ACT OF ONE
ACT OF ONE
Victoria Barna and Bruce A. Tully
Evolving Journeys Publishing House
Phoenix, AZ
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in review, without the written permission in writing from the authors or publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-1096-8
Victoria Barna: [email protected]
Bruce A. Tully: [email protected]
Edited by Suzy Jimerson-Overholt: [email protected]
Cover Design and Formatting by Michelle Radomski: [email protected]
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to Dr. Joseph Tugligowitz, Bruce A. Tully’s grandfather who inspired Bruce and served as a role model. He was bigger than life! Not only a community leader, Dr. Tugligowitz was an aristocratic Baron but still humble as well as noble, compassionate, kind and generous. During his lifetime he was known as the man who could get the job done, and he was loved by everyone.
Grandfather, father, husband, friend, doctor and teacher were only a few of his roles. He lived a life of service. Even when he knew he was dying he regretted that he hadn’t done more.
We are grateful for the exemplary life that he led as he showed us how to live a life of service every day.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I want to thank my wife, Jeanne, and son, Joel, who inspire me.
Jeanne, your unconditional dedication, commitment, love, faith and trust in me have made my life and this project easier.
Joel, you inspire me daily. You persevere, work hard and accomplish your goals. You never waiver. I am honored and proud to be your Dad.
Robert Yowell, you’re the catalyst for writing ACT OF ONE. Without your due diligence and interest in my story as well as your subsequent article that was published in the Smithsonian Magazine, we would not have this book.
Dr. Ward A. Shoemaker, you gave me the “green light” to pursue my mission when teachers and administrators were ready to suspend me from school and destroy my work. Thank you. Without you, I wouldn’t have a story.
Dr. Monroe E. Spaght of Shell Oil US, you listened and opened the door to the next step.
Theodore J. Kauffeld, you served as sponsor, mentor and guide as I transitioned and transformed from a carefree, joking jock to a serious man.
~Bruce A. Tully
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank Bruce A. Tully for trusting me with his story and having confidence in me to tell it.
Thank you to my husband, Robert, for supporting me throughout the process of writing this story. You inspire me, and you believed in me long before I believed in myself. Your unconditional love and support were steadfast as you read the story as it developed. Thank you for your helpful insights and suggestions to provide clarity for the reader.
Thank you to my sons, Tim and Nick. You inspire me as I watch the men you have become and the values and integrity that you live by. You cheered me on and encouraged me to keep going. Your enthusiasm for this story was contagious.
~Victoria Barna
FOREWORD
Until I met Bruce Tully I thought I knew what it meant to be a Cold War Warrior at the dawn of the Space Age. I had interviewed the astronauts and flight controllers from NASA’s pioneering early missions as well as written about that electrifying era when the heavens became the new arena of the Cold War, the battle of ideologies between the United States and the Soviet Union. When I thought of America’s Space Age Cold War Warriors, I pictured astronauts in silvery spacesuits—or maybe the pocket-protected engineers at their consoles in mission control. Then I heard Bruce tell his story, the story you now hold in your hands. It’s the story of a young man fighting his own personal Cold War.
In the late 1950s Bruce was a typical American teenager with football and girls on his mind. His greatest battles were fought on the gridiron. All that changed on a September day in 1959 when he and his high school classmates took a trip to the United Nations, where they heard Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev address the General Assembly. Hearing Khrushchev dismiss American youth as weak and lazy, Tully was so infuriated that he vowed to prove him wrong. Fired by the anti-Communist passions of his beloved Russian grandfather, the man he later called his mentor, Tully conceived of the Astronarium—a combination of “astronautics” and “planetarium”—as a kind of temple to America’s achievements in space, for the upcoming New York World’s Fair. Making the Astronarium a reality became Tully’s obsession.
To carry out his plan, Tully would have to transform himself from a varsity jock into a science nerd. In other words, he would need to discover a different kind of strength. And, in the process he would have to fight an even more personal battle with his own father, who dismissed his dream with, “Who do you think is going to listen to you? You’re just a stupid kid from New Jersey!” As you will see, the answer to that question turned out to exceed the young man’s wildest dreams.
As you accompany Bruce Tully on this extraordinary adventure, you will journey with him into America’s corridors of power as he meets some of the country’s most important men, from the president of Shell Oil to the new U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Tully’s once-in-a-lifetime encounters continue as he travels to Cape Canaveral where he meets with the “Original Seven” Mercury astronauts, who are preparing for their voyages into space. And on the morning of May 5, 1961, when a Redstone rocket launches Alan Shepard on America’s first space flight, Bruce Tully is there to witness the event, and his dreams of the Astronarium and Science Center seem to soar skyward right along with it.
Let Bruce Tully take you back to a time when America’s greatness was tested by a bold reach into the heavens. The power of this story lies in witnessing Tully’s own transformation from the teenager sitting in the visitors’ gallery of the United Nations wearing jeans and a varsity jacket into the young man in a Brooks Brothers’ suit addressing Congress. It’s a journey that will resonate with anyone, young or old, who has faced—or may now be facing—the challenges of making his or her most cherished dreams come true.
~Andrew Chaikin, author of A Man on the Moon
PROLOGUE
Warriors are ageless and timeless and they have appeared throughout history. Some are well known and others are not. Here is a story that many of you