took part in the same training and simulations that the astronauts did.
Bergman later covered the missions of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's unmanned space probes, notably the Viking and Voyager
programs. He also covered the Space Shuttle
program from its first flights through the 1986 Challenger disaster.
, Edward H. White and Roger Chaffee on January 27, 1967, Bergman discovered and revealed the existence of a NASA document which became known as the "Phillips Report", which led to a minor scandal complicating NASA's recovery from the fire, and causing Administrator James E. Webb
much embarassment. In November 1965, Apollo program director Samuel C. Phillips
had led a team which investigated and documented the causes of delivery, quality, and cost problems with Apollo prime contractor North American Aviation
. Phillips and his boss George Mueller
had both chastised North American's management severely for the problems, and demanded corrective action.
Immediately after the fire in 1967, NASA followed its established procedure of investigating and identifying corrections for the cause, with Presidential and Congressinal oversight. No one in NASA's upper management expected that the Phillips findings would be printed as a document, but this had been done and on February 13, Bergman was shown a copy at the Office of Manned Space Flight headquarters. He then told a junior Senator on the Aeronautical and Space Sciences Committee, Walter Mondale
, about the document, and later reported its existence on ABC. Mondale proceeded to grill the top managers, including Webb who was completely blind-sided, about the "report's" existence. Other Senators, such as Margaret Chase
, then questioned Webb about NASA's choice of North American as the Apollo contractor. In its final report, the committee agreed with NASA that the Phillips review had absolutely no bearing on the fire, though the chairman expressed his disappointment that Webb had not kept them informed of Apollo program problems at the time. But Mondale issued a minority opinion accusing NASA of "evasiveness, ... lack of candor, ... patronizing attitude exhibited toward Congress, ... refusal to respond fully and forthrightly to legitimate congressional inquiries, and ... solicitous concern for corporate sensitivities at a time of national tragedy".
organ transplantation, arthritis, communicable diseases, the hazards of asbestos, and advances in the treatment of cancer.
Bergman was also well known for his reporting on aviation and defense matters. He wrote many articles on aviation, and wrote books, including
Ninety Seconds to Space: The Story of the X-15 (1960). Bergman began training for his private pilot license in 1958, and turned the
story of his flight training into an instructional book, Anyone Can Fly (1964; revised 1977). Bergman also reported on major aviation developments and disasters for ABC, and also covered the
development of new weapons systems for the military of the United States.
Bergman also covered energy issues, including the oil crisis of the 1970s. He was also a major contributor to ABC's coverage of the 1979
accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant.
Bergman was also a contributor to ABC's Close-Up series of documentaries. He won an Emmy for his work on the half-hour documentary Close-Up: On Fire. Bergman was also a guest host on the ABC public affairs series Issues and Answers, and also contributed
to other ABC programs, including Good Morning America. In cooperation with ABC's Wide World of Sports
, Bergman also covered Evel Knievel
's 1974 attempt to jump the Snake River Canyon.
additional surgeries to remove additional growths, and took anti-seizure medications.
Bergman was found dead in his New York apartment on February 11, 1987. His passing was reported not just by ABC
News, but also on the CBS
and NBC
nightly newscasts. A memorial service was held four days later in New York City, at which Bergman was eulogized by the NASA astronaut Joseph P. Allen.
Bergman until 1999.
Many television documentaries have featured clips from Bergman's reporting on the American space program. Footage of Bergman's reports
also figured prominently in the 1995 motion picture Apollo 13
. Bergman also portrayed himself in a 1974 episode of The Six Million Dollar Man
titled "The Rescue of Athena One." In addition, Bergman was portrayed by actor Andrew Rubin in an episode of the 1998 HBO miniseries From The Earth To The Moon titled "For Miles and Miles."
ABC News
ABC News is the news gathering and broadcasting division of American broadcast television network ABC, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...
from 1961 until his death in 1987. He is most remembered for his coverage of the American space program.
A native of New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, Bergman was educated at the City College of New York
City College of New York
The City College of the City University of New York is a senior college of the City University of New York , in New York City. It is also the oldest of the City University's twenty-three institutions of higher learning...
and Indiana University
Indiana University
Indiana University is a multi-campus public university system in the state of Indiana, United States. Indiana University has a combined student body of more than 100,000 students, including approximately 42,000 students enrolled at the Indiana University Bloomington campus and approximately 37,000...
. While doing postgraduate work at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, Bergman held a Sloan-Rockefeller Advanced Science Writing Fellowship, which he completed in 1960.
ABC News
Bergman began his journalism career in 1949 at Time magazine. He briefly worked at CBS NewsCBS News
CBS News is the news division of American television and radio network CBS. The current chairman is Jeff Fager who is also the executive producer of 60 Minutes, while the current president of CBS News is David Rhodes. CBS News' flagship program is the CBS Evening News, hosted by the network's main...
, then joined the news staff of WFDR-FM
WAXQ
WAXQ is a radio station with a classic rock format in New York City. The station is owned by Clear Channel Communications.-WFDR:...
in New York, eventually becoming the station's assistant news director.
