I remember in the late 50s. After Sputnik, we were desperately trying to launch a satellite. Probably because of JFK, they kept letting the Navy try. Every time the missile would blow up on the launching pad.
Finally they let the Army guys at Redstone Arsenal give it a try. They were headed by Von Braun. They succeeded in their very first try.
Kennedy was just the junior Senator from Massachusetts in the 1950s, he really didn’t have that kind of pull with the Eisenhower administration.
The decision to go with the Navy’s Vanguard rocket for the satellite launch instead of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency’s already successful Redstone rocket had something to do with the satellite program being a civilian International Geophysical Year project. The Eisenhower administration wanted to keep our military rockets and von Braun out of the public eye.