Word: icbm
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
McElroy took pains to stress that the ICBM gap will be temporary, and that while it lasts it will not mean a real defense gap. The U.S.. he pointed out, has and will have a "diversified" arsenal, with various means of delivering nuclear retaliatory power...
Urgent Tasks. So long as the U.S. can rely on SAC's destructive might, the ICBM gap of the early 1960s will not mean any gap in the U.S.'s retaliatory power. The missile gap, as Secretary McElroy argued, is no cause for alarm, much less panic...
...cause for complacency either, and there was a complacent undertone in McElroy's assurances. Complacent acceptance of a 3-to-1 ICBM gap runs the risk that the actual gap will prove to be very much larger: Soviet technological progress has been underestimated before, can be underestimated again. And the existence of even a 3-to-1 gap could, without a shot being fired, shake the morale and twist the policies not only of neutralist nations but even of U.S. allies...
...voguish term "missile gap" unfortunately seems an accurate summary of our position compared to the Soviets'. According to our Secretary of Defense, Neil McElroy, there is little need to worry; we are adequately supplied with the latest weapons. But the Soviets claim they are already mass producing ICBM's; Senator Stuart Symington has introduced figures which reveal a large Soviet lead; Werner von Braun reports that we are three years behind the Russians in developing our missiles, and intelligence estimates themselves show that the United States is soon going to fall well behind the U.S.S.R. in its missile arsenal...
...have no positive evidence" of any Soviet ICBM currently operational...