Page 11 - Demo

and printed by an intaglio process. Chickering always said he based his modeling on the artwork of someone else, but he didn%u2019t know who that someone was. Oddly, Barnes didn%u2019t receive full credit for his design until an extensive review of the evidence was published%u201420 years after-the-fact%u2014in the October 1981 issue of American Philatelist. John Glenn could never remember how he learned of the stamps, or where he first saw one. However, he soon became very familiar with them, once saying, %u201cI have certainly seen enough of them since then. They had First Day Covers that were put out that day too, and the autograph collectors collect them. I%u2019ve signed thousands of those things.%u201dThe Post Office Department has never publicly said what would have happened to all the stamps, if Glenn%u2019s flight had been a failure. Most likely, they would have been destroyed, with the American public never knowing they had ever existed. Because of the possibility that Glenn%u2019s flight might have ended in his death, the Project Mercury stamp was conceived, designed, printed, and delivered to Post Offices all across the country in complete secrecy. According to James Kelleher, %u201cWashington, DC is a city of big secrets. It is also a place where it is difficult to keep something quiet.%u201d Begun in the summer of 1961, the secret-stamp program was referred to as Project Ford, and was kept far below the public%u2019s radar.Of course, preventing any knowledge of the production and distribution of millions of postage stamps required some creative logistics. The entire operation was run solely on a need-to-know basis, with only about 400 people being aware of it, about half being postal inspectors. All instructions were verbal, and nothing was written down.Unknown to most of his coworkers, Chickering did his modeling %u201cbehind locked doors%u201d at home, while claiming to be on vacation. Barnes%u2019 original version of the stamp contained the words %u201cU.S. Postage,%u201d but they seemed to clutter up the design, so Chickering deleted them. Richard M. Bower, the image engraver, said he was on leave, but came in at night to work on the project when no one else was around. The lettering engraver, Howard F. Sharpless, came in on weekends.When all the prep work was complete, the printing plates were created late at night when the Bureau of Engraving and Printing