I'll bet THAT idea must have brought hoots from the astronaut corps.

The Gemini-Titan packed some serious acceleration (8+Gs)

No way in flaming hell the retrorockets would generate enough thrust to push the capsule free of the launch vehicle before it was overtaken by the expanding conflagaration of a presumably breaking-up booster.

So essentially that meeting must have ended with the astronauts being told, "if anything goes wrong during this phase of the mission, you guys are dead, but we will tell the public a nice happy-sounding story to make them think we have made some minmal provision for you not to get killed."

Essentially the same thing the astronauts were told when the final design of the shuttle was decided upon.