PM Transcripts

FOR PRESS: P. M. No. 32/ 1969
U. S. ASTRONAUT TO BE CORAL SEA GUEST OF HONOUR
The Governments of Australia and the United States
announced today that R. Walter Cunningham, lunar module pilot of
Apollo 7, will be the official guest of honour during the Coral Sea
Commemoration ceremonies to take place in Australia from 3-11
May. Mrs. Cunningham will accompany the astron E'
Their itinerary will include Canberra, Bris ape/ ,7 0~
Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. I969
They will visit Australia as the guests of the
Commonwealth Government and the Australian-American
Association. Details of the programme will be announced later.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE:
Mr. Cunningham was born on 16 March 1932, at
Creston, Iowa. Reared in Venice, California, he received a
Bachelor of Arts Degree in Physics from the University of
California at Los Angeles ( UCLA) in 1960 and a Master of Arts
Degree in Physics in 1961 from that same University.
Cunningham joined the United States Navy in 1951
and entered flight training in 1952. He was assigned to a Marine
squadron in 1953 and remains a Marine reservist.
Prior to his selection as an astronaut, Cunningham
was with the Rand Corporation where he worked as a research
scientist. He performed error analysis and feasibility studies of
defence against submarine -launched ballistic missiles and problems
of the earth's magnetosphere. His later work at UCLA was the
developing, testing, and analysing results of a triaxial search
coil magnetometer which was flown aboard the first NASA Orbiting
Geophysical Observatory satellite.
Cunningham was one of the 14 astronauts selected
by NASA in October 1963.
He is married to the former Lo Ella Irby of Norwalk,
California. The Cunninghams have two children: Brian, born 12
September 1960; and Kimberly born 12 February 1963.
CANBERRA 27 March 1969