THE NATION: Red Moon Over the U.S.

Hurtling unseen, hundreds of miles from the earth, a polished metal sphere the size of a beach ball passed over the world's continents and oceans one day last week. As it circled the globe for the first time, traveling at 18.000 m.p.h., the U.S. was blissfully unaware that a new era in history had begun, opening a bright new chapter in mankind's conquest of the natural environment and a grim new chapter in the cold war.

The news came in a broadcast by Moscow radio, and it got to Washington in an ironic...