. >> yuri gagarin was something that affected american prowess. that we are ahead of everybody.first sputnik and now first man in space was russian and you can understand that this was really in the middle of the cold war. there was competition of the great super powers. >> mr. president, could you give us your view, sir, about the soviet achievement of putting a man in orbit, and what it would mean to our space program? >> it is the most impressive scientific accomplishment. i already sent congratulations to khrushchev and to the man that was involved. >> the space race wasn't just about space. it was about our own sense of security. it was this new cold war battleground. and so it wasn't very hard to realize that if they could put a man into orbit, they could also put an atomic bomb in orbit. suddenly the sky was menacing. >> it means they're getting ahead of us and we certainly need to start working hard to catch up. >> i think it's about time america woke up and did something about it. >> i believe it very impressive for propaganda purposes. but i think if we put our minds t

. >> when the russians put yuri gagarin into space, it was another sense of america being knocked back greeted the hero saying now let the capitalist countries try to catch up. >> for the russians to be the first to put a man in space, dealt a real blow not only to american pride but restarted the whole question about whether the u.s. government could protect the american people. >> the spaceship weighed 5 tons. the biggest payload we have been able to push into orbit weighed only a few hundred pounds. >> if you can put a man into space, you can put nuclear warheads into space and lots of them and then we're in trouble. >> this is norman cal in moscow. the people who work back here in the kremlin are convinced that the balance of power in the world shifted in their favor and encouraged by this conviction they have stepped up their activities all over the world not only in berlin but also in latin america. >> a great jam of cameramen here now, an absolute madhouse here. the first historic meeting between premier khrushchev and premier castro is now over. >> my father first met fidel cas