Bergman joined ABC News as a writer in 1953, specializing in science issues. In the late 1950s he began covering the activities of the Space Task Group
Space Task Group
The Space Task Group was a working group of NASA engineers created in 1958, tasked with superintending America's manned spaceflight programs. It was headed by Robert Gilruth andbased at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. After President John F...
. Bergman was named Science Editor in 1961, the same year that the first manned Vostok
Vostok programme
The Vostok programme was a Soviet human spaceflight project that succeeded in putting a person into Earth's orbit for the first time. The programme developed the Vostok spacecraft from the Zenit spy satellite project and adapted the Vostok rocket from an existing ICBM design...
and Mercury
Project Mercury
In January 1960 NASA awarded Western Electric Company a contract for the Mercury tracking network. The value of the contract was over $33 million. Also in January, McDonnell delivered the first production-type Mercury spacecraft, less than a year after award of the formal contract. On February 12,...
flights took place.
Though he became most famous for his work on covering space missions, Bergman covered stories in a range of areas, including aviation, defense matters, medicine, health, astronomy and public safety. He was also pressed into service as a general assignment reporter on some special occasions. For example, after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy
Assassination of John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, was assassinated at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas...
on November 22, 1963, Bergman was sent to New York's Times Square
Times Square
Times Square is a major commercial intersection in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets...
to report on citizens' reactions to the President's death.
The Space Program
Bergman began covering developments in space exploration during the 1950s. He went on to cover the entirety of the MercuryProject Mercury
In January 1960 NASA awarded Western Electric Company a contract for the Mercury tracking network. The value of the contract was over $33 million. Also in January, McDonnell delivered the first production-type Mercury spacecraft, less than a year after award of the formal contract. On February 12,...
, Gemini, Apollo
Project Apollo
The Apollo program was the spaceflight effort carried out by the United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration , that landed the first humans on Earth's Moon. Conceived during the Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Apollo began in earnest after President John F...
, Skylab
Skylab
Skylab was a space station launched and operated by NASA, the space agency of the United States. Skylab orbited the Earth from 1973 to 1979, and included a workshop, a solar observatory, and other systems. It was launched unmanned by a modified Saturn V rocket, with a mass of...
and Apollo-Soyuz programs for ABC.
Bergman's reporting for ABC was noted for its direct style. In contrast to the more avuncular style of CBS anchor Walter Cronkite
Walter Cronkite
Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr. was an American broadcast journalist, best known as anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years . During the heyday of CBS News in the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as "the most trusted man in America" after being so named in an opinion poll...
, Bergman's reporting took a very serious tone, and was very direct (to the point of seeming pessimistic at times) about the possible consequences of any mishaps or accidents that took place during a spaceflight, such as the Apollo 13 accident
Apollo 13
Apollo 13 was the seventh manned mission in the American Apollo space program and the third intended to land on the Moon. The craft was launched on April 11, 1970, at 13:13 CST. The landing was aborted after an oxygen tank exploded two days later, crippling the service module upon which the Command...
. In order to more fully understand the astronauts and their missions, Bergman often took part in the same training and simulations that the astronauts did.
Bergman later covered the missions of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's unmanned space probes, notably the Viking and Voyager
Voyager program
The Voyager program is a U.S program that launched two unmanned space missions, scientific probes Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. They were launched in 1977 to take advantage of a favorable planetary alignment of the late 1970s...
programs. He also covered the Space Shuttle
Space Shuttle
The Space Shuttle was a manned orbital rocket and spacecraft system operated by NASA on 135 missions from 1981 to 2011. The system combined rocket launch, orbital spacecraft, and re-entry spaceplane with modular add-ons...
program from its first flights through the 1986 Challenger disaster.
"Phillips report"
After the Apollo 1 fire took the lives of astronauts Gus GrissomGus Grissom
Virgil Ivan Grissom , , better known as Gus Grissom, was one of the original NASA Project Mercury astronauts and a United States Air Force pilot...
, Edward H. White and Roger Chaffee on January 27, 1967, Bergman discovered and revealed the existence of a NASA document which became known as the "Phillips Report", which led to a minor scandal complicating NASA's recovery from the fire, and causing Administrator James E. Webb
James E. Webb
James Edwin Webb was an American government official who served as the second administrator of NASA from February 14, 1961 to October 7, 1968....
much embarassment. In November 1965, Apollo program director Samuel C. Phillips
Samuel C. Phillips
General Samuel Cochran Phillips was a United States Air Force four star general who served as Director of NASA's Apollo Manned Lunar Landing Program from 1964 to 1969, the seventh Director of the National Security Agency from 1972 to 1973, and as Commander, Air Force Systems Command from 1973 to...
had led a team which investigated and documented the causes of delivery, quality, and cost problems with Apollo prime contractor North American Aviation
North American Aviation
North American Aviation was a major US aerospace manufacturer, responsible for a number of historic aircraft, including the T-6 Texan trainer, the P-51 Mustang fighter, the B-25 Mitchell bomber, the F-86 Sabre jet fighter, the X-15 rocket plane, and the XB-70, as well as Apollo Command and Service...
