He, and his three sisters, were raised by their mother after their father died in 1936 from respiratory complications brought on by mustard gas exposure in World War I.
After graduating high school, Kline attended the Virginia Military Institute in the Army Specialized Training Program in 1944.
[6] He then volunteered in the U.S. Army during World War II, serving in active duty as Staff Sergeant and platoon leader, 1st Division, 26th Infantry Regiment in the European theater from 1944 to 1946.
After his years in military service, Kline took on various jobs including working as a police officer in Ocean City, Maryland.
Kline attended George Washington University School of Public Administration at night from 1952 to 1954 and fell short of his master's degree when he learned that his thesis topic had already been taken.
[18][19] During the time of the first United States crewed missions in space, Kline served, among other duties, as von Braun's congressional speech writer.
A notable speech included the often repeated phrase "the moon is our Paris," written for the Fourth National Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Space[20] in 1964.
Kline moved back to the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC in a new capacity at NASA as the Associate Administrator for Management Operations from 1968 to 1979.
[36] Kline also served on other boards including the Procurement Round Table[37][38] and the Roger W. Jones Award for Executive Leadership at American University.