. Phillips and his boss George Mueller
George Mueller
George Mueller is the name of:*George Mueller , former NASA deputy administrator*George Müller , Christian evangelist and coordinator of orphanages in England...
had both chastised North American's management severely for the problems, and demanded corrective action.
Immediately after the fire in 1967, NASA followed its established procedure of investigating and identifying corrections for the cause, with Presidential and Congressinal oversight. No one in NASA's upper management expected that the Phillips findings would be printed as a document, but this had been done and on February 13, Bergman was shown a copy at the Office of Manned Space Flight headquarters. He then told a junior Senator on the Aeronautical and Space Sciences Committee, Walter Mondale
Walter Mondale
Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale is an American Democratic Party politician, who served as the 42nd Vice President of the United States , under President Jimmy Carter, and as a United States Senator for Minnesota...
, about the document, and later reported its existence on ABC. Mondale proceeded to grill the top managers, including Webb who was completely blind-sided, about the "report's" existence. Other Senators, such as Margaret Chase
Margaret Chase
Margaret Alma Chase Camajani was an American Red Cross recreation club worker during World War II. From August 1942 to May 1945 she was assigned to England and North Africa near General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s headquarters...
, then questioned Webb about NASA's choice of North American as the Apollo contractor. In its final report, the committee agreed with NASA that the Phillips review had absolutely no bearing on the fire, though the chairman expressed his disappointment that Webb had not kept them informed of Apollo program problems at the time. But Mondale issued a minority opinion accusing NASA of "evasiveness, ... lack of candor, ... patronizing attitude exhibited toward Congress, ... refusal to respond fully and forthrightly to legitimate congressional inquiries, and ... solicitous concern for corporate sensitivities at a time of national tragedy".
Other science reporting
Though best known for his reporting on space issues, Bergman also filed many reports on medical issues for ABC. He reported on such issues asorgan transplantation, arthritis, communicable diseases, the hazards of asbestos, and advances in the treatment of cancer.
Bergman was also well known for his reporting on aviation and defense matters. He wrote many articles on aviation, and wrote books, including
Ninety Seconds to Space: The Story of the X-15 (1960). Bergman began training for his private pilot license in 1958, and turned the
story of his flight training into an instructional book, Anyone Can Fly (1964; revised 1977). Bergman also reported on major aviation developments and disasters for ABC, and also covered the
development of new weapons systems for the military of the United States.
Bergman also covered energy issues, including the oil crisis of the 1970s. He was also a major contributor to ABC's coverage of the 1979
accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant.
Bergman was also a contributor to ABC's Close-Up series of documentaries. He won an Emmy for his work on the half-hour documentary Close-Up: On Fire. Bergman was also a guest host on the ABC public affairs series Issues and Answers, and also contributed
to other ABC programs, including Good Morning America. In cooperation with ABC's Wide World of Sports
Wide World of Sports (US TV series)
ABC's Wide World of Sports is a sports anthology series on American television that ran from 1961 to 1998 and was originally hosted by Jim McKay. The title continued to be used for general sports programs until 2006...
, Bergman also covered Evel Knievel
Evel Knievel
Evel Knievel , born Robert Craig Knievel, was an American daredevil and entertainer. In his career he attempted over 75 ramp-to-ramp motorcycle jumps between 1965 and 1980, and in 1974, a failed jump across Snake River Canyon in the Skycycle X-2, a steam-powered rocket...
's 1974 attempt to jump the Snake River Canyon.
Final years
Bergman was diagnosed with a nonmalignant brain tumor and underwent surgery in the late 1970s. In the years following, he underwentadditional surgeries to remove additional growths, and took anti-seizure medications.
Bergman was found dead in his New York apartment on February 11, 1987. His passing was reported not just by ABC
News, but also on the CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
and NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
nightly newscasts. A memorial service was held four days later in New York City, at which Bergman was eulogized by the NASA astronaut Joseph P. Allen.
Memorials and Pop Culture
The National Association of Physician Broadcasters named its award for excellence in reporting after Jules Bergman. The award was named forBergman until 1999.
Many television documentaries have featured clips from Bergman's reporting on the American space program. Footage of Bergman's reports
also figured prominently in the 1995 motion picture Apollo 13
Apollo 13 (film)
Apollo 13 is a 1995 American drama film directed by Ron Howard. The film stars Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise, Kathleen Quinlan and Ed Harris. The screenplay by William Broyles, Jr...
. Bergman also portrayed himself in a 1974 episode of The Six Million Dollar Man
The Six Million Dollar Man
The Six Million Dollar Man is an American television series about a former astronaut with bionic implants working for the OSI...
titled "The Rescue of Athena One." In addition, Bergman was portrayed by actor Andrew Rubin in an episode of the 1998 HBO miniseries From The Earth To The Moon titled "For Miles and Miles."